91av

Full of hot air

Feedback tries insofar as possible to steer clear of politics, but occasionally we find ourselves sailing a little close to the wind. Never more so, perhaps, than this week, as we report on the story that a US member of Congress has proposed a bill to ban the president from using a nuclear weapon against a hurricane.

You may feel that such a bill is unnecessary. That it ranks for senselessness alongside such theoretical bits of legislation as “Law to Prevent the President From Hitting Their Head Repeatedly Against the Sharp End of a Pencil” or “Law to Prevent the President from Eating the Nuclear Football”. Yet Representative Sylvia Garcia disagrees.

In light of President Donald Trump’s alleged suggestion, during last year’s hurricane season, that every atmospheric weather phenomenon is secretly in want of a radioactive explosion somewhere in its insides, she decided to write legislation to ensure such a thing never takes place. The bill, according to , has no co-sponsors and no hearing date, and “appears unlikely to make it out of committee anytime soon”.

Still, it provides useful publicity for Representative Garcia, and a timely reminder that he who sows the wind with uranium-235 must reap the whirlwind of congressional disapproval.

Words, words, words

A colleague this week informs us of the existence of a website called the Buzzsaw, which includes an online tool designed to strip the buzzwords out of your copy.

We have been sorely tempted to feed our columns into its system but are worried about having an empty page returned to us with the annotation “must try harder”.

Every year, the Buzzsaw announces its awards for the most overused jargon du jour, and this year’s list contains some firm favourites (note the clever double use of “firm” there to indicate both the solidity of the choices and the corporate nature of their use).

“Content” in its noun form is high on the list, referring as it does to anything from a 10,000-word long read on the nature of reality to an influencer campaign on behalf of Uber Eats. “Reach out” and “circle back” are there, as is the covid-19 staple “the new normal”.

It’s good clean fun but contains comparatively few surprises. Which got Feedback wondering: which chronically overused words are you tired of hearing? What alternatives would you prefer? Let us know at the usual address.

Rhyme time

The 91av chat channels roused themselves briefly this week to indulge in a spate of ill-judged limerick composition, the fruits of which have turned out to be not only bristling with subpar scansion but positively libellous. In the words of the poet:

At Feedback we love our subeditors

(Indeed, whosoever’s gainsaid it errs),

But suffice it to say,

If our jokes are the prey,

It is they who embody the predators.

The discussion has set Feedback’s creative juices flowing, and so we throw the gauntlet down to our readers: you suggest the theme, the opening line or the scientific paper, and we will produce the limerick. Results to follow.

Eau de boredom

out to mark a turning point in Feedback’s working life. And, perhaps, in yours too. In future years, it is more than probable that you will look back on the reading of this very column on this very day as the moment your financial worries melted away, like ice caps in a warming ocean.

For this is the week that we discovered the story of Frédéric Desnard, an employee at a Parisian perfume maker who found himself so utterly underused at work that he sued his company for boredom. What’s more, he won. €50,000, to be exact.

Cash, of course, is a remedy for boredom yet to be proven in a randomised controlled trial (where do we sign up?). However, it would be nice compensation for not doing any work.

The crux of the case, if we understand the report in The Times correctly, is that companies have a responsibility to ensure their employees are treated with respect – which includes, apparently, ensuring that they have adequate work to do.

If any of our editors are reading this – which, if past experience is anything to go by, is a slim prospect – do please rest assured that we have plenty to do, thank you, and our sudden interest in job vacancies in the French perfume industry is nothing to be concerned about.

Bash and forth

We wade with studiously affected reluctance back into the quagmire of nominative determinism to rescue a contribution emailed in from Nina Baker. The subject of her correspondence, in her words, “could not resist working on the performance of explosions and projectiles – becoming the foremost ballistics expert of his day, devising test equipment that remained in active use for over 80 years on the Royal Artillery’s proof and experimental testing ranges at Shoeburyness”.

The individual’s name? Reverend Francis Bashforth.

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