THE website of āThe Urology Teamā based in Austin, Texas, makes fascinating reading. Damian Gallagher and Will Jessop independently discovered it (donāt ask how) at , and direct us to the team profiles. These include the following memorable sentence: āDr. Richard (Dick) Chopp is well known in the Austin community for performing vasectomies.ā
There is also a surprising quote from another member of the team, Curtiss Hitt: āAfter 30 years, I still love seeing patients, especially the ones that I have had long-term relationships with.ā
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MEANWHILE, since weāre on the subject again, a colleague points to a rare case of a double nominative determinism in The Journal of Neuroscience on 22 June. Entitled āHow fish hear and make sounds at same timeā, it is authored by Cornell Universityās Andrew Bass. And Max Biden points to an article in our own pages back on 16 July (p 19). Headlined āDeep-sea fish lured by red-light districtā, it discusses work done at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute by Steven Haddock. These two authors should obviously get together some time.
And while we are at it, we are grateful to P. C. Newman for pointing out that there is a reporter with the Reuters news organisation called Elaine Lies.
But thatās quite enough!
WHAT can be the meaning of the headline āFinancial Services Authority appoints Nakedā, appearing on the website of the UKās regulator of loans andā¦ stuff? Rob Milne wonders whether it may just be their way of finding out whether anyone actually reads these things. If so, full marks: after all, it worked for us.
āJohn Marshās bottle of Clairol Herbal Essences shampoo bears the words āNEW same great scentāā
Naked, however, turns out on reading to be a consultancy appointed to provide āstrategic media planning adviceā ā a term which, with legal considerations in mind, we shall not be translating. Feedback wondered whether they got the job purely in the hope that the announcement would spice up the image of the FSA, who are basically meta-accountants and therefore could mistakenly be seen as being as staid as a very staid thing. But then we realised that somewhere in the Treasury a public official is responsible for overseeing the FSA and its deals with consultants, who may now have the title āThe Naked civil servantā.
JOB-HUNTING? Try Stanford Universityās Office of Development, which according to Diane Richards has an excellent opportunity available for āa proven leader to oversee the direct mail, telephone, email and online solicitation of Stanfordās 164,000 living degree-holdersā. We presume that the qualifications required to beg donations from deceased alumni are rather different.
A FILING mistake meant that we have only just rediscovered an email that Matthew Driver sent us in June. It was to alert us to the World Glaucoma Congress, organised by the Association of International Glaucoma Societies, and in particular to a song composed for the occasion by one Erik Greve. This, Driver told us, can be heard on the associationās website in a performance by soprano Melanie Greve, to the visual accompaniment of glaucoma society heads bobbing up and down in time to the music.
āI really do want to share the joy of this with as many people as possible,ā Driver told us. āSo even if you just publish the URL I will be very happy.ā
The congress is long over, but we are pleased to oblige by reporting that The Glaucoma Hymn can still be heard when you go to . We thoroughly recommend it.
A FEW weeks ago Vivienne Tuffnell wrote to tell us that in Preston Park, Middlesbrough, there used to be a sign directing visitors to the āBird Aviaryā. She remembered a trip there with a friend, who pointed out the sign in some resigned disgust, remarking that it must be to distinguish it from the Hippo Aviary on the other side of the park.
A nice story, we thought. But before we had a chance to print it we received another email from Tuffnell telling us that the park in question was Stewart Park, not Preston Park. āPlease correct the name,ā she asked. āI was having a blonde moment ā Iām far too young for senior ones.ā
UFO Crash Retrieval Conference
FINALLY, you still have time to catch the third annual UFO Crash Retrieval Conference, 4 to 6 November in Las Vegas (). Itās not quite as close to the legendary Area 51 as you can get without security clearance, but it promises strange things aplenty. Speakers will describe bodies and hardware retrieved from crashes and try to explain how the aliensā spaceships were supposed to fly before they crashed. Expect, too, denunciations of vast official conspiracies devoted to keeping alien knowledge hidden. Unless, of course, Men in Black with scissors have snipped this item out of your copy.
