CONTRIBUTING to our catalogue of signs that didnāt end up meaning quite what was intended, Chris Robinson sends a photo of a highway exit near Melbourne, Australia. āBunurong Memorial Parkā, it advises: ātake this exitā. The is a cemetery.
The Elements, a book by Theodore Gray, boasts the subtitle A visual exploration of every known atom in the universe. The book is quite a bit shorter than Steve Wright expected
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HOLIDAYING in Granada, Spain, Neil Holmes took a lovely photo of an arch over a cobbled alleyway ā next to which is a sign, in English, declaring a width restriction of 1.5 metres and that it is a āphysically impossible entryā. Neil notes that āno other street signs around there are in Englishā. Are English-speakers presumed to have no idea what a metre is, or what?
And if such allowances have to be made, perhaps someone could explain in very simple English where the narrow bit lies ā presumably beyond the arch, which is at least 3 metres wide.
VISITING Louisville, Kentucky, Muir Wasson spotted a sign under a bridge pier, reading āNo parking on wharf cars will be launchedā. āIt seems,ā Muir says, āthat the US is more into amphibious cars than I thought.ā On the contrary, Feedback fears the sign is a threat, given the lack of amphibious vehicles in the US.
A CARD bearing the message āTo my husband on Valentineās Dayā recently graced Terry Pinchinās doormat. The back announced: āNot suitable for children under 36 monthsā. Though the little glittery bits might indeed make it unsuitable, Terry asks, āWhere are these young husbands?ā Perhaps weād rather not know.
LESS impressive was the email that Jon Musker received on 14 February at 23:33 ā promising āSave 20% when you enter promo code āILOVEWK8ā at the checkoutā¦ With its brand new interface, ability to share virtual machines, and remotely connect to VMware vSphereĀ®, you will fall in loveā¦ā
Readers with lives will need the explanation that VMware products allow you to create one or more virtual computers, each running as a program on a remote machine. Jon asks us to imagine him sitting at his desk with less than half an hour of Valentineās Day to go. āThe local all-night garage is closed by nowā¦ Yes, perfect! A copy of VMwareā¦ Then sheāll really understand how I feel about her.ā
Worse, the email states that the contents are ānot to be shared with third partiesā, so Jonās message was a figment of our imagination and youāre not reading this. OK?
PHILOSOPHERS will be mortified. āFREE WILL ā worth up to Ā£180ā says the sign in a shop window in Guildford High Street, Surrey, UK, spotted by Ralph Clague. Three thousand years of argument over the capacity of rational agents to make unforced choices, and the monetary valuation of the effort comes down to this?
On the other hand, at that price weāll take two free wills ā one for use now, and one to make excuses with if the first gets it wrong.
Measuring moisture on bankās door
BANKS are under orders to tighten their accounting, but we fear HSBC may be paying too much attention to the small things rather than the gigapounds. Andrew Beggs wanted to know the distance from his home to the bankās nearest branch. He consulted the bankās , which came up with the answer 0.9904670356841079 miles (1.5940021810076005 kilometres). This is supposedly accurate to around 10-13 metres, much less than the radius of a hydrogen atom. Moisture condensing on the branchās door would bring it several significant digits closer.
Feedback notes that the website designers have heard of rounding numbers off, but havenāt quite got the hang of it: the closest branch to our home is just over a mile away, but appears in the branch list as being 2 miles distant.
HOW do they do that, then? Dave Willis sends a scan of the label on a bottle of San Benedetto mineral water, proudly declaring on one side that it contains 0 milligrams of sodium per 250 millilitres ā and on the other that it contains 5.8 mg of sodium per litre. Feedback has skimmed the European Union directive on the exploitation and marketing of natural mineral waters () and we find no reference to massive rounding down, nor to non-standard systems of arithmetic associated with spring water. Can anyone help?
Tubs of olive with zero ingredients
FINALLY, the Turkish supermarket that David Flint uses in north London has solved the problem of irksome product-labelling regulations, and may have a clue to maintaining economic growth in a time of resource scarcity. It stocks a huge range of olives, each tub of which has a descriptive label finishing with the words āIngredients: Noneā.
