THE copyright statement that Isobel Clarke found at the bottom of a music review on () seemed so excessively inclusive that she sent it to Feedback with her comments.
The statement reads: “This article or any part of it, however small, must not be copied, quoted, reproduced, downloaded or altered in any way whatsoever nor stored in any retrieval system. Failure to comply is in breach of International Copyright Law and will render any offender liable to action at law.”
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Isobel notes: “The ‘however small’ phrase must include every letter and punctuation mark in the article. Therefore I must conclude that virtually everything written in the Latin alphabet since the publication of this document (2010) is in breach of copyright – including this letter.
“Taking this further, the phrase ‘any retrieval system’ must include the human brain, and so it was obviously illegal for me to read the article (and store the contents in my brain) but there was no way of knowing this until I had read it. Should I feel guilty?”
What’s more, it seems to Isobel that “Feedback cannot legally report anything of this for that would mean reproducing the copyright statement, but maybe in the eternal quest for free speech you should risk it.”
We checked with an expert and we are allowed to reproduce these terms and conditions, with attribution, for the purposes of reporting news and current affairs, whatever they say.
Whether we’re allowed to think about them, we’re less sure.
The “reservation confirmation” email that car-hire firm Europcar sent Nicholas Sibbett specified that “The driver age must be minimum 21 maximum 999”
Apples that are 98 per cent pure
SURPRISED at a sticky label claiming that some recently purchased apples were “100% pure apples”, reader Yertle Turtle asked: “What would a 98 per cent pure apple look like?” (3 November).
Readers have been quick to offer suggestions. Gary Anderson was one of several who noted: “A 98 per cent pure apple would be the one with the maggot in it.”
Graham Reed and Guy Cox were even more concise, specifying that the impure apple would be the one containing the larva of the codling moth.
John Kinross saw things differently. “The 98 per cent one,” he said, “has one of those annoying plastic stickers on it.”
Obliterating the beginning of time
WHEN she decided to clear her browsing history for the first time in Google Chrome, Shelley Williamson was invited to “obliterate the following items” from a choice of “1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, 4 weeks or the beginning of time”.
Without thinking about the possible consequences, she chose “the beginning of time” – but then, as she clicked on it, she was seized with the thought that she may have set in motion the wheels of the demise of the universe.
Shortly afterwards, when it became clear that nothing untoward had happened, she relaxed – and decided to inform Feedback.
A BOARD outside a Clements eatery in Belfast, UK, lists the day’s specials on offer, starting with “Soup of the Day” and then “Deal of the Day”. Lastly, in the photo Nial Pickering sends us, there is the “Coffee of the Month”. This, it turns out, is a “regular cappuccino with chocolate and caramel”. It is called a “Milky Way Cappuccino” – and the sign goes on to tell us, rather mystifyingly, that it is “named after the Higgs Boson”.
SEVERAL readers wrote to us about a back in August about artificial vocal cords. They were struck by a sentence describing the work of scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology which states: “They have tested a gel, called polyethylene glycol 30, which can flutter around 200 times per second – about the same speed as a woman during a conversation.”
Carol Ince’s comment was typical: “I hadn’t noticed myself fluttering while talking to people,” she says, perturbed. “No one’s mentioned it to me.”
THE banquet contained in the sachet of vinegar that Roy Kettle bought made the meal he was about to pour it on seem superfluous.
The label informed him that the contents “May contain: Nuts, Peanuts, Sesame Seeds, Mustrad (sic), Celery, Wheat, Eggs, Fish, Soyabeans, Milk, Sulphites and Cereals containing Gluten”. Who would want fish and chips on top of all that?
UP FOR sale at a recent auction in Melbourne, Australia, was a telescope. Neil Speirs sends us a picture of it with a descriptive label attached saying: “TASCO 762mm astrological telescope…”
We wonder if there is a market for such telescopes, and what this one sold for at the auction.
FINALLY, Richard Wentk was slightly alarmed to discover that if you search the website of Sainsbury’s supermarket for “potatoes” you get 593 results – and a note that says “We also have results for pirates”.