IN THE middle of the UKās autumn āconference seasonā, in which political parties worry everyone with their policy pronouncements, or lack of them, a message arrived in Feedbackās inbox addressed to someone called GILL. It has continued to arrive once a week or so ever since.
Bearing in mind that a hot topic for this yearās party conferences was the National Health Service, the email asks: āTired of waiting for a doctor?ā It explains: āDear GILL, with an ageing population and far-reaching budget cuts, the NHS has never been under so much strain. Yet for less than the price of daily coffee, you could provide private healthcare for your whole family.ā
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We are invited to āclick to compare quotesā. When we do, weāre asked to supply our age and phone number and confirm our email address.
Who is GILL? How does the sender know that she, like Feedback, worries that the NHS is about to be crippled? Whatās more, why are there no links to actual private health insurers? Why was the email sent from an address at āsafe-sender.netā ā an internet name that seems to be saying ālet me through, pleaseā to email filter programs, rather than conveying any actual information about the messageās sender?
A footnote says the message comes from Clinic Compare, āa division of MVF Globalā. Ah. A little searching soon reveals that Marketing VF Ltd, based in Queens Road, Reading, UK, is the owner of the internet name safe-sender.net. The folks there as āGlobal Lead Generation Expertsā ā which means that their business is collecting addresses for others to write to, not, on the face of it, offering or pricing healthscare insurance at all.
All this puts Feedback in a contrary mood. Weāre tempted to send a message to āGILLā ourselves. This would simply say: āOpt for healthcare for all, free at the point of use and ignore the blandishments of the health insurance lobby, whether itās actually sending us email messages or not.ā
The āTrickle Chargeā option on the Battery Doctor app on Norman Allenās Android phone will, he is told, āmaintain the liquidity of electrons to extend battery lifeā
An excessively interesting continent
ABOUT to go on a business trip to Brisbane, Australia, and hoping to do a bit of exploring as well, Adrian Page decided to download a map onto his satnav and start planning in advance. In doing so, he discovered that Australia, big as it is, is even more interesting than he had thought.
According to Adrianās satnav, the 1.2 million kilometres of roads that cover the continent contain ā879,100 million āPoints of Interestā.ā This means that on average there is a point of interest every 1.5 millimetres of road. To put it another way, given of 7,692,024 square kilometres, the continent must contain something interesting every 10 square metres.
Clearly, truly fascinating trips lie ahead for Adrian and others.
PALAEONTOLOGISTS, it could be said, love faeces. In their quest to understand the ways of extinct species, they find that an animalās gut contents are rarely preserved, leaving few traces of the food they liked to eat.
Far more abundant are fossils of what remained after digestion ā fossilised faeces known in polite Greek as ācoprolitesā.
To demonstrate the point, the has devoted an entire 387-page issue of its Bulletin (No 57) to coprolites. It includes a history of discoveries going back two centuries, an account of ācoprolites and characters in Victorian Britainā, the preservation of coprolites, their proper scientific classification, and what they tell us about creatures ranging from fish that swam 350 million years ago to the hyenas of late ice-age Europe. There is even a paper on coprolites and human health. What a lot you can learn from preserved pieces of poo ā and all for just $30.
WHILE weāre on the subject of faeces, Michael Holroyd sends us a scan of an advertisement he saw in The Equity newspaper in Shawville, Quebec, Canada. Itās for a portable toilet rental service, and although itās not a new Apple product, itās called ā get ready to groan here ā āI-Poodā.
āIT ALL makes sense,ā says Graham King, ābut I can not help thinking of Feedback each time I receive this pager message: āThis is the 7 pm test message. If you do not receive this message please call the office after 9 am tomorrowā.ā We are flattered but mystified. What sense is there in this? Graham explains: āOur district rural fire service is testing the pager system as there have been several complaints of not receiving messages, important if they happen to be a fire call. We were forewarned by email of the test, but still laugh each day.ā
FINALLY, Gelupo Gelato is āmuch more than ice creamā according to the delicatessen flyer Alessandra Lythall sends. Indeed, it appears to be a logical conundrum too: āGelato does not contain milk or butter fats,ā the flyer continues, āIt is made from fresh milk, cream, eggs and fruit flavourings.ā So is that fat-free cream, or what?
