Air unfreshener
NOTHING stirs the memory quite like smell, so for absent metropolitans, how about a bottle of London fragrance? The concoction, prepared by artist Michael Pinsky and a team of master perfumers, evokes 鈥渁n olfactory snapshot of Piccadilly Circus鈥�, with 鈥渓ong notes of diesel, and a tar accord with a butch subwoofer taste鈥�.
Those who wish to take a sensory trip abroad can also breathe in the gritty sulphurous smog of Beijing, or the sharp tang of rotting garbage and car fumes reminiscent of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The city scents are part of a project to call attention to air pollution around the world.
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Turning perfumery on its head, Pinsky sought to find a use for bad smells instead of trying to mask them. Londoners could sample the foul air in 鈥減ollution pods鈥� erected in Somerset House in the city earlier this year. This installation has long since wrapped up, but those who missed it need only step outside for an approximate experience.
鈥淗efty visitors to Santorini will have to go uphill by Shanks鈥檚 pony, after officials banned those weighing more than 100 kilograms from riding the Greek island鈥檚 famous donkeys鈥�
Goop droop
FEEDBACK has reported before on the high-end fruitloopery available from Gwyneth Paltrow鈥檚 wellness brand Goop (17 March). The store is perhaps best known for its brisk trade in quartz 鈥測oni鈥� eggs, to be inserted into the vagina to perform a spiritual detox, focus energy and get in touch with your Chinese concubine ancestors.
But yoni eggs may be causing even Paltrow to wince lately, after a court in California issued the company with a $145,000 fine after finding no credible scientific evidence to support claims for these, nor for a 鈥渇loral blend鈥� purported to fight depression.
One in the perfectly styled eye for Feedback鈥檚 queen of fruitloopery. Goop鈥檚 strategy is to offer remedies for weirdly specific complaints, such as the 鈥淲hy Am I So Effing Tired?鈥� vitamin pouch. Perhaps her in-house alchemists can whip up a crystal-infused 鈥淪ee You In Court鈥� healing balm.
Beach land
NOTHING fires up a Feedback reader quite like a mystery object, and officials in South Carolina have stumbled across a huge one. Earlier this month, a 3-metre-wide object, looking something like a rocket nose cone, washed up on Seabrook Island (see it here: ).
Local news reports that, despite resembling concrete, it was soft and 鈥渇oam-like鈥� to the touch, and didn鈥檛 appear to have spent much time in the water as the surface was clear of barnacles and seaweed.
Shadowy 鈥渓ocal officials鈥� soon arrived and whisked away the evidence, leaving nothing but questions. Part of an alien spacecraft? A colossal failed munition? Or a marine buoy? , and we invite yours.
Forget-me-not
Institute of Technology in Australia have unveiled a font they claim will make words written with it highly memorable. The Sans Forgetica typeface lists drunkenly to the left, and each letter is missing some part, making it about as easy to read as a Captcha.
The researchers say the text works on the principles of cognitive psychology, which Feedback takes to mean its illegibility requires readers to spend twice as much time as usual trying to work out what it says. As Feedback鈥檚 colleague points out, even if plain old Helvetica is only half as memorable, you could read twice as much in the same time.
This all prompts Feedback to wonder if there is a font that lies at the other end of the scale, that is to say, a typeface which is immediately forgettable. Although, how can we be sure we haven鈥檛 seen it already?
鈥楽not a good habit
BAD news for nose pickers: researchers at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine have shown that the habit, perhaps unsurprisingly, can spread pneumonia-causing bacteria. Both wet and dry, er, deposits were found to contain the bacteria, and rubbing the nose also helped to spread the bugs.
The clinicians report that the findings bolster the case for fastidious hand-washing during flu season. Feedback adds that in the absence of facilities the only alternative is to swallow the evidence.
Effluence makes affluence
IT IS a dirty business: enterprising individuals in Zimbabwe have been selling human faeces to beleaguered travellers. Following a cholera outbreak last month, officials at the Chirundu border crossing began insisting all those crossing from Zimbabwe undergo stool testing, offering laxatives to speed things along.
But it turns out that the lasting effects of laxatives make them an unpopular amuse-bouche for those starting out on long road journeys. Local news site TimesLive reports that a glut of travellers led to a black market in clean poo, with one vendor reporting: 鈥淚 could sell about 40 portions of stool on a good day at $4 to even $10.鈥�
As the threat of cholera subsided, the restrictions were dropped, and the bottom fell out of the second-hand faeces market. 鈥淣ow that things are back to normal, it鈥檚 back to airtime and sim-card vending for me,鈥� said the trader.
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