Underblog.co.uk

This week’s New Scientist magazine contains a six page feature on face transplants. But the best part of the New Scientist has always been the Feedback section, and it is from here that I nick my subject matter for today.

Laptop bags made by US company Tom Bihn carry washing instructions in both English and French, because they are sold in Canada as well as the USA. In english, the instructions read “Wash with warm water. Use mild soap. Lay flat to dry. Do not machine dry. Do not iron”. The french instructions add “Nous somme desolés que notre president soit un idiot. Nous n’avons pas voté pour lui”. For the francophonically challenged reader, that translates to “We are sorry that our president is an idiot. We didn’t vote for him”.

The company’s sales more than doubled after the label was featured on Skeptomai.

One of the terribly formulaic features of bad pop songs is the way they all seem to end: By repeating the last chorus a semi-tone higher. Think Westlife, or the Spice Girls. This is what some musos call the truck driver’s gear change. “What’s wrong with that?”, I hear the less snobbish reader ask. Dominic Pedlar’s introduction explains better than I could:

The objection is that songs which “resort” to the semitone shift do so by merely repeating a previous harmonic idea (almost always the chorus) identically in the new destination, usually that half-step higher. No new interval relationship exists between the chords; therefore, to the extent that there is no other harmonic, melodic or rhythmic development, the trick is seen as a cheap, tacky way of generating artificial momentum.

If you spot an excruciating example of the truck driver’s gear change that isn’t on the site, you can email a suggestion to trucking_awful@gearchange.org

In the news today, the 150 combat aircraft that Britain have ordered to replace the Harrier jump jet are currently too heavy to land safely. According to the Torygraph:

The warplane, which is being built by the US manufacturer Lockheed Martin, is 3,300lb overweight, making it difficult for a pilot to land the fighter without its wheels coming off.

The plane is light enough for a safe landing to be achieved only if it has used all of its bombs, missiles and fuel. The jet is also too heavy for vertical take-offs, and requires too long a runway to land on the Royal Navy’s two new aircraft carriers. Now, I’m no rocket scientist, but if I were to design an aeroplane I’d make pretty damn sure it was light enough to fly safely. I’d also give it a mean coat of metallic blue paint, and some funky go-faster stripes.

A book has been written by a French author containing no verbs, according to an article in the Telegraph.

Perhaps inevitably, critics have commented unfavourably on the lack of action in Michel Thaler’s work, The Train from Nowhere, which runs to 233 pages.

Mr. Thaler considers verbs to be “invaders, dictators, and usurpers of our literature”. Hmmm.

Perhaps even more ambitious is the work of Georges Perec. His novel, La Disparition, does not contain the letter ‘e’. It has been translated into english, by Gilbert Adair. Going one better, Perec’s sequel, Les Revenentes, is written with no other vowel apart from ‘e’.

So, brilliantly intelligent and fun, or literary willy-waving? Make your own uninformed judgement, in underblog’s Comment-o-rama! Or just bugger off, I don’t care either way.

This post was stolen pretty much wholesale from Ben Hammersley

Underblog has learned that Morse code has gained a new character. On the 3rd of this month, .——.—. became the official code for ‘@’, five years too late for it to make Morse appear cool. It is the first change to the code for at least 60 years. The symbol is apparently needed by ham radio enthusiasts to make it easier for them to exchange email addresses. Some enthusiasts are not satisfied, they had been hoping that a symbol for the exclamation mark would also be added. I guess they’ll have to use .—.. ——— .—.. instead. That’s “lol”, by the way.

One of my favourite episodes of The Simpsons was on today. The Simpsons: Behind the Laughter, which is done as a shocking documentary about the “real” Simpsons behind the T.V. show. It is narrated in a suitably over-dramatic and mixed-metaphored way:

“…the dream was over.
Coming up, was the dream really over?
Yes it was.
Or was it?”

“Would Willie’s fence-mending eggs bear fruit? Or would his olive branch be torn apart by woodpeckers of mistrust? That night, fate wore a cummerbund… of suspense.”

Mind you, I actually formed a barbershop quartet on the basis of a Simpsons episode, so perhaps I’m obsessed.