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Granted, most of us in the northern hemisphere don’t carry information
about weird tropical diseases around in our heads. But if we thought about
the number of people they kill every year, maybe we would.

Last week, an attempt to confirm reports of leishmaniasis-a parasitic
disease spread by infected sandflies-in US troops raised the following responses:
Ministry of Defence, London: ‘Er, exactly what is that then, if you don’t
mind me asking?’ Department of Defense in the US: ‘Um, you’re talking kinda
specific here. I’m going to have to refer you to the Joint Information Bureau
for US Central Command in Riyadh.’ Central Command in Riyadh: ‘Uh, could
you spell that please? Someone’s going to have to get back to you on that.’

So far, no one has.

* * *

The war is over, now for the ricochets. At the time when we were on
the receiving end of TV and radio saturation about Scuds, Patriots, Silkworms
and even the IRA’s home-made missiles, Barclaycard got into the act with
a home-made projectile kit.

Timed for maximum interest and visibility, the people at Barclaycard
have given us the opportunity to educate our children in the principles
of rocket propulsion (along with other offers, including an Australian snap
brim hat and a tidy way to store newspapers)-‘using just an empty plastic
drinks bottle and a bicycle pump (not supplied)’ it will provide ‘literally
hours of adventure’. The kit is modestly priced at £7.95.

Assuming that inter-neighbourhood ballistics is a success, you can be
sure that it won’t be long before some resourceful character fits the missile
with a warhead. One nine-year-old in Lancaster, it seems, has already fitted
a stink bomb.

* * *

Can a bottle bank be too popular? In the London Borough of Islington,
yes, it can. There is a row of bottle banks outside Tesco’s store on the
Islington side of Stroud Green Road. A stream of people regularly approach
them, filling them with empty bottles until they’re overflowing.

Even when the bottle banks are full, people continue to arrive. They
leave their bottles in plastic bags beside the bottle banks, and set off
home again, happy in the knowledge that they’ve made a small contribution
to the recycling of the world’s scarce resources.

But have they? In the dead of night-when no one will see what is happening-the
council waste disposal operatives turn up in their dustcart. As discreetly
as possible, they load all the empty bottles in plastic bags into the dustcart.
Then they drive them away to be disposed of in exactly the same way as all
the rest of Islington’s unrecycled rubbish.

* * *

Computers get better and cheaper but they can still only polish whatever
garbage is fed into them. The software company Microsoft is reducing the
price of Works for the Apple Mac. Works is a program which rolls a word
processor, spreadsheet and database all into one. Microsoft quotes Apple’s
Schools Marketing Manager as saying that Works ‘is an important product
for the education market’. It is also, he says, the ‘ideal compliment’ to
low-cost (they mean cheaper) computers. A misprint? The headline to the
announcement also talks in bold print about a ‘compliment’. Perhaps it’s
a kind of low-cost compliment.

* * *

The competition to find a suitable sponsored name for a new species
received a good crop of entries, though almost all relate to political animals
or creatures from the world of entertainment. Here are some of the entries:

Numerous suggestions included Saddamus or Husseinus species. One, from
J. Perry of Gwent, also included Clivia jamesia, not natural to Britain
but introduced from South Australia (an old-fashioned plant often seen in
association with heavy velvet curtains in TV studios).

D. R. Johns from Sheffield produced the Exocetus volitans, sponsored
by Aerospatiale, a flying fish with only one pair of ‘wings’; Otis tarda,
endowed by the lift company, the great bustard (capable of strong flight
but prefers to stay on the ground); and numerous other species which a family
magazine such as New Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ cannot print (sponsors including Rupert Murdoch
and Bernard Manning).

RV Taylor from Abingdon, Oxfordshire thought that in these days of recession
and unemployment, HM Government could sponsor that remarkable beast Aardvark
neverurtanybodii. David Milsted, from Portree on Skye, suggested Insoucians
gummerii for ‘the nasty wee whatever-it-is that transmits BSE’.

Feedback tenners go to everyone listed above, and also to Bob Britton
of Arles, France, whose tale shows the real-life problems that can arise
with the naming game. A French research student, wishing to honour the director
(male) of the laboratory hosting his work, named a new species of trematode
after him in his thesis: Microphallus ……nnii. The director is still
in power, which is why Britton is concealing the full name. The competition
closes at the end of March, so hurry up with late entries.

* * *

Looking to capitalise on the dinosaur fad, the US Postal Service has
issued a series of four dinosaur stamps. The Postal Service often formally
issues such stamps at special places, calculated to appeal to collectors
because of their connections with the subjects shown. Three of the four
stamps were modelled on fossils at Yale University, where the palaeontologists
were disappointed when the Postal Service decided to introduce the stamps
somewhere with rather less scientific prestige. At Disney World, to be exact.
Perhaps that’s where postal officials learnt about dinosaurs.