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Solemnity is not to be confused with seriousness or profundity, as I
have remarked before, with no effect on the contemporary scene as far as
I can discern. The confusion is likely to occur anywhere – scientific circles
are as susceptible as any others – but, of course, the courts are especially
prone to it. Not that the courts figure much in the subjects that this magazine
covers. Two areas where they might are those of patents and registered designs,
but clearly news about patents is the more important. Legal proceedings
about registered designs, however, may better illustrate the confusion mentioned
at first.

For instance, take the matter before Mr Justice Aldous in the Registered
Designs Appeal Tribunal in December last year and now recorded in the official
report. This was an appeal against the refusal of the registrar ‘to register
a representation (one out of five representations) of a design for a furry
doll’. The original application in 1988 was for ‘the registration of a design
to be applied for a toy’. The fourth representation showed a doll ‘in a
first form with its apron raised’. Nothing of note was revealed. But the
fifth representation, ‘front view of the doll in a second form with its
apron raised’ was different. This doll showed furry male genitalia, and
registration had been refused; not of the design for the doll, but of the
representation on sheet 5! The use of the design, maintained the registrar,
would be contrary to morality.

Grave reference was made to other cases, such as La Marquise Footwear
Inc’s Application (1947) and Hallelujah Trade Mark (1976). The appeal was
allowed and, I suppose, everybody kept a straight face during the learned
arguments on both sides and the judgment. There must have been a few grins
later, if only from the lawyers thinking about the cheques in the kitty
both before and afterwards.

The matter reminds me of the removal of the stone genitalia from the
statue of Apollo set up in the original premises of the Museum of Natural
History in Jermyn Street in the 1880s. A stone fig leaf was substituted
on the orders of the director, who was influenced by his outraged wife.
The excised parts are back though. They were found in a desk, packed carefully
in the hope of later restitution by posterity.

* * *

The Royal Mail has been carrying out research on the amount and accuracy
of postcoding in the address lists it uses for dealing with special mail
deliveries such as subscription renewal reminders, advertising shots and
so on. It has been sending out survey forms for the organisations concerned
to fill in, using its own master list and emphasising the importance of
the postcodes. One form has been passed on to me. The Royal Mail has its
addressee’s postcode wrong.

* * *

Judging from American films and television programmes, cars in the US
are strangely different from ours. They have no door locks, otherwise people
parking them would lock the doors. They all have extra lamps mounted on
the dashboard which light up automatically when it gets dark so that the
faces of drivers and passengers can be seen in detail. New models are equipped
with clever electronics so that conversation, if necessary to the action,
can be plainly heard several miles away, although the car may be hardly
visible to an observer.

Years ago, there was evidence, too, that a serious criticism could be
made of the American driving test. It left any driver vulnerable to a popular
method of murder, particularly those who lived in mountainous country. It
was frequently demonstrated in films. The method was to disconnect the brakes
so that the first slope the car met would be the last for the driver. Down
went the foot on the brake pedal, to no effect. Unhappily, the driving test
had not included the technique of changing down the gears to slow the car
almost to walking pace and many bit-part players plunged to their doom.
This black-and-white modus operandi is hardly ever used now, so I imagine
the driving test has been improved in step with the development of colour
and the modern car’s extraordinary flammability.

* * *

So much material poured forth from the British Association’s meeting
in Plymouth this summer that I have only just read about Dr Herbert Sandford’s
attack on the UN’s attempts at standardising place names throughout the
world, and what he thinks about the BBC telling us all how to pronounce
them. Dr Sandford did his case no good at all grammatically, as is evident
from his remark: ‘It’s much easier for we and the Argentinians to debate
territorial waters if it has already been decided the name of the islands
is the Falklands or the Malvinas, or both, but they should be confined to
the reference books.’

Still, I know how he feels. The BBC’s pronunciation unit first came
to my attention when it was obviously having some difficulty with the name
of a tenor saxophone player, called, or at least spelt, Featherstonehaugh.
I doggedly said ‘Featherstonehaw’ but then I probably said ‘Hollborn’ and
‘Cockburn’ at the time. My embarrassment started at hearing an announcer
pronounce the name as ‘Freestunhay’ and grew acute on hearing a later one
call it ‘Fanshawe’.

* * *

A short note in the August issue of Museums Journal struck a loud resounding
one in me. It reverberated from the Gulf war via the Museums and Galleries
Commission. As happens after every war, trophies were brought home in the
hope that they would be bought by collectors.

The MGC says that an AK 47 automatic rifle has been found to be booby-trapped.
Plastic explosive was packed into the butt and rigged to go off when the
weapon was cocked and the trigger pulled. Museums offered such weapons should
contact the police, the MGC advises and adds, mildly, that they need a firearms
licence.

* * *

Compact discs produce excellent diffraction spectra in daylight and
under tungsten light bulbs. Now a reader points out that much more spectacular
results, with images in five colours, can be obtained with the light from
the new compact fluorescent lamps. If only I could afford them.