The “Feedback” column in the latest edition of New Scientist (dated 4 August) mines a rich seam of amusements.

First there is an item reporting some mathematical work in pointless topology, which is what most of us thought about higher mathematics anyway.

There is an item reporting a conference call for papers as specifying All papers and presentations must be incomprehensible English, as would be expected at a technical conference.

And there’s a product description for a solar light which is ideal for areas where conversational electrical supply is not available.

This is followed by an amusing reference to the Large Hadron Kaleidoscope.

Finally I have to give you this piece in full as a masterpiece of lateral thinking:

Talk about units in Feedback reminds Tony Emerson of a story from “the 1950s or 60s” about “a scientist working in one of the atomic establishments”. This person got fed up with directives to use different systems of units — those based on the centimetre, gram and second; those semi-officially based on the metre, kilogram and second; and the very official units of the International Standards Organization. So they reported pressures in stones per acre.

The stone is a traditional English measure of the weight of people or grain — 14 pounds or 6.35 kg — and an acre, a unit of area, is 4047 square metres. As Tony says, stones per acre would be “the original agricultural unit” of crop yield. Its application to atomic research doesn’t bear thinking about.

Inspired!