The Gusty Gusset

TWO CHINESE officials have been jailed or allowing a blind man to build a bridge which collapsed during construction . . .

According to Chinese news agency Xinhua, the contractor altered plans without getting them checked by a professional. This caused the bridge to fall apart and inure 12 people.

Head of the local authority, Huang Wenge was sentenced to 18 months in jail, while his colleague Xia Jianzhong received a 1 year sentence for not stopping the project.

They were charged with not requesting the contractors to provide certificates so as to guarantee their proficiency. When they learnt that the bridge was being built by a blind contractor they made no attempt to stop it.

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TWO TOP airport sniffer dogs have been fired for urinating on luggage and sexually harassing women . . .

Mok and Lai, two strays that were trained by police, won praise for their ability to detect drugs.

However some passengers at Chiang Rair airport in Thailand, complained about their antisocial behaviour. They had a tendency to pee on the luggage while they searched for drugs and hold onto women’s legs.

The dogs now work on a farm where they spend their days herding chickens and pigs.

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Electronics giant Philips might just have come up with a unique solution for the domestically challenged.

They claim to have discovered the secret ingredient for automating fine cuisine - the secret is a means to measure the amount of water released while food cooks. This, they claim accurately reveals how dry and or crisp the food is.

Philips plan to launch a new range of ‘intelligent’ kitchen devices that they claim will produce food that is perfectly cooked at the press of a button.

Alternatively they could always just come up with something that reminds you to “stay away from the oven!”

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Imagine being able to immerse yourself fully into a virtual world - the sights, the sounds, the tactile sensations and even the smells? Or to not only be able to watch a cookery programme on TV, but to actually be able to smell the food cooking as well?

Reliably being able to record and reproduce smells has been a problem for some time, but that might all change now since scientists in Tokyo have built a sophisticated “odour recorder”. The device is capable of sniffing an object and then faithfully reproducing its smell by using a host of chemicals. So for example you presented the recorder with a red apple, the electronic nose would take a cursory sniff, analyse the odour and then draw up a recipe of chemicals required to reproduce it. When you want to replay the scent, the “nifty” gadget mixes the appropriate chemical recipe and then pumps the smell of a red apple back at you.

The prototype currently can only reliably reproduce certain fragrances and synthesising billions of different smells is still problematic as there isn’t a small number of “primary” odours from which others can be created.

“Smellovision” has been tried and tested many times with varying degrees of success since the 1940s, but could finally be set to enter the mainstream.

One thing’s for certain; whether the device is used for television, virtual world environments, gaming, online shopping or whatever, it’s potential uses are as ubiquitous as it is revolutionary.

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In a world where it seems attitudes to health and safety have gone well and truly mad, it stands to reason that those that get mollycoddled the most are going to be the health and safety staff themselves . . .

Workers at the Health and Safety Executive have been banned from moving furniture around their offices. They’ve been told to book a porter to do the job and to allow two days for it to happen. And just in case staff forget this, they have been surrounded by signs saying “do not lift tables or chairs without giving 48 hours notice to HSE management”.

Labour peer Lord Berkeley noticed the signs at a recent meeting at the HSE headquarters in London and was incensed enough to raise the matter in the House of Lords. After all f it’s not required in any other office - why should the offices of the HSE be any different? Why indeed.

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YOU REALLY couldn’t make it up . . . a selection of curious finds amongst clothing ads. Contact details have been omitted to protect the not-so-innocent . . .

SHEER STOCKINGS. Designed for fancy dress, but so serviceable that lots of women wear nothing else.

OUR BIKINIS are exciting. They are simply the tops.

SEE LADIES blouses. 50% off!

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