Charles on… anything that comes along

I have to say I always enjoy Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science columns in The Graun. Presently he’s pursuing a marvellous vendetta against Gillian McKeith, who appeared on Channel 4’s .. um,. some reality program.. got it! “You Are What You Eat”.

Over the weeks, he’s been gradually unpeeling the layers of her ‘qualifications’, which tend not to be as authoritative as they initially sound once you get closer.

This week’s episode, in which his long-deceased cat acquires the same qualification from the American Association of Nutritional Consultants, is as good as any.

One wonders whether this public flaying will garner any response from Channel 4 or Ms.. sorry, PhD McKeith. Or maybe one should prompt them…

(I’m very tempted to put this post under “Scams” but feel some might interpret that as libellous. Of course it would be completely and utterly and eternally wrong to suggest that PhD McKeith is in any way trying to deceive people with the qualifications she publicises.)

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Paging Beverley Head, white courtesy phone please.. (10 August 2005; score: 70.3%)
• Ooh yeah, feel that X-Factor magic at work (15 October 2006; score: 62.15%)
• Apple sues Think Secret over headless iMac and iWork: yeah, but try finding them (5 January 2005; score: 50.82%)

Near-miss asteroid could have wiped out Greater London area says the headline over the story I wrote about Toutatis missing the Earth, as expected.

What I actually wrote, and what appears, is: Had Toutatis hit the Earth, it would have had the explosive impact of a one million megaton bomb, many times the total nuclear arsenal of the superpowers, and destroyed all life on the planet.

Two paragraphs above, it says: But astronomers warned that there are potentially thousands of much smaller objects that could devastate an area as large as the M25 region..

Many people think journalists write the headlines on their stories. I hope this puts a stake through that idea, once and for all.

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• "UK teenagers prefer IM to text" - except they don't (17 November 2004; score: 29.03%)
• Oh, and don't tell anyone till tomorrow, but that's the last NDA I'll sign (12 December 2005; score: 28.01%)

Some rather blunt lessons for the staff at travel agents Thomsons with 800 jobs going, the day after P&O said it would cut 1200 jobs on cross channel ferries.

The reason in both cases: competition from internet-based rivals - travel sites that let you make your own holiday for Thomson,budget airlines for P&O.

I’m sure the staff feel really good at both companies that it’s not the executives losing their jobs, and that those non-job-losing execs also prepared so well for the internet’s effects, say by instituting (at P&O) a system like EasyJet’s for booking, or (at Thomson) self-service areas in the high street travel agencies. Bonuses all round.

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• Post-modern phishing (29 November 2004; score: 36.83%)
• Don't worry, blondes aren't going away; and the paucity of hit records (28 February 2006; score: 33.99%)
• When readers bite (because reviewers don't) (6 November 2006; score: 28.37%)