Eideard

Undoubtedly, the Thread and Bobbin Sewing Kit that Aunt Mildred sent from Amazon.com for Christmas will never see a stitch. The Stallion Stable Music Box might have looked pretty on the computer screen, but under the tree’s flickering lights, it is frightful. The polka-dot nightgown has never been a good idea, even with free shipping.

These gifts sent via some warehouse many miles away are not only unwanted, but also a multimillion-dollar headache: They have to be repacked, labeled, dropped off and shipped back to Amazon’s Island of Misfit Toys. Then a new present has to be packed, labeled and shipped again. Efficient, the process is not.

Amazon is working on a solution that could revolutionize digital gift buying. The online retailer has quietly patented a way for people to return gifts before they receive them, and the patent documents even mention poor Aunt Mildred. Amazon’s innovation, not ready for this Christmas season, includes an option to “Convert all gifts from Aunt Mildred,” the patent says. “For example, the user may specify such a rule because the user believes that this potential sender has different tastes than the user.” In other words, the consumer could keep an online list of lousy gift-givers whose choices would be vetted before anything ships.

Amazon’s proposal has raised the ire of the Miss Manners crowd, which thinks the scheme rather uncouth. After all, receiving an e-mail notification of a forthcoming gift – and thereby being able to check its price – is hardly the same as unwrapping the item at home.

Anna Post, great-great-granddaughter of the late etiquette author Emily Post and spokeswoman for the Emily Post Institute, said she hopes the company realizes it is risking major backlash and abandons the idea. Because of Amazon’s dominance online, she and others say they fear the idea could spread throughout the e-retailing industry, which this holiday season racked up $28 billion in gift purchases.

“This idea totally misses the spirit of gift giving,” Post said. “The point of gift giving is to allow someone else to go through that action of buying something for us. Otherwise, giving a gift just becomes another one of the world’s transactions…”

Amazon appears to be quite serious: Its patent was awarded not just to Amazon, but to its founder, Jeff Bezos…Amazon’s patent is 12 pages long, with numerous diagrams, including a “Gift Conversion Rules Wizard” that shows how a user could select rules such as, “No clothes with wool.” The document makes for curious reading, reducing the art of gift giving to the dry language of patentry…

RTFA. The patent description is about as dry – and humorous – as you might expect.

Learn a bit more about business and traffic management – once a topic near and dear to my heart – or at least my wallet.

A Government-funded science centre has been accused of height discrimination after turning down anyone over 5ft 6ins for a job dressing up as a cartoon character.

The Glasgow Science Centre…advertised for a £5.93-an-hour ‘casual worker’ to promote a Wallace and Gromit exhibition.

Prospective candidates…must be between 5ft 3ins and 5ft 6ins tall, ruling out most of the male population.

The £2m ‘World of Cracking Ideas’ exhibition, which runs until November 30 this year, was first held at the Science Museum in London and is billed as a ‘fabulous interactive exhibition stuffed full of crazy innovation’…

The Science Centre advert states: “The role will involve wearing a Gromit costume, greeting visitors and promoting the exhibition…

One hopeful applicant, who did not want to be named, but stands at 5ft 7ins tall, said he was ‘furious’ after being given short-shrift by science centre bosses who told him he ‘had to be of a height between 5ft 3ins and 5ft 6ins’.

A spokesman for the Glasgow Science Museum said it had interviewed both male and female candidates for the job and said that the height restriction was due to the size of Gromit’s costume…

“Our advertisement for actors mentions a height restriction. This is due to the size of the costume that must be worn.”

Offer him an alternative job wearing a woman’s size 2 thong. Jogging. See if he quits before he saws himself in half.

Voters in Switzerland have rejected a proposal to introduce a nationwide system of state-funded lawyers to represent animals in court.

Animal rights groups had proposed the move, saying that without lawyers to argue the animals’ case, many instances of cruelty were going unpunished.

But the measure was rejected by around 70% of voters in a referendum.

Voters were almost certainly swayed by worries about how much such a system might cost taxpayers, and by objections from Switzerland’s farmers already struggling with reduced subsidies and falling milk prices.

Switzerland already has some of the strictest animal welfare legislation in the world: Pigs, budgies, goldfish and other social animals cannot be kept alone; horses and cows must have regular exercise outside in summer and winter; and dog owners have to take training courses to learn how to care for their pets.

Most sensible people realize the need to protect the lives of our fellow critters – especially those who are domesticated.

Maybe Swiss lawyers could be trusted to that end? Seems to me representatives of the state should have that trust – watched closely by the people.