Speaker’s corner

READERS who have been paying attention to my columns will recall that in 2011 I wrote about a book, Ig Nobel Prizes. Ig Nobel Prizes are awarded by fellows at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, “for experiments that cannot or should not be repeated”.

No sooner had The Independent on Saturday hit the streets than I had an e-mail from the book’s editor, Marc Abrahams, at Harvard. He had read my column on the internet and wanted me to keep a lookout for potential Ig Nobel Prize-winners.

An experiment by a certain Mr Pratley immediately sprang to mind.

At this point I must digress and tell you about glue. In 10 000 years’ time when eight-headed archaeologists from the Planet Zog come to excavate my house to see how Earthlings lived way back in the 21st century they will doubtless be confused when they find, in various parts, zillions of tubes of glue – especially Pratley’s Putty.

They might even conclude I collected the stuff as a hobby.

Like all tubes of adhesives (as well as small electric screwdrivers, ballpoint pens and rolls of insulation tape), I can never find any when I need it so constantly have to buy fresh stuff.

Pratley’s Putty comes in two blocks and you mix the two together like Plasticine. In minutes the putty sets harder than a KwaZulu-Natal traffic cop’s heart.

Now, according to an advertisement on Classic FM (a radio station that I listen to avidly because I like tiddly-pom-pom-pom type music), Pratley’s Putty was invented in South Africa and the inventor, George Pratley, to prove the reliability of his glue, used a blob of it to suspend a 13-ton bulldozer above his son’s head.

Actually it was more of a demonstration than an Ig Nobel experiment.

I tried to picture the scene. His little boy just off to school and Daddy says, “Hang on my boy. I just want to suspend this 13-ton bulldozer above your head.”

Did he give his son a helmet or at least place some padding inside his school cap?

Was it in fact the first time Mr Pratley had tried the experiment?

Or did he have other sons now undergoing reconstructive surgery or, worse, now embedded in the floor?

I eventually said to myself: “Why, Clarke, are you asking ME all these questions? Why don’t you ring Mr Pratley himself ?”

I phoned Pratley’s in Krugersdorp and spoke to the very survivor of the 13-ton bulldozer demonstration, Kim Pratley, now in middle age and managing director.

The bulldozer is apparently still suspended above the foyer and Kim invited me to come and stand under it.

I explained to him that it would be just my luck if, while I was standing under it, an earth tremor of 320.4 on the Richter Scale rocked Krugersdorp, bringing down not just the bulldozer but all that white stuff from the ceiling, coating me in dust.

Kim said it was his father, George, who carried out the demonstration. Kim was 30 at the time.

This, of course, partly ruins my story about a little boy being involved.

He told me of a man who smears the glue on the soles of his running shoes and then, before it dries, sprinkles coarse brown sugar on the glue. Once the glue has set he stands the shoes in water and the sugar dissolves and – hey Prestik – the soles have a rough non-slip surface.

He had a call from a woman asking how to remove the adhesive. Kim suggested using a blowtorch but she said she couldn’t do that for various reasons. It transpired she had used it to stick on her false fingernails and now her real nails could not grow. She eventually had to file them off.

Nasa takes Pratley’s into space and, I’m told, the Golden Gate Bridge is held up by it.