A high fashion store hired a psychic salesman to work out which customers will buy stuff before they even enter the shop. Bosses encouraged him to rudely provoke those he “knows” are non-buyers to get out.

The news broke when a shocked customer wrote to the bosses of Gasp Jeans in Melbourne to ask why staff had been so rude. Boss Matt Chidgey revealed the truth in a letter (forwarded to me by reader Nicola Budinski of Hong Kong). He explained his employee had psychic superpowers: “He knew you were not going to buy anything before you even left your house.”

Non-rich people, described as “the undesirable,” could not be allowed to waste staff time, Mr Chidgey sneered, charmingly. The store’s “items are priced to be inaccessible for the undesirable.”

The fashion store boss clearly likes fighting tooth-and-nail with his unfortunate customers. When window-shoppers laughed at his products and described one of his dresses as “a dead flamingo,” Chidgey was thrilled. “When we receive comments like this, we like to give ourselves and our buyers a big pat on the back.”

Psychic staff, laughable clothes, contempt for customers, insanely huge egos? I’m impressed. These guys understand the fashion business. Gasp Jeans is going to be massive.

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A LITHUANIAN theme park designer last week revealed plans for a “suicide” roller coaster which kills all it riders. I was told about this by reader Wendy Tong, who said: “I just hope he remembered to leave ‘repeat customers’ out of his business plan.”

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MILLIONS OF virtual monkeys typing randomly composed the works of Shakespeare, a news report said last week. I was amazed—until I read the details. The virtual monkey program written by Jesse Anderson only finds individual words Shakespeare used. Any child could do this, or even a creature with a miniscule brain, such as a Fox News viewer or an Indian nationalist politician.

Much more realistic is a 2003 experiment in which a real computer was given to real monkeys at Paignton Zoo in the UK. After four weeks, the monkeys had produced five pages of the letter S and broken the computer.

Having said that, let’s be brutally honest here, there are many people who would much rather read five pages of the letter S than the works of Shakespeare.

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ARE YOU eligible for a loan from OCBC bank of Singapore? Reader Sri Ram last Friday looked at the strict requirement listed prominently on the bank’s website: “Yes, I confirm that I am: Singaporean or Non-Singaporean.”

By Ram’s calculations, the exclusive group of people who fulfill the requirement is everybody on earth.

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RUMOR HAS it that Gaddafi loyalists are secretly combing the world for safe places for their leader to hang out. Hey, guys, I understand there’s a vacant house perfect for international bad guys in Abbottabad, Pakistan, one previous owner.

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THE CREATOR of Doritos snack foods died last week. He was 97. Kids, take this as a warning. Junk food kills.

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APOLOGETIC SIGN seen on the door of a street-front dentist in Toronto, Canada: “Sorry, we’re open.”

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