Unforgettable comic

It looks as if Comic Sans isn't just the font that's used for lighthearted invitations to idiotic team-building meetings. It turns out it's so ugly, it helps us to learn things.

Princeton and Indiana University researchers gave people the same information to learn in three fonts, and they remembered it best when it was in 12-point Comic Sans. A nightmare world where everything looks like your aunt's jaunty Christmas emails looms.

"Maybe we should read every book on an e-reader in Comic Sans," says neuroscience expert Jonah Lehrer. It should brighten up depressing novels such as Nineteen Eighty-Four, so we're sure George Orwell would have approved.