I see that one of the link memes of the past few days has been an article about the ubiquitous font Arial (and its becoming-forgotten predecessor Helvetica). Lately I've been noticing the utter commonness of another font, which I think is called Handel Gothic. You know the one. Round, pitchfork-like "e", with an apparent futuristic look and feel, which I'm guessing is the reason for its popularity right now. I've seen it used in the following places :

• Sub Zero, one of the first alcoholic sodas to hit the market in Australia, back in 1995, I think. They've always used this font.

• Adidas deodorant - the name of the different varieties (called names like "dynamic", "team", and whatever it is) is printed in this font at the bottom of the can.

• A t-shirt I bought a few months back by some mob called Spiewak printed the company's name in this font on the little cardboard label.

• San Miguel Beer uses it in their current advertisement campaign on buses and trams and tramstops and such.

• Whilst wandering around the Dick Smith store this arvo, I noticed that the DVD of Madonna's Drowned World Tour used it, too.

• Plastered to various walls and poles on main roads were ads for a couple of gigs that used the font - one for Groove Armada, another for somebody called Anna Vissi.

I'm hoping the future doesn't really have that many fork-like e's in it.