Silicon Valley and topless bars may not at first seem to have any obvious connections - except, perhaps, an occasionally over-inflated sense of the self - but linked they nonetheless are.

That's according to Mrs Bodil Vaerst, wife of entrepreneur Mr Ralph Vaerst, who died this month. Mr Vaerst is credited with coining the term "Silicon Valley" over 30 years ago while chatting with journalist Don Hoefler, who used it in an article in Electronic News in 1971.

Mrs Vaerst says the two were having a martini in a Palo Alto topless bar when out popped the term, so to speak.

The Margin marvels at the concept of such a bar in the now ultra-swank techie environs of Palo Alto.