“Recently while on holiday in Finland I was left feeling a little bit disappointed,” admits Serge Nemaz of Illawong. “As our tour bus crossed the border towards Kirkenes, Norway, there wasn’t a chequered flag to be seen anywhere! My understanding had always been that that is what you get when you cross the Fin(n)sh line.”
Time for a spot of constitutional gallows humour: “Do journalists and politicians know what the term bellwether actually means?” challenges Helen Howes of Collaroy. “A wether is a castrated ram, the bellwether was that ram with a bell around its neck that all the other sheep followed, to be shorn or led to the slaughterhouse. What a great analogy as we listen to ineffectual candidates ringing their bells (or talking up their policies) as we are led to the slaughter.”
“Our Dallas (C8)-obsessed daughter, awaiting the birth of our first grandchild in hospital, refused to be taken to the labour ward until she had finished watching the latest episode,” reports Rosemary Seam of Kempsey. “Our granddaughter was born on 13th July 1985, just in time for Live Aid.”
It would appear that the radio equivalent of Dallas would have to be the ABC serial, Blue Hills, with some listeners providing transcripts for loved ones: “I knew a mother who, with her rural family, were rusted-on listeners to Blue Hills,” writes Roger Epps of Armidale. “For years during boarding school terms, she used to diligently write down as much of that day’s content as she could recall and post a weekly update to her children.”
Robyn Cashman of Fernhill adds: “When my parents were overseas in the ’70s, Mum was kept abreast, by way of the regular blue air letters sent by her mum, our grandma McDonald, of the latest dramas in Blue Hills - ‘Fleur is refusing to live in the dilapidated farmhouse’. ‘Will she leave Jack?’ ‘Will he find out?’. Riveting reading!”
“The name of the BBC reporter sent to cover a story on panic fuel buying? Phil McCann,” notes George Zivkovic of Northmead.
Making the switch from MAGA to POTUS for wordplay purposes (C8), has proven to be a hit with readers, among them, Mary Carde of Parrearra (Qld) – Proclaimed Ostentatious Trumpery Unmasked Screwball, Geoff Nilon of Mascot – Putrid Old Trump Under Siege, and, um, this one from Meri Will of Baulkham Hills – Pouring Our Tea Unravels Stress.
Column8@smh.com.au
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