This one’s a banger. Denis Cartledge of Tenterfield “was in Coles with a friend recently when they picked up a packet of ‘Coles Simply Thin BBQ Sausages made with Australian meat’, and as is my usual habit, I looked at the ingredients. Aside from the plethora of numbers that mean very little to most, I was intrigued to read that one of the ‘Ingredients’ was ‘bamboo fibre’! Could the collective Mensa that is C8 let me know how bamboo fibre enhances the package. Intrigued.”
We’ve fielded some impressively precise input regarding Gene Pitney’s conveyance and location in the song Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa (C8). For starters, David Calvey of Gosford says Gene “categorically states that he was ‘driving’. I suggest that puts his mode of transport somewhere between a Goggomobil and an 18-wheeler. Either of these should manage 2000 kilometres in 24 hours. However, since Tulsa is not too far from the geographic centre of the contiguous United States, I reckon he could have been almost anywhere in the country.”
“Gene Pitney was in Vancouver and driving on the Trans Canada highway heading east,” claims Peter Mortensen of Mortdale. “Turning south-east near Hope, he was hoping to make it to Tulsa in 24 hours, but I don’t think so, more like 31 hours.”
John Staton of Kingsgrove is another who suspects that the journey is an international affair: “By my reckoning, Gene was in Nevertire, NSW: six hours drive to Sydney, then 18 hours by air with connections. Pitney never tired of singing this song to himself every day.”
There are yet more variations on the “Up in Annie’s room” response (C8). As well as “behind the clock”, we have “behind the chiffonier” from Linda Morgan of Boambee; “behind the picture” from Patricia Slidziuas of Woonona and from Dawn Weatherup of Cranebrook, “‘Up in Annie’s room, hanging off the gas jet’!”
That other saying “wigwam for a goose’s bridle” was a bit of a worry for Glenys Quirk of Forster: “Personally, I would never want to try to put a bridle on a goose. They are known to be cantankerous with a savage bite!”
“Two deer ran through the Wollongong Botanic Gardens on Saturday,” reports Helen Rouse of Wollongong. “Presumably they had come down from Mount Keira to find water in the heat. They were both does, otherwise we might have got our two bucks’ worth.”
Column8@smh.com.au
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