“On July 29, 1949, Darwin’s Northern Standard reported an attack by the Herald’s Column Hate,” (C8) reports Roger Epps of Armidale. “They also claimed that the paper ‘has the faking of news down to a fine art’. And, no, Trump had then only just turned three.”
“Margaret Whitlam (C8) pinched my seat!” claims Andrew Taubman of Queens Park. “Heading to our usual spots in the City Recital Hall, we saw them occupied by the great couple. Discretion being the better part of valour, we took the seats behind them, where they were supposed to be. We didn’t get to see much of that performance.” Looks like sitting at the back only applied to aircraft.
And for every Whitlam tale, there’s apparently one for Fred Trueman, as Bill Leigh of West Pennant Hills explains: “English fast-bowler, Yorkshireman Trueman’s energy, ferocity and generosity were legendary. As a young up-and-coming ‘quick’ 60 years ago, I found myself fielding in the slips with him at a charity match and was somewhat in awe. Attempting conversation, I asked: ‘Mr Trueman, when opening the bowling, do you feel any fear?’ He stared at me, squinting, seemingly amazed, and growled, ‘Fear laddie! Fear! Thou hath the ball!’ And then he followed up with, ‘Call me Freddie lad, don’t call me Mr Trueman, it makes me think you are talking to my father’.”
Nola Tucker of Kiama has some friendly advice for scammers. “If you want my bank details, don’t choose a bank I left years ago and please, ‘your bank’ is not ‘you’re bank’. Good luck.”
“I’m a member of a car club called, rather grandiosely, the Thoroughbred Sports Car Club,” writes Stephen Knox of Chatswood. “Every year we hold an event where we display our cars and enjoy the company of like-minded friends over lunch. It’s called our Pride of Ownership Day, POO Day for short. Recently, I went online to pay for tickets to the event. When the withdrawal was rejected (C8), I checked to make sure I hadn’t used any unacceptable symbols or characters. It wasn’t until I changed the acronym ‘POO’ to ‘Pride’ that the transfer went through.”
Adrian Bell of Davistown explains that “as a coda to the discussion on education in the US (C8), one theory claims that the US initiates a new war every few years in order to teach the kids world geography.”
Column8@smh.com.au
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