“The big story of the rugby league week has been the sacking of James Tedesco from the NSW State of Origin side,” writes Brian Harris of Port Macquarie. “It brought back memories of Father John Cootes, the so-called footballing priest. A wonderful player for NSW and Australia in the ’70s. They reckon he too was dropped because he wouldn’t pass the pill.”
Suzanne Saunders of Wadeville says “because C8-ers like to know the stuff of stuff, they may like to know that (even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious) the 14-syllable compound word (and song) Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (C8) concocted by the Sherman brothers for the 1964 movie Mary Poppins is not as original as most believe. In 1949, the Arabian Knights recorded Supercalafajalistickespeealadojus, written by Gloria Parker and Barney Young. Their subsequent copyright lawsuit fell on deaf ears because, as it turns out, student journalist Helen Herman first coined the word ‘supercaliflawjalisticexpialidoshus’ in The Syracuse Daily Orange in 1931. You don’t have to say any of that loud, and you’ll always sound precocious.”
“Meri Will’s revelation that she uses Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious in her church reminds me of when the congregation at Port Macquarie Methodist Church in the mid ’60s sang Amazing Grace to the tune of House of the Rising Sun,” says Allan Gibson of Cherrybrook. “And at church youth camps it was often sung to the tune of Hernando’s Hideaway!”
“Conquering Mount Pritchard (C8) is admirable,” admits Anne Cook of Ermington. “But T-shirts claiming to have survived the Bondi Tsunami in December 2004 was the fastest response to a natural disaster I’ve ever seen.”
And if you really want to live in contradiction, “try Valley Heights!” suggests Brian Collins of Cronulla.
Graham Carter of Eglinton likes Kerry Kyriacou’s idea of a Column 8 signet ring (C8), but would like to take it a step further, with a ring featuring Granny’s image, “a la The Phantom. Perhaps even a self-inking one?”
“Would a little lapel badge featuring a granny knot do the trick?” asks Jim Dewar of Davistown.
Maybe the time has come to test the testers? “When my uncle answered the prime minister acuity question (C8) in an ambulance early one morning, the paramedics nodded kindly,” recounts Mary Watson of Balgowlah Heights. “Unknown to them, a new prime minister had been elected overnight, and my uncle had just read the Herald.”
Column8@smh.com.au
No attachments, please. Include
name, suburb and daytime phone