“During the 1990s, I worked for Skillshare,” recalls Judith Rostron of Killarney Heights. “The day I started I was given a 15-page booklet of Government Department acronyms (C8). I thought it was a joke and laughed. It wasn’t.”
“With the amount of false alarms Fire Rescue NSW receives each year it was necessary to form a section to deal with the problem,” reports Paul Mangioni of Darlinghurst. “They came up with the title False Alarm Reduction Team.” Did that also apply to gas leaks?
Don Bain of Port Macquarie is “fed up with owl puns (C8). Might this be a case of irritable owl syndrome?”
“Everyone seems to be forgetting that dogs were allowed on trains in NSW,” says Gillian Leahy of Lilyfield. “In the ’70s, I often travelled around Sydney on trains with my dog Shula. We bought a ‘Dog Ticket’. It was legal and nothing bad ever happened.”
“Chrissie Whitlock’s ‘tree looper’ story (C8) reminds me of a real estate advertisement which described a rather elegant property for sale in Dural, as being in ‘an unbearable location’,” writes Paul Koff of Glenhaven. “I wonder if there were many takers.”
“Tree lopper or tree looper - be careful of what you ask for,” warns Ted Richards of Batemans Bay. “I have a nephew who is a tree lopper and I once asked him how things were in the tree lopping business to which he replied ‘I’m not a tree lopper - I’m an arborist’, thus figuratively sawing the branch off between me and the trunk.”
Christine Helby of Forbes is “just nuts about George Manojlovic (C8), especially his contribution on Tuesday. I’m certain it will bear fruit!” Joe Moore of Blaxland adds: “To George’s mouth-watering entry, one could add losing your cherry or getting the rough end of the pineapple. Then again, maybe you don’t give a fig.”
“George Manojlovic starts his latest contribution with: ‘I’ve been thinking’. Really? Who would’ve thought?” says Jenny Stephenson of Wollongong. “Gotta love him.” Apologies in advance for the backlash, George.
Remoteness (C8) is relative, according to Sandra Sullivan of Oatley: “University of NSW took over the St George Campus (Oatley) of Sydney College of Advanced Education in the late 1980s after the Dawkins Education Reforms. Staff at Kensington routinely referred to Oatley as ‘Remotely’ (it’s near Hurstville!) but then again, many of them believed the western suburbs started at Anzac Parade.”
Column8@smh.com.au
No attachments, please. Include
name, suburb and daytime phone