Sometimes, a moment just presents itself. “A few years ago, my wife’s American cousin, Rod, who works for NASA, was visiting us,” recalls Mal Kirkpatrick of Coombabah. “He was trying to open a bottle of wine using my top-of-the-line corkscrew. No one ever set me up better for a one-liner: ‘Come on, Rod … it’s not rocket science (C8)’.”
“I learnt rocket science in primary school,” claims Colin Taylor-Evans of Lane Cove. “Insert rocket into empty Coke bottle, strike match, light blue touchpaper, stand back!” John Boddington of Dalton attended a similar study group and adds: “The only science involved was to remember not to look down over the top to see if it was going all right.”
“Where does the word hamburger come from?” asks Graham Russell of Clovelly. “And is there really ham in the burgers we buy?”
Classifications for films (C8) didn’t start in Australia until 1970, but Marjie Williamson of Blaxland says that “Blackboard Jungle was age restricted in 1955 when two friends and I tottered, on borrowed high heels, into the St James Theatre in Sydney to see it. Was it thought that Rock around the Clock would lead us into a life of depravity?”
“When I make toast, as I did this morning, I have to get the bread from the bottom drawer and the knife from the top drawer,” explains John Cook of Forde (ACT). “So, I opened the middle drawer. Is this what is known as an ‘efficiency dividend’?”
Nick Walker of Suffolk Park hopes the geckos Jennifer Lawrence (C8) is hearing are native ones. “Most of the ones around here are the pale Indonesian invaders, which are overtaking the darker, native ones’ habitats.”
“I come from a long line of gramma (C8) eaters,” claims Geoff Nilon of Mascot. “Mum put a simple cake crust on hers. Where can I get hold of gramma or seeds? My suppliers have all passed. No one is answering the telephone to glory.”
“When we were children, the biggest argument my parents had was about what was the true name for that wonderful delicacy, gramma pie or rhio tart,” says Malcolm Nicholson of Katoomba. “I can’t remember who went for which one, but it used to get about as heated as the pastry.”
“Is an artesian bore (C8) just a normal bore, with the addition of craft skills?” wonders John Christie of Oatley.
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