"Last Friday passed without the usual warnings about avoiding risky behaviour on that fateful day," writes Allan Garrick, of Balmain. "Are we witnessing the death of Friday the 13th?" Yes. Column 8 witnessed its demise on our way to work last week. Friday the 13th was staring at its mobile, listening to loud rap music through headphones, walked under a ladder, tripped over a black cat, and fell under a bus.
"Our local McDonald's has a parking space reserved for 'Austerised' persons only," reports Bruce Hyland, of Woy Woy. "Is this some new kind of shorthand for a naturalised Australian citizen?"
"I've just purchased a pack of eight disposable razors blades from Aldi," writes Stephen Reynolds, of Byron Bay. "On the back of this $4.99 package is written: 'Blades made in the USA. Moulded and assembled in Mexico. Packed in China.' And also, obviously, then exported to Australia. If travel broadens the mind, I'm looking forward to many morning bathroom chats with these wise razors."
It's nice to know that we're exceptional. "Last week in Launceston, Tasmania, I wondered what I'd been reading for the last forty years," we're told by John McCarthy, of Kiama. "After asking at a newsagency if they had a Sydney Morning Herald, I was told 'No, we only have normal newspapers here'."
Many readers have asserted that the correct expression is "a damp squib", including Kathryn Elliott, of Dolans Bay, who "turned to my dictionary to find it is 'a damp squib' or firework – a situation or event which is much less impressive than expected". We did know that, but that was the whole point of the orgy scene TV review items that we've been running. It was one of those grand typos that turns out to be more amusing than what the writer intended. Whether a damp squib or a damp squid enhances one's orgy experience is a matter of personal taste.
"It's time to move Column 8's GMT debate on, and consider what happens when astronauts arrive on Mars," suggests Robert Bradley, of Bowral. "The time would be Martian Mean Time, so would they have to wind their watch forwards or backwards?" We think they'd have to set up a local Greenwich, and then wind their watches forward 35 minutes every day. Or is that backwards..?
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