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Resourceful caller shows how to reach to a human being through the ATO phone line.
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"My mate Con Vaitsis is not given to flights of fancy," asserts Don Smith, of Ashfield, who refers to the naked lasses dressing in the street before hitting the town as "The Ashfield Five".
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"Further to the discussion of Roman numerals, readers may find it interesting that at least one sport, archery, uses a mix of Roman and normal numbers in its scoring system," we're told by Darryl Drake, President of Sydney Bowmen Archery Club. "This comes about whereby the centre section of the 'gold' of an archery target, which scores 10, is further subdivided into a smaller centre ring which is scored as X. This also counts as ten points but in the case of two archers having the same total score the one with the most Xs wins."
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"Mila Yates raises a good point about the type of washing machine in determining post-wash undie orientation," writes Ralph Davis, of Wahroonga (Column 8, Saturday), "and it strikes me that there would also be other factors at play, eg. the size and temperature of the wash, garment style, type of fabric, spin speed, what else is in the wash, is fabric softener used...? While a truly scientific test may be nigh on impossible, I'm inspired to do the next best thing by logging the results of my next four washes (two with scungies starting inside out). I'll submit my results to this esteemed publication in about three weeks." Well done, that man!
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"On Friday afternoon, at about 5.30pm," reports Con Vaitsas, of Ashbury, "a car parked in the street opposite Ashfield station. Out hopped five young women in casual clothing who then start to undress, throwing their clothes into the car until they were completely naked, before dressing in more formal 'going out' clothing, and walking to the station to get a train. Was this part of a dare? A new reality TV show? Or just women in a hurry? Does anyone know more?"
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"The report of undies turning outside-in in the wash," writes Mila Yates, of Valentine (Column 8, Thursday), "begs the question, what type of washing machine is it? A top loader or front loader?" Possibly it does, but Mila's note raises two unrelated issues. Firstly, the phrase "begs the question", and we feel compelled to point out that these words are used incorrectly just about every time you see them. We don't blame you, Mila, because the error is ubiquitous, but we must point out that it does not mean "raises the question". It refers to circular argument, whereby the conclusion is already assumed within the initial premise. An example might be "Column 8 is always right, because they said so last week." The other issue is – what goes on in Valentine, NSW, on weekends like this?
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"In the 1970s, when I was manager at the Glebe Island container terminal for Columbus Line," recalls Joe Kensell, of Five Dock (Last days of the control tower, Herald, Wednesday), "the ship's agent and I gave the MSB Harbour Controllers in the tower a miniature brass copy of the Columbus Australia's ship's bell. With the media attention the tower is receiving, I wonder what happened to the bell. Has it shifted to Botany Bay along with the ships, or does one of the controllers now have it in their bar at home?"
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"In a well-known department store," reports Joan Brown, of Orange, "where staff are thin on the ground, there is a sign placed on the kitchenware counter when no one is there to serve you, which reads 'Customer Notice. For your convenience please visit the counter at the manchester department, as this counter is now closed. We apologise for any inconvenience.' The more you read it, the sillier it sounds."
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"There has been much in Column 8 of late about the odd behaviour of some cafe, restaurant and bar proprietors," notes Paul Duncan, of Leura, "but there is the flip side to this – badly behaved patrons. Recently a local cafe owner told me of a group from Sydney who had lunch at his establishment. It was a warm, sunny day and they sat outside. After the meal they demanded a discount because there were 'too many flies'. They seem to have forgotten that this is summertime in Australia. They could easily have gone inside."
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"I received a Fitbit for Christmas," reports Michelle Graham, of Hamlyn Terrace. "I finally got round to wearing it, and discovered that overnight I had walked some 173 steps. I even accumulate steps whilst I'm driving."
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"I've just heard Dr Finn Romanes, the Victorian Department of Health's senior medical adviser, say that the outbreak of salmonella in pre-packed lettuce was 'just the tip of the iceberg'," reports Adrian Paul, of Coffs Harbour. "Boom boom." Susan Osborne, of Miranda, heard this too and asks "Was it cos he was under pressure?"
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"No doubt Thursday's Freddie anecdote will lead to a flood of Trueman stories," writes Col Nicholson, of Hawks Nest, and we have seen a few. "I'll add one which tickled my fancy. A young fielder had just allowed a shot off Freddie's bowling to slip through his knees and and on to the boundary. As Trueman was walking back to his mark the bloke said, 'Sorry Mr Trueman, I should have kept my legs together.' The great man growled back, 'Not thee lad, thy moother."'
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"Returning to Sydney from Albury in the mid-70s a friend and I stopped off in a Goulburn pub, and asked the barmaid for two middies of New. It so happened that there were two empty glasses near by from some other thirsty travellers (service in the sicks, Column 8, for a while now). The barmaid took the glasses to a tap and proceeded to fill them. When we explained that they weren't our glasses she said 'Oh, do you want clean glasses?' We did. She continued to fill the used glasses, placed them in front of us, took two clean glasses from the rack and tipped the contents into the new ones."
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"To answer Suzanne Wicks' 'Why paper bags?' query from the other day, in the US you cannot have nudity and sell alcohol in the same venue," we're told by Gerry Brooks, of Haberfield. "If you want a drink in a Las Vegas club, the girls will only undress to a bikini. If you want to see the all-the-way girls, you cannot buy alcohol, but the doorman will happily tell you that you can buy beer at the nearby gas station and bring it back to the club, so long as it is in a brown paper bag – no plastic bags, opaque or otherwise, not even white paper bags."
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"I can testify for Barry Riley's sake (in your column of February 1) that the great singular pronouns still survive in the North of England," writes Thomas Keneally, who knows a thing or two about words (Column 8, since Saturday). "Recently, when I gave an after-dinner speech at Headingley for the Leeds Rhino Rugby League club, I found myself seated next to a charming but fabled Great Britain hard-man forward, and asked him who he admired amongst modern 'enforcers' in the game. He said in a gentle voice, 'I don't think I were enforcer', to which a woman across the table answered, 'No, thou weren't enforcer! Thou wert total nutter!' May 'thou' continue to reign!"
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"I realise that you want to shut down the hemiteleiation topic," concedes Seppo Ranki, of Glenhaven (Column 8, Saturday), "but you should not allow the 'Erko for King' declaration to stand on a false premise. The Metropolitan has been run at Randwick every year (bar one at Warwick Farm) since 1863, but never over a mile and a quarter. It has been run over two miles, a mile and a half, and mainly over a mile and five furlongs (or metric near-equivalents of 2400m and 2600m). I cannot see any of those qualifying as rhyming with 'water'." Countless readers have pointed this out. It's a shame when the facts get in the way of a good story, innit?
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"We had an unbelievable experience at a Killcare Beach cafe," writes Ian Clarke, of Charters Towers (service, of sorts, Column 8, for eons). "After asking for a dirty fork to be replaced, the waitress licked her finger, wiped the fork 'clean' and put it back on the table. We left and have never returned."
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"As an ex-2SM Good Guy of the '50s," recalls Phil Haldeman, of Woolwich, "I was known to enjoy the company of 'The Big Boy of Song', Norm Erskine. One day Erko✓ walked into a wharfies' pub, in Sussex Street, and asked the barmaid for 'A Gordon, J Farren✓ and Metro'p✓'. She asked, 'What's that?', to which Norm replied 'Don't you speak English, love? I want a Gordon and Gotch [scotch], J Farren-Price [ice], and The Metropolitan is run over a mile and a quarter [water].' I therefore declare Erko the Aussie king of rhyming slang hemiteleiation." Right, that's it – this correspondence is now closed!
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"When thinking about 2016 being a leap year, divisible by 4," muses Carolyn Molloy, of Pretty Beach, "I realised that 2016 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 and 9 of the numbers under 10. 2015 can only be divided by 5. But can 2017 be divided by anything? Is this part of a pattern? Should I have known this for most of my 76 years?" Column 8 is fascinated by this sort of thing so we checked, and it no, it isn't. In fact, unlike 2016, 2015, or 76 for that matter, 2017 is a prime number. This isn't as rare as one might imagine – last "prime" year was only five years ago, in 2011, but we have to wait eleven more until 2027 for the next one.
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Under antiquated dining rules, "ladies" can be served beer in Riverina but only in a small glass, a reader writes.
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To stack or not to stack? A reader with experience in fine dining establishments weighs in on the debate.
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Australia Day is upon us, and we wish all our readers a grand time however they wish to celebrate, commemorate, or ignore, the event. We also note the dozens of clearway signs festooning poles around the inner city. Unfortunately, they all read "Clearway, tow-away zone, 6pm, December 31, to 5am January 1."
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John Grinter, of Katoomba, is one of several readers demanding an explanation of the word "hemiteleiated" ("No wuckers", Column 8, Saturday), claiming it does not exist. Well, it does, but we agree that it is deeply obscure.
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"North Sydney Council has erected signs at Balls Head Nature Reserve that read 'Cats Prohibited'," reports Simon Dodd, of Waverton, "and feature the silhouette of a moggy in a red circle with a strike through it, above a small print proclamation that the 'Penalty Exceeds $880.' This raises the question — who are these signs designed for?"
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"Rosie Miller's less-than-flattering critique of the collective pronoun "youse"may indicate an unawareness of its linguistic and uniquely 'youseful' development for acknowledging sets of discrete groupings," writes Frank Hinchey, of Hamilton (Column 8, since T'youse-day). "Recently my wife and I were waiting in a Newcastle fish shop for someone to emerge to take our order. We were joined by another couple when, a few minutes later, the attractive teenage shop assistant appeared from the kitchen, checked out the two waiting couples, and politely and professionally asked, "Which of youses was first?" So we now have a singular and plural of this collective term. Let's hope the dative and ablative will be available very soon."
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"I loved the 'RUD' acronym in Tuesday's column," enthuses Chris Mangan, of Bracken Ridge ("rapid unscheduled disassembly" of spacecraft), "which reminded me of one that my aviation friends swear is true. Unlike the RUD example, which is a softening of a harsh reality, aviators have been known to go the other way, and call the 'water landing' we hear about in safety demonstrations an 'aquatic deconstruction'. Apparently that's a more accurate description of what happens when you hit the water at 800 km/hour."
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"Unfortunately the useless expression 'walk the walk' has become popular with politicians, Herald letter writers and others," huffs Rob Hughes, of Oatley.
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"I am slightly hesitant, given the jinx that seems to bring bad weather whenever Column 8 mentions celestial events," frets our Cosmos Correspondent, Richard "Spacey" Macey, of Pendle Hill, "but here goes. It seems that the International Space Station will make a very bright pass over Sydney on Tuesday night. It will rise in the south-west at 8.33 pm, be directly overhead at 8.36, and will vanish in the north-east at 8.39 pm."
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"George Manojlovic's story was really interesting," enthuses Steve Davidson, of Warrawee (learning to pronounce English by stuffing a hot potato in one's mouth, Column 8, Friday). "When my mother arrived in England from Germany in 1936, her teacher taught her to speak with a pebble in her mouth, and she soon spoke without the least trace of any foreign accent."
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Success! Maree Kearns, of Katoomba, has come forward as the owner of the lost buckle found by Paul Duncan (Column 8, Wednesday) and confirms Sharman Lucas Palmer's theory of Thursday. "Yes, I was a student nurse at St Vincent's Hospital," Maree tells us. "The buckle holds significant sentimental value as it was my mother's, and her name is also engraved on it. In those days buckles were made of sterling silver. Shortly after my mother trained at SVH she enlisted as an army nurse, serving as a captain in the Middle East in World War II, and on the Kokoda Track. At the time I lost the buckle a friend was dying, so I had to let go of this material object and focus on the passing of my friend. The moral of the story seems to be, when one truly lets go there can be renewal. Thank you, Column 8."