“Are fellow C8-ers as baffled as I am by inappropriate mobile phone videoing?” asks Greg Flynn of Turramurra. “At a pathology collection centre yesterday, there were signs asking patients not to video procedures using their mobiles. A collector told me parents are increasingly videoing their children while the kids have blood samples taken. When parents are asked to stop, angry responses include: ‘You can’t tell me what to do!’. Presumably, fresh content for social media outranks common courtesy.”
Stuart Weller hails from the land of the superior rock cake, aka Nabiac, and has a subscription for the US edition of National Geographic magazine: “Yesterday I received a reminder (by snail mail) that it will end shortly. While the enclosed letter has no indication of where it was written (though it was ‘signed’ by a Gary E. Knell, National Geographic), the envelope has a return address of Tower House, Sovereign Park, Market Harborough, Leicester LE16 9EF UK, yet it was actually posted in the Czech Republic! Is this some kind of record for decentralisation of services?”
“High Five, Brad Campbell,” declares Anne Cook of Ermington. “I did cringe at spending the inheritance (C8). Our two children are well-off financially, thanks to the best upbringing we could afford and their own hard work. In retirement, we live a quiet life, never big spenders, don’t plan on costly adventures, so ‘the inheritance’ is what’s left after the both of us have moved on, proud of two daughters who grew up not expecting it.”
Les Shearman of Darlington still advises exercising caution: “Deceased estates lead to rigor mortgage.“
Clearly a proponent of C8 camaraderie, Sue Casiglia of North Ryde “just read that Herald letter writers have a secret handshake. Alas, we don’t have any such thing here at Column 8. Can we decide on a symbolic signal or gesture that we can use to acknowledge fellow Column 8 readers and writers? Of course, it wouldn’t apply to you, Granny. Nothing short of a curtsy or bow is required should we ever meet you.”
“I was saddened to hear of the passing of Richard Sherman, one of the creators of the Mary Poppins song, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” says Jack Dikian of Mosman. “I wonder if the word will be written in his eulogy. It has so many meanings, and they are all related to beauty.” As long as they spare the eulogist the backwards version.
Column8@smh.com.au
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