“My late father used to have to go to hospital every few months for a procedure on his ‘waterworks’,” writes Barbara Ryan of Caringbah South. “This usually required an overnight stay. Since he liked a glass of sherry before dinner he used to take some in a jar. On one visit the nurse moved his belongings to another room while he was in the operating theatre. When he came out, she said that he didn’t need to bring a urine sample (C8) and had thrown out his sherry. Just as well they didn’t send it to the lab.”
Regarding all the beer nostalgia (C8), Andrew McCarthy of Toormina points out that occasionally, “Carlton United Breweries (CUB) has produced ‘one-off’ runs of DA and KB for the discerning drinker.”
“Whatever happened to the once-ubiquitous Globite school case?” ponders Col Begg of Orange. “So good for mothers to discover last week’s lunch crusts and banana skins among the sweaty gym gear and for creating an almost impenetrable obstacle path in the bus aisle.”
Leonie Barrett’s (C8) public phone avouchment has the backing of Peter Mayes of Petersham: “Recently, my daughter fell asleep on the last train out of Sydney after a long day and evening at work. She woke up at Flemington. Her mobile was dead so no money, taxi or Uber. Thank God she was able to call me at 1am to go and fetch her. Telstra, we love you!”
“I tried to support Leonie yesterday by using my closest public telephone to call a friend,” says Brian Harris of Port Macquarie. “The only problem was, all my contacts were in my mobile phone.”
“Not a dunce cap (C8),” says Geoff Gilligan of Coogee. “But, in the late ’50s my fourth class teacher had a foot-high wooden model of a man dressed in a suit, complete with bowler hat. The head was mounted on a spindle and could do 360s. His name was Mr Swivelhead, and if you were turning around and talking to students behind you, you had to take him home and bring him back with a note from your parents acknowledging your inattention. Yes, I got him a few times. Nowadays, I’d probably just be classified as ADHD.”
“We’ve had the Victorian era, the Edwardian, Georgian and Elizabethan eras, but what era are we in now?” asks Alison Brooks of Hope Island (Qld). “Surely, not the Charleston era?”
Column8@smh.com.au
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