COLUMN 8
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday January 1, 2010
It's a new year and we kick it off with a new mystery. "Recently we purchased a second-hand book at a local jumble sale," Cameron Berkman, of Seaforth, writes, "and concealed within its pages was a mysterious black-and-white photo of a woman lying fully clothed on a sand dune, with a beach shack in the background. On the back is written 'Rosalind Graves' and the date '6.1.1958'. The book was 50 Famous Stories for Girls and inspired by the title, and encouraged by our five-year-old daughter, we took on the challenge to try to discover where the photo was taken and whom the mystery woman might be. Is she Rosalind? Where is the shack? Did she read this book and get swept up by the tales? Inquiring minds want to know.""One more word on 'gross'," pleads Major Chris Spiegel (Retd), Royal Australian Infantry Corps, Lenah Valley, Tasmania (Column 8, for some days). "One of my favourite infantry jokes (and let's face it, if you can't laugh at the infantry, who can you laugh at?), is 'What is the definition of gross ignorance? Answer: 144 infantrymen'. I stopped asking it when too many young infantry officers asked me, 'Why 144?"'Still more on gross, from Richard Hamill, of Port Macquarie. "Fifty years ago my maths teacher would ask new classes, 'Which is more, six dozen dozen or half a dozen dozen? Invariably the response was 'They're the same'. I also have enjoyed a 100 per cent strike rate with contemporaries. Kids, however, respond with, 'What's a dozen?"'Vivienne Potter, of Gowrie, ACT, was one of several readers to point out that Ian Leslie's maths may have been awry on Wednesday (and by implication, Column 8's): "You can assure Ian that one can get from the sign at Collector to Maccas in Goulburn in 17 minutes, as long as you can manage to keep to the 110 speed limit - not always possible. Did he also notice the sign near Collector which tells us there is 'Room for all God's creatures - right next to the salad and chips'?"Further examples of the disastrous consequences of a single missing letter continue to lob, many of them unfit to print in such a demure and decorous forum. "A while ago I received a letter back from a surgeon to whom I referred a patient," Dr Ruth Ratner, of Northbridge, writes, "telling me that she was to 'have surgery to her varicose veins in the new year under my car'. He was quite a young surgeon, so I doubt that he had yet been able to acquire a car of sufficient proportions to permit surgery either in it or under it.""Joanne Piper's story about a company representative not understanding the term 'Post'," writes Christopher Jobson, of Monash, ACT, (Column 8, yesterday), reminds me of a recent incident in our office where we were having some problems with our new computer network. I remarked to the technician that 'We never had this problem with typing pools'. He looked at me with some concern and then said, seriously, 'What's a typing pool?"'Column8@smh.com.au(no attachments please).Phone 9282 2207 fax 9282 2772. (include name, suburb, daytime phone)
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