Everyone welcomes the new hail scale

“The herald reported Wednesday’s storm produced macadamia-sized hail,” notes Rob Cummins of Turramurra. “It struck me that we don’t have an official C8 scale for increasing hail size. My thoughts are pea, marble, macadamia, golf ball, cricket ball, grapefruit, cantaloupe and What the heck? Any other suggestions?”

Richard Cortis of Clovelly grew up in Watsons Bay in the 1950s when there were several gas works around the port. “They used coal (C8) to make town gas and coke was the leftover product. Much coke accidentally made its way into the harbor and washed up on the beaches. After school we collected cola, which burned very well, for the evening fire. On Bonfire Night, Empire Day, we always had a nice hot coke coke pan to keep us warm and light penny bungers.”

“Ah yes, I remember the Comptometer (C8) well when I was an accountant at one of what are now the Big Four accounting firms in the late 1960s,” writes Graeme Napier of Ashfield. “On an audit, the customer had one of these new computing devices and my manager instructed me to have the ‘Comp’ review the additions in a computer generated report!”

But not everyone trusted them. Geoff Genford of Hurlstone Park “was part of an audit team in the late 1960’s when we compared our computer specialist to the client’s elderly Russian accountant who used an abacus. The accountant won.”

This literally opens a can of worms. “I wonder if the brainworm (C8) started out as a catchy tune,” says Ashbury’s Peter Miniutti. “And if so, what song got it there?”

The current discussion about the name game (C8) requires some cataloging. Here’s Janita Rankin from Lakelands: “As a child, my grandmother lived alongside Lily, Rose, Poppy, Marigold and Violet. Another daughter was added later. She was called Margaret. And two of my friends from school were sisters, May and June.”

When his elderly mother reminisced with a class photo from St. Therese’s Lakemba from the 1930s, Mark Roufeil from Wollongong challenged her to name her classmates. “She leaned forward and said, ‘This is Eileen, Aileen, Kathleen, Irene, Pauline, Rayleen, Maureen, Coleen and Mary.’ The name of my mother? Doreen, of course. Irish Catholic names have a certain appeal.”

“Similar to Alan Karnowski’s Coco Kohler (C8). There was a rumor that Whoopi Goldberg was dating Peter Cushing for a while,” Warwick Burton says of Manly. “I suspect they canceled it for obvious reasons.”

Column8@smh.com.au

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