Slipping in a banana game

“Seeing bananas with signs saying they are 100 per cent Australian made me wonder what alternatives there might be,” writes Minto’s Sue Threlfall. “Are producers importing banana pulp from overseas and packing it in locally made trays for sale? Or maybe locally grown banana pulp is sent abroad, where it is packaged in trays by lower-paid workers and then shipped back to Australia to be sold.”

John Moyse of Dora Creek is also curious about certain sales pitches at the grocery store: “There’s a product on sale called cold-pressed raw milk. I wonder what traumatic process the cow might go through to produce this milk.”

“As someone who works in the optics industry, I would like to assure your correspondent that while the top line of the eye chart (C8) is actually at least ten times smaller than any traffic sign, it is also at least ten times closer. explains Brett Jack of Bonnyrigg Heights. “As for covering each eye to check vision, I suggest he walk around the local shops with one eye closed and then imagine what it would be like if he were driving on one side with no peripheral vision. Not with my car!”

Mary Grocott, of Barraba, says her 84-year-old husband has no choice about how he looks at the eye chart: “He only has one eye.”

The faculty informed Granny that Glyn Bradford (C8) was a clear exception when it came to teaching without a tie: “Glyn, you were lucky,” says Warren Menteith from Bali. “In 1967 I was teaching physics at Moree High. I had to come and go to work the usual way: suit shorts, stockings, proper shoes, collared shirt, tie, and put on gym gear for class. To add insult to injury, I would teach when a teacher was absent. More variety! In the Moree summer it’s quite a bummer as you don’t have time to shower.”

The same year that Peter Floyd, from Mullumbimby, was teaching in Sydney, he was “wearing the mandatory coat and tie when the headmaster reprimanded me for wearing desert boots instead of black shoes.” Years later, I stopped wearing ties when mine caught fire over a Bunsen burner while being rented.”

Russell Hill of Hobart recalls: “When bus drivers in Sydney were made to wear ties, no one said they should be worn around the neck; So they used them to hold up their pants.”

Column8@smh.com.au

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