Swing from the chandelier

With the pressure on the cost of living mounting, Sutton Forest’s James Wall was “delighted to see that Bunnings is now offering a price guarantee on its chandelier installation service”. Whether you can then afford to actually put the bulbs in, let alone turn them on, is another question.

“Oh, red rubber bands can survive a lot more than a two-minute zap (C8) in the microwave, Joan!” says Pauline McGinley of Drummoyne. “Mine came camouflaged in some rhubarb and came out unscathed after 30 minutes on the stove.”

On the subject of concealment (C8): When Richard Jary of Waitara was a civilian contractor at UNTAC in Cambodia in 1992, “he had a beer with a man who worked in the UN petty cash register. He told us someone had come in with a request for $300 for a “metal introducer.” When asked what that was, he replied: ‘A hammer’.”

Orange’s Darryl West thinks that John Brown’s description of a spade (C8) has been oversimplified. “I remember them as ‘drop-forged, machine-turned, wooden, hand-operated, pedal-operated earth inverting and redistributing unit with metal blades and wood. Luckily I worked for the NSW Department of Education where this type of description was not required but encouraged.”

Meanwhile, Bellevue Hill’s Ian Roache was taught that a spade (C8) “is a ferrous blade attached to an igneous staff, with which the rustic Swain turns over the sod”.

St Clair’s Stein Boddington stumbled upon the Murputja Aṉangu School website last month and “liked the motto of this small Aboriginal school (C8): ‘Strong, Smart, Courageous and Rikina’. Rikina is the Pitjantjatjara word for ‘great’.”

Reading about Geoff Nilon’s father’s sudden move from the Army to the Navy (C8), Anne Prins of Kambah (ACT) recalled a similar experience her father had. “My father, Lex Brooks, was almost done with six weeks of basic training when the sergeant major walked into the room and asked anyone who could do math to raise their hands. About six did so and were promptly informed that they were being released. They asked why math skills warranted a layoff, to be informed: ‘You guys are going into the Air Force to be navigators!’”

One of life’s mysteries is pondered by Stewart Copper of Maroubra. “What’s it like walking through a spider web and separating it from adjacent bushes that the next day it’s working again? Does the little guy climb down with the loose end and scramble up the adjacent bush to reattach it?”

Column8@smh.com.au