Column 8
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday June 12, 2008
Yesterday's query, "How many passengers in major airline disasters have been saved by life jackets?", brings this from Dash Hall, of Vaucluse: "Pan Am flew Boeing's Strato-Clipper, a double-deck aircraft, across the Pacific in the early 1950s. Unfortunately it lost two aircraft when they had to ditch in the ocean between San Francisco and Hawaii. I believe it was the US Coast Guard that picked up all members of the crews and passengers, all wearing airline-issue life jackets."
David Whyle, of New Farm, you may have stumbled upon a work of genius without realising it. "I was shopping for handkerchiefs (I'm not a tissue person) in a major department store when I noticed 'Teflon coated' silk ties. Why? I'm not a tie person at all, so maybe the subtleties of this Teflon coating business escape me. Frying pans - yes. But ties?" Ask anyone who's spilt gravy on a tie."Good one, Richard Cobden, on the 'flight product'," applauds Geoff Lewis, of Raglan (Column 8, Tuesday). "Another linguistic atrocity I heard the other week on ABC Radio National's By Design program was 'a dialogue platform'. The perpetrator was discussing a garden seat." Geoff, you can't be serious. Can you ...? Readers are flocking to the defence of Mrs Phenella Phlagette, whose archaic English contribution last week was attacked by Dennis Biggins in Tuesday's column. Kate Patterson, of Wetherill Park, sets the tone: "My family and I were very upset today at breakfast when we read Column 8. Mrs Phlagette has been a wonderfully entertaining contributor to you over the years, and we all enjoyed her old English piece. Now you print an item from this other person who was very rude and unkind about Mrs Phlagette, and we feel really let down that you can be so nasty to someone." Ingo Weinberger, of Campsie, is a "second paper on the pile" Herald buyer (Column 8, Tuesday). "I always take the second copy, especially on Mondays after twice getting a copy with The Guide missing. Only a dedicated couch potato would stoop to filching it. My only consolation was that he/she is the type who watches daytime TV." "The Hobart City Council is doing some redevelopment on the Sandy Bay Beach foreshore," we are informed by David Carr, of thereabouts. "A notice in the Mercury today advises: 'As this area is a construction site, please adhere to the signs in place restricting pedestrian movement.' I thought that masses of pedestrians and ratepayers firmly stuck to the signs would in fact be a hazard to the workers involved. Even if people were devoted to the signs, or held them firmly and close to each other, it still could interfere with the work in progress." We come to bury Columate, not to praise him. "Last in the last at last start," we are cruelly reminded by J. Alice Hofler, of Dee Why, after Monday's fiasco. "Surely, that should be the last we hear of him." Quite.Column8@smh.com.au(no attachments please).Phone 9282 2207 fax 9282 2772. (include name, suburb, daytime phone)
© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald