“The ABC headline reads: ‘Singapore Airlines turbulence incident raises questions about how to stay safe when going to the bathroom,’” notes Paul Barber of Windsor. “How they keep the water in the bath would be a more interesting question.”
“To any readers inspired to try librotubicularism (C8), a word of warning,” states Jennifer Whaite of Oatley. “Reading in a warm bath, especially a bubble bath, is relaxing, soothing and sleep-inducing. Read a printed book, not your Kindle.” Ken Finlayson of East Corrimal suffered such a fate and nowadays, prefers the shower, “books are excluded from the bathroom!”
“In relation to the Vikings leaving a sword on a Norwegian farm (C8), perhaps they heard a call from God and, as in Isaiah 2:4, decided to turn their swords into ploughshares?” offers Dominic Hearne of Maroubra.
“Now there’s inflation for you!” writes Leonie Brown of North Sydney. “I remember helping my mother and father pick kerosene tins full of blackberries (C8) for 8 pence a pound in the early 1950s at Farmers Creek and selling them at South Bowenfels near Lithgow. We made enough for my mother to buy all the light fittings in our house.”
Sticking with the pickers, Alison Brooks of Hope Island (Qld) is reminded of “my first job picking raspberries during the summer holidays. We were allowed to eat all the berries we wanted. I think it was about three or four decades before I ever wanted to eat raspberries again.”
Mary Watson of Balgowlah Heights voices her concerns: “One of my sons wandered into our place recently and asked: ‘OK Google, who am I?’ The reply: ‘I think you told me, you are the big dog.’ Another son then chimed in and was told ‘You are the biggest dog’. Should I dare ask who she thinks I am?”
“Some years ago a friend loaned me some DVDs she’d bought in Bali,” recalls Phillip Boyle of Berowra Heights. “They were subtitled in several languages. One movie was spoken in English and had English subtitles. There was almost no agreement between the two. Hilarious.”
According to John Busch of Kaleen (ACT), it has its place: “While watching Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, we had the Japanese subtitles on for our daughter-in-law. We noticed that whatever Chewbacca was saying was translated into Japanese. Which Hitomi then translated into English for us. Why not subtitles in English movies?”
Column8@smh.com.au
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