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“Recent discussions on the purchase of second-hand AUKUS submarines (C8) reminded me of the cautionary tale of when the (renamed) HMAS Kanimbla and HMAS Manoora were purchased by Australia in 1994,” remembers Natasha Lee of Alexandria. “Navy friends had dubbed the latter vessel ‘HMAS Manure’ as that is what they felt the USA had sold us.”
“Tales of car redeployment (C8) remind me of a story my father told me from much earlier days,” writes Ron Burke of Arrawarra. “A horse and sulky standing quietly outside a house with a picket fence was the target of some local larrikins. The horse was quickly unharnessed from the sulky, and the shafts thrust through the fence. The horse then walked through the gate and was re-harnessed to the sulky on the other side of the fence. My memory fails me as to the result of the prank.”
Ross MacPherson of Seaforth notes that “David Greatorex tells us of a car at Sydney University magically transported into the dining room at his college, Wesley. Across the road at St Andrew’s a favourite prank in the 1970s was to enter a student’s room and, after having removed every stick of furniture and fitting, transplant the lot perfectly in the same position into the middle of the oval, illuminated by metres of extension cords. The poor student, arriving back from the pub to find his home transported elsewhere, usually chose to spend the night in situ. The next day the perpetrators always put the room back where it belonged.”
Hills Hoist (C8) fancier Aidan Cuddington of Umina Beach wonders if “perhaps Richard Branson of Engadine’s more famous namesake could follow his lead in promoting climate-friendly technology?”
In light of the recent commentary on the presidential building boom (C8), here’s Tony Early of North Turramurra: “Don Leayr questions the US president’s possible erection problem. His latest health check mightn’t have extended to his much more visible Edifice Complex.” Richard Murnane of Hornsby and Duncan McRobert of Hawks Nest were thinking the same thing.
“Yes, Judith Campbell, I remember cloth nappies (C8) very well,” says Josephine Hill of Blackwall. “We had three little darlings in the early 1970s and cloth nappies were still the go. They were so worn by the third baby and no money for new ones that I had to stitch two together to be absorbent enough. Oh, the memories of that damned smelly nappy bucket!”
Column8@smh.com.au
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