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Peter Riley of Penrith writes: “We keep hearing that AI is going to make humanity extinct, so I asked AI if C8 is also doomed. It replied ‘Nothing is truly permanent, but Column 8 is as close to immortal as Australian journalism gets. Getting a snippet published by Granny is a major life milestone. It creates an intensely loyal micro-community within the SMH Opinion section. The newspaper would face open revolt from its core subscriber base if they ever tried to axe it.’ So there. AI wouldn’t fib, would it?”
While it’s time to move on from encounters with the Bee Gees (C8), there are other celebrities stepping up, and for Jeff Stewart of Huskisson, the encounter might’ve altered the course of popular music: “On a flight from Hong Kong to Colombo I was seated behind a woolly-headed individual who had his feet on the bulkhead and was jiggling and dancing around in a most disturbing fashion. My tray table was attached to his seat, and I was trying to work. I gave him a decent go but couldn’t manage any longer so tapped him on the shoulder and firmly but politely requested he stop. This he did and with apologies. It was only then that I noticed Yoko Ono seated across the aisle. And, yes, the ‘woolly-headed’ one was John Lennon. Who knows what new Beatles song I may have disturbed!” If it’s the track Flying, you’re off the hook.
Tom Meakin of Port Macquarie’s experience was a historic affair: “My mother once shared a cupboard with John Profumo while playing hide and seek.”
For Sue Hoad of Merewether, high school German (C8) “came in handy 30 years later on a 36-hour bus ride with Turkish guest workers returning to their jobs in Germany. Not a word of English – ‘Is this stop 10 minutes for the loo?’ ‘An hour for dinner?’ ‘Crossing the border to Greece?’ Saved!”
“The German experience matches my Japanese efforts,” admits Brian Byrne of Flinders. “After a tortuous term at Wagga Wagga TAFE, my only remaining scrap of this language allows me to tell any Japanese visitor that ‘My hotel is red’.”
“I reckon Pauline (C8) would welcome an influx of southern right whales,” offers John Perry of Newtown. “As for the rest, they’d probably give her the hump (and the blues) and if she did achieve anything it would be a fluke.”
Column8@smh.com.au
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