Paul Taylor of Winston Hills detects a conflict of interest: “I think the spike in the number of porcupine/echidna recipes of late is merely a cunning ploy by Granny to promote her culinary sideline. A quick online search reveals a recipe for Homemade Meat Hedgehog with Italian Recipes on a Facebook page entitled Granny’s Homestyle Cooking and Recipes.”

“Band-Aids? Surely, nothing is worse than a pair of scissors packaged in hard plastic that can’t be opened (C8) without … a pair of scissors?” We thank Eric Scott of Bondi Junction and Vicki Brownless of South Maroota, who’s also feeling a bit snippy.

Geoff Carey of Pagewood wondered about this one for openers: “How about the cruelty of arthritis medication in a childproof bottle?”

“I just want to remind us all of the astonishingly fine margins in elite racing,” writes Kate Coates of Wangi Wangi. “Lachlan Kennedy was pipped into second place in the Commonwealth Games 100m sprint by 0.02 seconds. That’s 20 milliseconds. An average human eye takes between 100 and 400 milliseconds to blink. He was beaten by less than a blink of an eye! Far less!”

Merilyn McClung of Forestville was watching and thinks “it’s nice to see that technology hasn’t overtaken the humble, yet reliable, safety pin in holding on the track and field athletes’ number bibs. Invented in 1849, it has certainly stood the test of time.”

While we think he’s courting controversy, Jeffrey Huang of Roseville was curious that lawyerly couple Peter Berman (C8) and wife chose to attend a trial in Oslo where “we did not understand a word”, which prompted “the obvious question ‘why?’ and made one wonder what mind-numbing outings others would partake in when travelling overseas for pleasure. Watching the Finland Independence Day handshaking ceremony broadcast does come to mind.”

“Now that we know the nationwide emergency alert system (C8) is a thing, perhaps RBA Governor Michele Bullock can put it to good use every other Tuesday arvo,” suggests Jack Dikian of Mosman.

David McKay of Blaxland crunches the numbers: “With all this Odyssey talk, don’t forget that a millihelen is the amount of beauty needed to launch one ship.”

“How’s this for making you feel old?” offers George Zivkovic of Northmead: “I heard an ad for a competition on the radio that said you could enter via their app or ‘the old school way’ of using their website.”

Column8@smh.com.au

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