What goes around, comes around

October 26, 2026 — 9:00pm“On Friday I hopped on the train to Parramatta, taking my trusty copy of the Herald to read on board,” reports Gail Grogan of Toongabbie. “It was awkward folding the pages, so I took out the Good Food Guide and tucked it beside me on the seat. Whether it was the distraction of seeing that I’d been published in Letters, I disembarked without picking up the insert. Ran my errands, jumped on a train at Parramatta to return home. Guess what? I boarded the same train, carriage, seat, how did I know? The Good Food Guide was sitting in the same spot where I’d left it!”“A gentleman described as a ‘Luddenham resident’ was pictured in Saturday’s Herald holding a sign objecting to the Badgerys Creek airport,” notes Allen Dodd of Kirribilli. “Could he be a born-again Luddite?” “All this talk of exams (C8) took me back to my final days at school before sitting the HSC in 1972,” writes John Boast of Hunters Hill. “Our maths teacher tried (and failed) to help us relax about our exam results by telling us that he was certain we would all receive the marks we deserved. Yikes!”Robyn Hansen of Pennant Hills recalls that “a colleague of my husband was in an oral exam when they were medical students and was asked ‘can you tell me what that building is?’ as he looked out the window, he replied ‘The Anderson Stuart Building, Sir’, the reply was ‘Very good, I just wanted you to get one question right’.” Serge Nemaz of Illawong has no time for all this bull: “‘Why doesn’t a bull shark have horns?’ asked John Swanton (C8). The answer is simple, bull sharks don’t need horns because everything gives way to them or steers clear of them when they are coming through. They also don’t need to flash their headlights.”“In 1970 in Bondi an engineering post-grad mate never shopped without his circular slide rule (C8),” says Michael Britt of MacMasters Beach. “To reduce prices to per unit, in the days when that wasn’t compulsory.” “Warren Howlett (C8) has opened a can of worms with his mention of strange cricket terminology,” reckons Alan Marel of North Curl Curl. “Someone could bowl a cherry that is a peach, and you don’t want to get me started on bowling a maiden over, being a good slipper, or having a short silly leg.“Column8@smh.com.auNo attachments, please.Include name, suburb and daytime phone.More:Column 8OpinionFor subscribersSharksHSCTrainsTest cricketThe Sydney Morning HeraldWestern Sydney InternationalFrom our partners