Con Vaitsas of Ashbury lives in “one of those streets of Ashbury that is inundated every December with huge crowds of people walking about looking at all the houses with Christmas lights, in an almost carnival atmosphere with ice-cream vans and police at times having to direct traffic. This year, thanks to COVID-19, I’ve hardly seen anyone apart from a few last weekend. I wonder if other places popular with Christmas lights are experiencing the same.”
Apropos of the discussion of meteorological “events” (C8), Terry Lavis of Coogee believes that “storm events” sounds far more serious. “You don’t have a storm event in a teacup, do you?” Peter Nunan of Dareton offers up “‘rain rejection’ (a term dreamed up by a public servant), which often follows a ‘rain event’. Put simply, rain rejection is a fancy term for reduced irrigation following one of the aforementioned ‘events’.”
While listening to the 7am news bulletin on Radio National last week, Les Brennan of Newcastle East swears he “heard the newsreader say that ‘more unpredictable storms (C8) have been predicted for next year’.”
“I would have thought a heart ‘episode’ was more colloquial than an ‘event’ (C8),” writes Don Bain of Port Macquarie. “It sounds less alarming than an ‘attack’, unless it arrives as the first of a series, with weekly episodes to come.”
Dave Horsfall of North Gosford reports that “as every season-watcher and druid knows (which one are you, Dave? – Granny), Monday, December 21, is the summer solstice i.e. the longest day of the year and hence the start of summer. The Sun cares nothing about mere human calendars.” Happy solstice everyone, may you make the most of the light today.
