“No doubt Anne Cook (C8) would be concerned about the continued ‘mud slinging’ at Boomers (the generation, not the basketball team),” writes Brad Campbell of Redfern. “I noted a recent headline in the Herald, ‘Spending the inheritance’. It is a phrase I’ve had directed at me previously. My response then is the same now. ‘It’s my hard-earned savings. It’s not an inheritance until I’m dead. And thank you, I’m feeling fine’.”

Our friend Mark Berg of Caringbah South has fessed up to his role in the Rolling Stones/Who (C8) gaffe with the reasonable excuse that he was only three years old at the time, “and now I’m too old to remember anything with any degree of accuracy!”

“Of course the lyric ‘Hope I die before I get old’ does not apply to Sir Michael and Keef. But Pete probably regrets the lyric, while Keith [Moon] is the only member of the band to fulfil the sentiment, at 32,” writes Robert Hosking of Paddington. “I despair for my generation, when aged confusion can apply to their memory. At least they didn’t claim it for the Beatles!”

“Speaking of quirky demonyms (C8), my friend lives in the picturesque town of Darawank,” claims Sue Casiglia of North Ryde. “What does that make her?” Glenda Taylor from “the perfect village of Stanwell Tops” recalls that locals “were delighted when the late Rex Jackson pointed his finger at us in a neighbourhood meeting and called us ‘you Topians’. We now call ourselves ‘Utopians’.”

And as we look to wrap up the demonym discussion, Granny has a question that readers will no doubt have an answer to: Is “Nauruan” is the only demonym that is a palindrome? Talk among yourselves.

Toni Lorentzen’s story of her father’s acuity test (C8) reminded Ian McNeilly of Darlinghurst of “my wife Ardsley’s experience when being interviewed by an Australia Post employee for a citizenship application. Ardsley is a US citizen, and was asked why she wished to become Australian. She answered ‘Well, there is George W. Bush’. The Australia Post employee answered back, ‘But we have Howard’.”

In reaching new heights regarding district enhancement (C8), Derek Hodgkins of Newtown recalls that “A friend of mine insisted for years he didn’t live in Redfern, but Far South West Woollahra.”

“I too, lived at Erko Heights,” declares Nick Walker of Suffolk Park. “It must have been at least five metres above Erko Valley.”

Column8@smh.com.au

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