“Mickey Pragnell (C8) should be grateful his mother-in-law can still see subtitles (C8) on the TV screen,” thinks Colleen Burke of Drummoyne. “I was subjected to my mother talking about how well Federer was playing. She was watching lawn bowls.”

“Why not subtitles in English?” asks John Crowe of Cherrybrook. “Particularly, when the BBC goes north to Tyneside.” Michael Milston of Orange adds that “my love of Scottish noir has me immediately seeking the ‘subby’ option. Shetland comes to mind.”

There appears to be a continuing train of thought that the ABC’s Stuff the British Stole (C8) should simply be Stuff the British, with Jim Dewar of Davistown suggesting it all lies in “the show’s subtext”, but we also like the viewpoint of Alan Popely of North Dandalup (WA): “I still think the ABC should have named the program Stuff the British Won’t Return.”

It’s not all negative for Blighty, as Gara Baldwin of Randwick points out: “Britain has many Bottoms (C8). I grew up near Pratt’s Bottom in Kent, and some of my favourites are Scratchy Bottom, Owlesbury Bottom, Honey Bottom, Green Bottom and Jolly’s Bottom.”

Now, some interesting plaque (C8) politesse from Ron Inglis of Strathfield: “The description of Prince Harry as ‘a grandson of Queen Elizabeth II’ has nothing to do with royal family rifts, but is in line with long-standing Anzac tradition that no dignitary may take any honour away from those soldiers honoured by the memorial. When the Anzac Memorial was opened in 1934, the stone unveiled by the Duke of Gloucester said ‘Unveiled by a son of the King’. The foundation stone unveiled by the governor of NSW says ‘Unveiled by an officer of the Great War’.”

Ian Aldridge of Goulburn submits another variation on the continuing librocubicularism (C8) discourse: “Someone who does crossword puzzles in bed would be a cruciverbacubicularist.”

“The nine-letter solution to the Target puzzle in Thursday’s print edition suggests a name change for the Libs under Dutton,” reckons Seppo Ranki of Glenhaven. “The Illiberal Party.”

“Leonie Brown (C8) and her family’s honest enterprise in picking all those tins of blackberries in the 1950s is to be admired,” says Evan Bailey of Glebe. “But Bill Bailey sometimes found that unfortunately, other pickers ‘accidentally’ mixed in the odd Farmers Creek stone in the bottom of the kerosene tins before they were weighed. Such scallywags were thus caught purple-handed.”

Column8@smh.com.au

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