“Adding to those interesting business names linked to towns (C8), just outside the small northern Queensland town of Banana, is a sign pointing to the ‘Banana Cemetery’,” notes Graham Carter of Eglinton. “It must be full of blackened skins.”

Geoff Maynard of Paddington has found some competing businesses conducting a turf war of sorts with the firms ‘Lawn Order’, ‘Your Grass is Mine’ and ‘Mick Cave and the Good Seeds’” . This prompted Meri Will of Baulkham Hills to wonder if they had an affiliation with the mid-north coast outfit ‘All Lorne Mowers’.

Following on from John Loveridge’s mention of the Queensland town of Termite (C8), Evan Bailey of Glebe is reminded of a recent tour of remote termite mounds in the Kimberley. “The guide explained that these particular termites were ‘not the type that ate houses’, and I guess that their diet was moderately understandable, given that the last house we had seen was about 75 km away.”

“The discussion regarding changing the name of the Cooks River reminded me of the exchange held outside one of the 1978 conclaves in Rome,” writes Pasquale Vartuli of Wahroonga. “Given that the British Cardinals had announced themselves as ‘Cardinal Blogs etc. from Stratford on Avon’, our Cardinal (James) Freeman responded: ‘Cardinal Freeman from Tempe on Cook!’”

Ron Fuller of Winmalee is unimpressed with this tabloid innuendo from between the wars: “My daughter, Phoebe Fuller, found a page from a 1928 newspaper under old linoleum she was removing at her new house in Hazelbrook. Swimmer Edna Davey had apparently just returned from the Olympics. The caption under her photo that reads ‘It is denied she, or any other Australian girls, flirted while abroad’ raises two questions, did the men have carte blanche to flirt, and have attitudes really changed that much?”

Time to wrap up the cardigan summit (C8) with the welcome return of Kate Coates of Wangi Wangi: “Yes, Mary Carde, my husband is a retired controls and automation engineer, a very softwarey undertaking. My son is a software engineer – but averse to the buttoned-up society. Thanks also to James Smith for the advice regarding the use of a cheese solution for bibbles and bobbles. However, given hubby’s dearth of cheese-making skills, let alone a handy cow, I think the easier pathway for me, as for parents of avant-garde adolescents, is ‘You’re not going out dressed like that!’”

Column8@smh.com.au

No attachments, please. Include

name, suburb and daytime phone