Bad behaviour or just a pie in the sky?

“The tales of home-made weapons (C8) remind me of the mystery of the vanishing rubber gloves,” writes David Lendrum of Naremburn. “All was revealed when the local high school contacted us to report our son’s use of an offensive weapon, the glove gun! A length of conduit with the finger of a rubber glove taped to one end, bingo. Quite accurate and it also explained the disappearance of all the nuts and bolts from the Meccano set.”

“The neighbourhood boys gathered around a newly obtained air rifle,” recounts Caz Willis of Bowral. “Kid sister, ‘can I have a go?’, ‘Nah, you’re a girl.’ After several missed shots, big brother gives her a go. She blew out the streetlight. Following night, her ex-commando father and police detective neighbour have a conversation with her about the dangers of guns. Funnily enough, the brother who handed her the gun had a daughter who became a state champion rifle shooter.”

Barring delayed shock, Granny doesn’t think Geoff Gilligan of Coogee has anything to worry about. “Reading of the restored AMP building at the Quay brought back a memory of a visit after its opening in the ’60s. My brother, our cousin and I went to the viewing deck. We’d bought pies to eat. My cousin’s wasn’t to his liking so he threw it over the side of the building. Upon leaving, we checked the footpath. The pie had really made an impression after its 26-storey descent. Fortunately, no pedestrians were injured.”

Serge Nemaz of Illawong is unable to put a name to the “elephant in the room” (C8), “but I always know when he’s in my bedroom. No confusion, he has a big ‘E’ monogrammed on his pyjama pocket.” Meanwhile, Jim Dewar of Davistown won’t forget: “Refuses to introduce itself? That elephant’s got a hide!”

“On phrases, particularly ‘the elephant in the room’, may I add that very overused remark ‘at the end of the day’?” requests Brian Kidd of Mount Waverley (Vic). “That is, the night!”

While Alan Robertson of Campbell (ACT) reckons Frank Hyde’s descriptor for a rugby league ruckus “Larry Dooley” (C8) is simply the brother of one Hooley Dooley, Ron Schaffer of Bellevue Hill thinks “it’s possibly connected with noted Australian boxer Larry Foley, whose success some credit with the rise of the expression ‘Happy as Larry’. This was particularly so when he had given the other guy ‘a bit of Larry Dooley’.”

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