Aunty fails the bleep test

“Language that would once have caused an attack of the vapours is now commonplace on TV but although certain words now go to air uncensored, the ABC closed captions substitute the word ‘bleep’ even though there was no bleep,” says Peter Riley of Penrith. “Are the hearing impaired considered too genteel by the ABC to handle the bleeping truth?”

Time to get to the nitty-gritty before washing our hands of the Solvol shortfall (C8). Adrian Bell of Davistown and Julie Campbell of Redfern advise that you can still get it in liquid form, although Adrian notes that it “doesn’t do the abrasive function of the soap cakes.”

If it’s the grit that counts, Richard Miller of Bywong says Solvol zealots “will find their needs met with either the evocatively named Australian made GritMitts or the perfumed Soap for Tradies.”

“After reading lamentations about unavailable items, I offer my similar experience at Woolworths,” writes Daphne Ferguson of Baulkham Hills. “When asking after a product I was informed it had been ‘de-ranged’. Beware shoppers, there must be multitudes of deranged items loitering in the aisles, or do they just appear at Halloween?”

Then there’s a product some do not miss at all: “One I haven’t seen around for some time is that foul pink concoction, Pecks Paste,” says Meri Will of Northmead. “Not to be confused with Perkins Paste, though in some ways quite similar. Missing, but not missed!” Phil Anderson of Corrimal says Peck’s Anchovy Paste is now manufactured in France and “looks like, smells like and tastes like cat’s vomit. My late uncle, who was a Peck’s product developer, would have been horrified by this.”

If the above item has caused any distress to valued contributor Brian Peck of Chatswood, we apologise unreservedly.

“I’ve noticed on my daily ramblings that the most commonly discarded items for footpath rubbish collection are old gas barbecues, electric fans, mattresses and colanders,” observes George Manojlovic of Mangerton. “Why colanders, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because BBQing can be extremely hot and tiring and very few can put up with the strain.” That one’s for you, Janet Riley.

Andrew Cohen (C8) is off the hook: “I’ve had my mouth washed out with soap (probably Sunlight, it was the sixties) and I’ve copped a kerosene drenching from a leaky cowl on a Boeing 767,” reports Col Burns of Lugarno. “Both tasted preferable to cucumbers.”

Column8@smh.com.au

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