Continuing C8’s tales of trails of ants,Alison Stewart of Waitara would like to add,“We’ve had ants climbing up/down the wall of our 6th floor apartment balcony for several weeks now. They are there all days – rain,hail or shine. What does this mean?” C8 just hopes that Noah isn’t reading this.
In other wildlife news,Joy Cooksey of Harrington would like to put in a word for “the large arachnid that has a large circular curtain of web,draped from a tree across to the roof of my house. S/he has to be admired for skill and perseverance as s/he continually carries out repair-work during the recent wild weather.”
Rosamund Turkington of Rockdale spins another spider story,reporting:“On going to a rubbish bin outside under a light last week,I found that an enterprising spider had spun a web as a lid over the entire top of the bin and was waiting for prey. (I didn’t have the heart to break the beautiful construction and used the bin beside it instead.)”
For larger animals,Murray Hutton of Mount Colah would like Peter Miniutti (C8,Thursday) to consider that the coyote is not a stupid animal:“How many Australian natives can you name who have the wherewithal to order all kinds of paraphernalia from the ACME Company?”
Then,the cynical Roger Lenehan of Eagle Heights (Qld) adds,“Having driven many hundreds of thousands of miles in my lifetime,I think the stupidest animal on the road,in so many cases,is the Human.”
Onto a different subject:last Friday’s Target word,ytterbium. This has brought a flurry of protesting letters in numbers not seen since the great “spikenard” kerfuffle of 2003. Writers barely,grudgingly even,accepted ytterbium but queried the pronunciation,so C8 would like to direct them to the great Tom Lehrer and his song of the Elements set to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan’sModel of a Modern Major General,where you will find that it is “it-TUR-bee-um”,related to the only other Y element,yttrium (it-REE-um),both named for the otherwise-unremarkable Swedish village of Ytterby.
Back to another matter literary,the personal rites of C8 reading. Lindsay Somerville of Lindfield says,“I always read Column 8 from top to bottom then try and recall each item. Only when that’s done do I try to recall each item in reverse. Having up to 10 items is a supreme test that I frequently take some time to conquer.”
Column8@smh.com.au
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