General News
24 August, 2022
Good for a laugh
The Loddon Herald's weekly Over the Fence column is sure to raise a laughTHE quiz has been on tables around the Loddon and provoking a bit of feedback this past week. We’ve heard from the Doc and the Vet who put in a stewards’ protest about two...
The Loddon Herald's weekly Over the Fence column is sure to raise a laugh
THE quiz has been on tables around the Loddon and provoking a bit of feedback this past week. We’ve heard from the Doc and the Vet who put in a stewards’ protest about two of our questions last week. Their medical credentials gave the stewards no choice but to uphold the protest around wording of the question talking about scurvy. As the Doc wrote: “Scurvy is caused by a lack of vitamin C and is therefore not ‘spread’, as infectious diseases are, but is acquired”.
THEN the harness racing-loving pair decided to go for the daily double with a protest on the question asking when the first Commonwealth Games were held. With a pedantic reading higher than The Oracle claiming he had read in his Funk and Wagnels that the Darling River was longer than the Murray (no evidence ever produced), Doc and Vet claimed the answer was wrong because from 1930 to 1950 it was British Empire Games, from 1954 to 1966 British Empire And Commonwealth Games, in 1970 and 1974 British Commonwealth Games and the “first” Commonwealth Games staged in 1978 in Edmonton Alberta ,Canada. The stewards deliberated long and hard on this one and in their written judgement sent buzzing along the email, said: “After specialist evidence received from ancestry.com, this appeal is dismissed (taking the precedent from British Airways while trading and evolving under different names, has marked milestones based on the formation of original entity).”
WE FEAR the Doc, who happens to blow the umpire’s whistle every Saturday may now just have ensured he has matched it with some of the more hilarious antics of his fellow “olive” chaps. And while he often trips around the countryside dispensing good medicine, there’s talk he may have to offer a diagnosis for a local quartet that has hit the long, winding and dusty roads to northern NSW this week for a field day. One, after receiving a leave pass from she who must be obeyed, described the trek as the ultimate farmers’ junket. OTF has been assured that a full report (perhaps redacted for publication purposes) may appear in our inbox upon their return.
VETERAN Loddon councillor Gavan Holt is currently enjoying time in the land of Uncle Sam, seeing part of Idaho and catching up with one of his home-town’s greatest sporting exports, Rhianon Gelsomino. Gavan popped us an email about his visit to a town called Idaho City, population a bit less than Wedderburn. There was a plaque that took his interest. It quotes the words of Senator Frank Church uttered in the town back in 1976: “It’s never too late nor are the odds ever too great to try. In that spirit the west was won, and in that spirit I now declare my candidacy for president of the United States.” Frank Forrester Church III was a politician and lawyer. A member of the Democratic Party who served as a United States senator from Idaho from 1957 until his defeat in 1981. And his bid for the top job? Started well but then withdrew for Jimmy Carter who went on the White House.
READ THE LATEST COLUMN IN THE LODDON HERALD OUT TODAY