“The Iced VoVo mechanic (C8) doesn’t annoy me as much as the Old Gold TV commercial, inferring that an English chocolate company invented MacRobertson’s Old Gold chocolate,” protests Geoff Carey of Pagewood. “On a side note, back in the ’60s, MacRobertson’s had a fire in their Chippendale warehouse. Granny may remember smelling the burnt chocolate in the air from her old Broadway office for days. Smoke-damaged cartons were dumped in the backstreet ready for the tip. Overnight, the pile mysteriously shrank. Go figure!”
Mickey Pragnell of Kiama feels a bit dark about it, too: “If I hear about ‘McRob, the founder of Old Gold’ one more time…”
Concerns from Dave Williams about the mechanic’s dog tucking in are unfounded, according to Lance Rainey of Armidale: “That’s no kelpie under the car in the ad, Dave, it’s a blue heeler – a Queensland Tricolour to be precise – but, yes, they also have voracious appetites but are very obedient. So, the biscuits are probably safe, unless one is offered, of course.”
There may be another explanation. Daniel Low of Pymble elucidates: “It’s the dog whose brain is switched on. He makes no attempt to take a biscuit because the Iced VoVos of today are revolting.”
Carole Dawes of Randwick “can’t beat Seppo Ranki’s food expiry dates (C8), but I do have a bottle of Mercurochrome which expired in June 2010. Oh, those heady days of the 1960s when Mercurochrome was on everyone’s knees and elbows. Fortunately, it’s one-third full, and given that it is no longer available anywhere, I’m hoping it will last me to the end (I’m 68).”
“We didn’t have use-by dates for most of my life,” says Brian Keast of Minnamurra. “So last Christmas, when I found an 18-year-old packet of dried fruit for a cake, I explained to the family that the Arabs dried their fruit with no use-by dates, and then went ahead and baked the cake. It looked great, although most agreed it tasted like an 18-year-old cake.”
“Having recently returned home after seven weeks in hospital due to a fractured pelvis, I was instructed to monitor my blood pressure daily,” writes Robert Christie of Cleveland (Qld). “What with warfare, flooding, famine, and the apparent popularity of One Nation, I didn’t expect such serene results. I can only put it down to the demise of Kyle Sandilands and ‘whatshername’.”
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