By MALCOLM ANDREWS
ONE of the earliest of the 32 book I have had published over almost four decades was one in which I had a bit of fun about the mistakes of others.
It was called Great Aussie Stuffupps. And, yes, that is spelled with a double P thanks to a suggestion from my friend Bill Mitchell, one of the greatest cartoonist in Australia’s history, who was involved in five of my tomes but was sadly taken from us at an early age.
The anecdotes included one about a burglar who broke into a jewellery craftsman’s studio.
When caught short mid-robbery he spied a bucket of clear liquid in the corner, and proceeded to do a Number Two in the bucket.
The subsequent splash left his backside and several other parts of his anatomy badly disfigured.
It wasn’t water into which he had defecated, but highly corrosive hydrochloric acid.
Oh, the pain of it all!
The book sold so well – except, I suspect to the fellow in question – that the publisher demanded a second volume immediately.
I am thinking of bringing out an updated version in the not-too-distant future.
Perhaps, a story of mine may make it into the upcoming edition.
Not that I am to blame, I should add.
Last week I wrote a story about the death of former Australian Test captain Greg Pierce.
I searched into my finger cabinet to find a picture of Pierce.
The grainy old black and white shot was hardly Pulitzer- winning material.
Quite the opposite!
But one of my colleagues at Brighouse Towers in Yorkshire managed to find a sharp, full-colour shot titled “Greg Pierce”.
And when it appeared on Monday morning in this esteemed newspaper, the first of the emails started zipping through the internet.
Nice photo! Wrong Greg Peirce!
Instead of the ex-Aussie skipper Greg Peirce who made 210 senior appearances for the Cronulla Sharks, it was of a journeyman Greg Pierce who played just four matches for Cronulla ten years later.
The readers emailed or phoned me because my byline was on the story.
I plead ‘not guilty’, M’Lud!
Whichever colleague at Brighouse Towers who discovered this other Greg Pierce must have been young.
For, when the Australian captain and 1973 and 1978 Kangaroo tourist was playing, newspapers never used colour photographs.
Colour transparencies, which were used back then, were far too expensive to transpose for a mere newspaper.
Only glossy magazines use them.
Ah, how far we have come!
Last week a Sydney television newsreader was caught out by what is known as a spoonerism, named after the Rev W A Spooner, who was a learned history professor at Oxford University for 60 years until his death in 1930.
Regularly, in lectures, his tongue had trouble connecting with his brain.
He was known to remonstrate with students who would skip lectures:
“Stop hissing my mystery lessons. You have tasted two worms.?”
Then there was the moment during World War I when he assured his students: “When our boys come home from France, we will have the hugs flung out.”
As you would.
Last week the spoonerism referred to Saturday’s Federal Election.
Breakfast television newsreader Talitha Cummins was talking about a speech by our Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
The script called for the words “big pitch” but poor Talitha;s tongue decided otherwise: “Malcolm Turnbull is making his pig bitch.”
Oh, really!
Never mind, she and my Yorkshire colleague can rest easy.
My great friend, the renowned American physicist and pledge of Albert Einstein, the late Professor Julius Sumner Miller, was wont to tell me: “Andrews, he who never makes a mistake, makes nothing!
There is hope for us all yet.
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