Another reason now to trade the English language in on something we can actually understand, courtesy of the Western Australian Department of Premier and Cabinet.
Admirably, but unintentionally misguidedly, the Department announced that a brand new ‘Roadmap” had been developed mapping out the whereabouts of the restrictions imposed on the WA community due to the nasty COVID-19 pandemic crisis.
“The phased approach allowed the Government to carefully monitor COVID-19 in the State and ease restrictions in a way that supported the economy with the smallest risk to the community’s health,” the Department announced breathlessly.
But the ever-pedantic PS-sssst! noted that the claim the new roadmap would “carefully ease COVID-19 restrictions around the State …..” could mean it might not have any WA roads in it after all.
As any annoying juvenile junior studying aggravating English would explain, ‘around the state’ means outside the state, in particular, on the other side of the state boundary.
Of course this wasn’t the Department’s intention – but try telling the English language that!
Bearing all!
Time now for PS News to point the fickle finger of faux pas at itself after climbing a tree with a native animal last week and making a scape-stooge of itself.
Choosing as its popular Talking Point for the week the care with which Australia protects its endangered koalas, PS News’s highly talented headline honcho elected to head the line: “The bear facts: Should we be doing more to save our koalas?”
Unsurprisingly, Australia’s army of koala connoisseurs took to the web waves pointing out that their paramour pet was not a ‘bear’ but a marsupial.
“This article would have more credibility without using a bear reference”’ was the commonest comment.
And the best the guilty parties could come up with when castigated was they would ‘bare the bear blunder’.
One senses a tone of indifference in their atonement!
Overcommissioned?
A quick question now: When is a Commissioner not a Commissioner?
Answer: When she is two Commissioners!
This reality became real this week when the Federal Government’s Australian Information Commissioner and Privacy Commissioner (one person) linked up with a Commissioner from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (also one person) to advance work on something called the ‘Consumer Data Right’ which is due to come into effect in July this year.
The Commissioners released a new policy which was reported in PS News, with one line starting: “The two Commissioners said …….”
But, according to PS-sssst! (who can count!), there were three!
Giving it away!
To Rama Gaind’s weekly giveaway of goodies now in which this week’s attraction is a free copy of the literary crime novel Torched, set most dramatically in a Victorian bushfire by author Kimberley Starr.
To become famous the sole and only winner of Torched needed only to answer simply Rama’s quiz question: ‘What the name of the school in the Yarra Valley town that was devastated by a bushfire?’
The answer was Reefton Primary School and the first correct entry to escape from the PS News Barrel of Booty to claim the book belonged to Suzanna A of the Australian Border Force.
Congratulations Suzanna and thanks to everyone who took part. The book will be on its way to its new owner very soon.
In the meantime, Rama remains on the search for other winners – for her latest free DVD at this link and another DVD prize at this link.
Good luck to all who take her on!
Readers’ delight
And finally, congratulations to the discerning readers of the Western Australian edition of PS News who set a new 2020 national record for tuning in to a single story earlier this month.
The story, about the Crime Commission finding misconduct in the public sector, attracted 26 per cent of the State’s 13,544 subscribers, making it percentage-wise the most popular report published so far this year.
And as we all know, records are made to be broken so watch this space to see who can outgun the wise, wise west!
Till next week….
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