The Spring horseracing season has arrived and to spring into the swing of things, one of PS-sssst!’s favourite ‘Phillies’ has saddled up a bite or two of horsey humour to give us a rails run for a laugh or two.
Occasional joke jockey Philomena S of the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services has dug deep into her saddlebags for these lengths of equine entertainment, straight, she might say, from the horse’s mouth.
From Philomena:
“A horse walks into a bar one day. The bartender says: ‘Hey’. The horse says: ‘You read my mind!’
And then:
“A racehorse owner takes his best horse to the vet and waits anxiously while he is being examined. Once the vet has finished, the owner asks him: ‘Will I be able to race him again?’ The vet replies: ‘Of course! And you’ll probably beat him too’.”
Thanks Philomena. Who can stay serious for-long, with such witticisms in the straight?
Sinking the jargonaut
To one single line in a featured PS News article this week which sole-heartedly characterises why mere mortals like you and I are mere mortals and the Einsteinian genius Albert Einstein has a brain ablaze with brilliance.
Extolling the wisdom of keeping our words and sentences simple when communicating with our simple-minded workmates, contributor Judith d’Silva engages the wisdom of Mr/Dr/Professor Einstein to help deliver her message that simplicity is the key when it comes to straight talk.
Setting her sights on the sins of loquacity, verbosity and prolix in the public sector, Ms d’Silva compares the modern usage of such diaphanous descriptions as the shifty ‘paradigm shift’, the size-challenged ‘dimensionalise’ and the uncoordinated ‘facilitate coordination’ to quote Einstein’s advice to KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid!
“As Albert Einstein said,” Ms d’Silva writes, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”.
How authoritatively, unquestionably and appropriately true!
The full text of Ms d’Silva’s wise writing can be accessed at this PS News link.
Giving the house away
To Rama’s regular giveaway now in which every reader of PS News has the chance to win one of three copies of the landmark book The House by Helen Pitt, chronicling as it does the birth and life of the spectacular Sydney Opera House.
To be among the winners in our ‘House’ Rama needed only to know the answer to her right regal quiz question: Who officially opened the Sydney Opera House?
The correct response was Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II and the lucky readers who had it right and whose entries managed to emerge from the PS News Barrel of Booty in the first three were Judith B from the State Library of Queensland, Darren R from the Department of Defence and Linda P from the Federal Department of Social Services.
Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to everyone for taking part The books will be racing to their new homes very shortly.
For another chance for perennial immortality as a popular and pampered PS News prizewinner, simply follow this link to take your chance.
Good luck!
Going up!
And finally, another round of welcomes and congratulations to PS News readers around the country with six of the nation’s nine Public Services recording record subscriber numbers during September.
Highest achievers were NSW and WA with their subscriber lists passing the 27,000 and 13,000 marks for the first time with NSW settling on 27,396 at the end of the month and WA 13,114.
Also in line for commendations were the APS (72,871), Victoria (26,617), Queensland (16,449), South Australia (9,422) and Northern Territory (1,076) who each reached new heights of subscriberhood.
Special mention to the NT which broke its record by one single solitary new subscriber during the month and to our looming 200K total milestone which is less than 3,000 new subs away at 197,150.
As always if, for any reason you no longer want to be on one of our lists, or if you know someone who doesn’t, please let us know so we can remove you or them and keep the lists as accurate as possible.
In the meantime, please accept our undying thanks for being such a loyal and dedicated audience for the past 12 years and our pledge to keep up the good work for at least the next 12.
Until next week….
