From the PS News international section comes the delightful story of the newly-elected President of Myanmar (formerly Burma) who has showered his public servants with a swag of positive promises including an assurance of a reasonable retirements as they get older and payrises of up to 20 per cent before then to pave the way.
Having been skyrocketed into Government by his people just a few weeks ago, the bright new President looks to have won the hearts and minds of his PS as well as his population.
And should there be any doubt as to why?
None whatsoever when one notices the new President delights in the positively joyful name ‘U Win’ Myint.
And ‘U Winner’ Mr Myint looks like he’ll be!
Identity theft?
From the positive to the positively not now in the form of a report of an alleged naughty person being caught at Melbourne airport attempting to sneak an illegal substance onto an aeroplane.
The Australian Federal Police described the event with the customary constabulary clarity – i.e.: “A 37-year-old man faced court today after being caught at Melbourne Airport for attempting to transport half a kilogram of methamphetamine while travelling under a false name.”
Clear and clean as one would expect from the police.
But the AFP’s less meticulous media minions were not-so-surgical in their version of the report, opening it with a headline that created another interesting but different, story of its own.
“Man caught smuggling ice under false name”, was the heading that greeted the public, prompting a rush of scratched heads and raised eyebrows as the mystery arose of how it was now the drug that assumed the false name instead of the perpetrator.
PS-sssst! wonders what name ‘ice’ would have chosen for itself if it was unhappy with ‘methamphetamine’.
Heading south
Delightful note received this week from Amanda R-B of NSW Health, commenting kindly on the parade of puns or horror-house of headlines (take your pick) PS News has been inflicting on its readers for the past 12 years.
“Dear PS News,” Amanda began, “ … immunisation week gets a shot in the arm? Telescope upgrade is far sighted? Rare pine branches out to Canada?”
“You can’t make this stuff up,” she said.
Sorry to surprise you Amanda, but we do actually make that stuff up.
After a lifetime of service in the public service the powers behind the PS News newsroom reckon there’s a place for levity in the otherwise unleavened PS and we’ve taken it on as our mission to supply it.
Amanda wasn’t complaining – “Love your work btw” – and went on to ask the 64,000 book prize question: “Do you take submissions?”
The answer is: We’d love to!
So if anyone thinks they can outpun our punsters; outwit our nitwits or overdo our doodlers, be our guests.
A fabulous book prizes to anyone who comes up with an alternative headline for a PS News story or article that the judges judge good enough to publish.
There’s nothing deader than an old news story so keep your suggestions to stories or articles in the current edition and send them to [email protected] to arrive the Monday following publication.
So get cracking. Our first book prize is already on its way to Amanda to say thanks for the idea.
Dog’s day giveaway
To Rama Gaind’s weekly giveaway now in which three lucky readers will become the proud owners of the family fun DVD A Doggone Adventure.
To be among Rama’s winners, all you needed to do was identify how many instalments of ‘Doggone’ there have been and then have your correct entry scrape out of the infamous PS News Barrel of Booty as one of the first three.
The lucky readers who identified ‘3’ as the number of instalments were Kerrie G from the ACT Small Agencies HR Forum, Christine C from the NSW Department of Family and Community Services and Kevin G from icare NSW.
Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to everyone for joining in the fun. The DVDs will be on their way to their new homes shortly.
For another chance to join the winners’ ring, simply follow this link to this week’s giveaway.
Cooking up a milestone
And finally, for the large and loyal army of PS News readers who eagerly lap up Christine Salins’s weekly recipe in our ‘Dining for Busy People’ section, are you in for a treat next week!
Christine has calculated that next week’s recipe will be her 500th for PS News and she is working up a special offering to mark the occasion.
“I think this is a fantastic achievement,” the internationally acclaimed food/wine/travel writer declared.
”I plan to make it a bit special.”
So now we know.
Be sure to turn to Christine’s contribution next week and celebrate the occasion with her and if you’d like to see what’s been attracting all the interest for the past 499 weeks, her latest dining suggestion can be accessed right now at this PS News link.
Till next week…….
