Looks like the ‘dates’ have it this week after last week’s carry-on about the palindromic dateline 02/02/2020 and the pathetically pedantic polemic on the purity of diaries, datestry and datelinery.
First to fly from the starting stalls was our beloved Rama Gaind, questioning the dately dearth of 2020’s Friday-the-13s pointing out there are only two when in a year like 2020 we could reasonably expect to suffer three.
“Friday the 13ths in February, March and November are common in a year starting on Thursday – such as 2009, 2015 or 2026” explained Rama, “or January, April and July in a leap year starting on Sunday – such as 1984, 2012 or 2040,” Rama expostulated.
“Friday, 13 March 2020 will be the first of only TWO in 2020. The second is on Friday, 13 November.”
PS-sssst! wonders how God could have got it so wrong!
Still on dates Craig L from the Victorian Department of Justice and Community Safety picked up our challenge to share examples of the carefully crafted new word ‘aptonume’ created to link events with the dates that accompanied them. Sydney’s postcode of 2000; for example matched the year it hosted the Olympics.
Craig took a more indecorous approach, declaring simply that “Blue Movie was released in ’69?”
Quite, Craig. Quite!
Provocatable or not, a fabulous PS-sssst! Prize Pack is on its way to Craig for contributing to erudition of our eclectic audience.
On a less provocative side, we should all be grateful Craig’s movie doesn’t run for 181 minutes!
Live giveaways
Staying with our redoubtable Rama now who has given away the limits around her giveaway giveaways this week, adding two more giveaways to the two giveaways she arranged to giveaway last week.
With one more week to go to enter her giveaways for the DVDs Jacob’s Ladder and The Aspern Papers, Rama has added the Melbourne Cup- related DVD Ride Like a Girl and the Lonely Planet’s Family Travel Handbook which will be drawn for lucky PS News readers in two weeks.
So to give Rama’s giveaways a go and take the chance to join her army of giveaway generals, simply visit PS News’s DVD review page at this PS News link and its Bookshop at this link and try your luck.
It’s fun, it’s free and you have to be in it to win it!
Good luck to all who do!
Happiness calls
And remaining, yet again with the remarkably remainable Rama, it’s not often a seasoned seasonal cinema writer, which she is, comes out in favour of a new film before her criticism has even been descended onto theatre-goers.
Yet blowing the trumpet for the new Australian family film – H Is For Happiness – which took to the theatres last week (6 February), Rama has reached for the adjectives ‘sincerely heart-warming’ and many more to make her case, admitting she is ‘excited’ for the picture.
The film’s cast includes Richard Roxburgh, Miriam Margolyes, Emma Booth, Joel Jackson, Deborah Mailman and Daisy Axon and is based on the award-winning book My Life As An Alphabet by Aussie author Barry Jonsberg.
Watch PS News for a proper review if (or when) Rama or our other film reviewers put it to the test.
Numbers UP!
And finally, the first official count of the PS News family for 2020 has been crunched revealing a modest, if earnest increase of 5.05 per cent in subscription numbers across the country, taking the weekly combined total of all 10 PS News subscriber lists to 214,556.
These increases, which reached just 204,220 in 2018, are led by the national Australian Public Service boasting 77,500 subscribers; with Victoria running second at 29,900; NSW third on 25,500; then Queensland 19,250; ACT 16,900; Tasmania 15,750; Western Australia 15,750; South Australia 11,000; Northern Territory, 1,500; and New Zealand just over 1,200.
While the credit for these healthy sized audiences goes to you, the audiences, PS News remains humble and modest that so many of you have continued to join up in strong numbers every year since we first hit the cyber scene in 2005.
All we can do is thank you for your loyalty, your interest and your commitment and promise to keep PS News doing its best to provide you with as much relevant, informative and interesting information as we can and always have.
And, as always, if you are receiving our emails by mistake, or don’t want to receive them any more, please let us know, because the last thing we want to do is annoy you at work or send you unwanted emails when you just want to be alone.
On the other hand if you know someone you think would benefit from a PS News subscription, let them or us know and we will add them to the list. We will have to obtain their agreement beforehand of course.
After all, it’s free, it’s No. 1 in its field, and it’s only going to get bigger, and for that we say: Thank You!
Thank You!!!
Till next week……..
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