Apologies and congratulations at the same time now to reader ‘X’ from an unnamed Department of Agriculture somewhere in Australia (“I have a pretty distinctive first name and I’d prefer to remain anonymous” he, she or it confessed).
Firstly the apology from PS-ssssst! for taking so long to acknowledge X’s contribution and second congratulations to him (or her!) for his (or her) sharp-eyed observation of the sort of quirky quonundrum PS-sssst! and its phone-box of followers find enticing.
“While on the subject of words” X asked – which we weren’t but we are now, PS-sssst! added!
“Why do ‘hardly’ and ‘softly’ mean pretty much the same thing?”
That’s a hard one, X.
Will throw it to open to our brilliant, erudite and much read readership for a possible answer.
Suggestions (or explanations) to [email protected] where a popular PS-sssst! Pack (i.e. a light-up pen and PS News T-Shirt) awaits the best contribution(s).
Just such a Pack is on its way to Mr (or Ms) X.
Fine form
A mild stroke of PS nostalgia last week with PS News running a story about a team of form designers from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet conducting a Forum on Forms, aimed at raising the standard of forms design in the Public Service.
It may have been some generations ago, but today’s pencil pusher at PS-sssst! (that’s me!) was lured to the capital that is Canberra from the metropolis of Melbourne in the mid 1970s to fill a position of Forms Designer at the long-since-sunk Department of the Navy.
To know that there are still forms lovers beavering away in the public sector after all these years in the face of the all-embracing solutions of a formless cyberscene makes at least one old man very happy.
But as they say so often the classics of the modern day: “May the Forms Be With You!”
Pillow talk
To our Waste of Time file now in which the unlikely is likely to be found and the unbelievable just that.
The latest entry is a report of a middle-aged worker in a furniture factory losing his footing and falling into the upholstery machine.
The good news is he’s fully recovered.
Puzzle solved
Our weekly visit to Rama Gaind’s not-so-weakly weekly giveaway now in which readers have the chance to win free copies of the enthralling rite-of-passage novel Wedding Puzzle by Sallie Muirden, simply by nominating the Victorian high school the book’s heroine, Beth, attended.
The answer was Mornington Grammar and the first three correct entrants whose entries emerged from the infamous PS News Barrel of Booty were Kasandra K from the Federal Department of the Environment and Energy, Cherry H from Queensland Fire and Emergency Services and Elizabeth P from the NSW Department of Finance, Services and Innovation.
Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to everyone who took part. The books will be on their way to their new owners very soon, along with a popular PS-sssst! Pack, comprising a PS News light-up pen and exclusive PS News T-shirt.
In the meantime, for another chance to join Rama’s Army of Winning Warriors simply follow this link to this week’s giveaway and give it your best shot.
It’s free and easy and you have to be in it to win it.
Good luck!
Growing, growing…
And finally, a turn of the month august welcome to the 1,576 new subscribers who chose to join the PS News subscriber list in July, taking their place in the wise community of informed, entertained and erudite PS News readers whose working interest in the public sector is to be applauded.
As has been the case for the past 14 years, PS News pledges to keep sharing its news and information about the public sector for as long as there’s an audience and with that audience measured in the tens of thousands, it looks like we’ll be here for a while yet.
Welcome aboard to everyone who joined in July.
Till next week……
