"Interesting to see a couple of days ago that the Australian Agricultural Company (AACo) claims that an establishment date of 1824 makes it the oldest company in Australia," writes David Sallows of Ormiston (Qld). "Whatever happened to the Bank of NSW (now Westpac) from 1817? Seems to me that AACo has its archival records a bit muddled? Maybe the Man from Cherrybrook (C8) could elucidate on that? After all, he worked for that venerable institution, did he not?" Yes. And it might get him off Richard Stewart's back.

"In this modern day and age, I suppose the first cuckoo of spring is heralded by a tweet," says Max F. Horton of Clarence Park (SA).

The recent recollections of universal keys have opened (ahem) a can of worms and appear to go beyond the humble Beetle. Peter Thompson, that other Man from Cherrybrook, remembers that when he was an apprentice mechanic in 1975 "one of the apprentices had a brand new Holden Sandman panel van, and another apprentice 'stole' it with his EJ 1964 key." Shirley Beaver of Goonellabah writes: "Way back in the 1960s in England, I returned to my parked blue Austin A40, unlocked the door, started the motor - and then realised that the handbag on the passenger seat wasn't mine. Mine was three spaces down!"

Moving along now with a rather measured contribution from Col Shephard of Yamba. "A private school advertised its acreage in Saturday's Herald, which is a bit of a worry. Surely, the school knows about the 'relatively recently introduced' (sic) metric system and isn't teaching its students about imperial measurements."

"Viv Munter (C8), I believe you can find elbow grease in the same aisle in the supermarket where you would find toe jam and belly button cheese," says Peter Miniutti of Ashbury.