Coastal walking conditions and identity concerns reported

Sometimes it’s the fine line: “Years ago, I was minding the marquees at Martin Place selling brochures for Sculpture by the Sea,” writes Aiko Hagiwara of North Turramurra. “One young gentleman was watching me from a distance at lunchtime. Finally, he approached me and asked, ‘Are you Yoko Ono?’”

George Manojlovic of Mangerton gets the jump on us: “Is this mere coincidence, like Mal, Jono and Vic (C8)? Two items in Column 8 this week involve cryptic crossword anagrams (‘Put Berlin’ and ‘Marie Tim’). Another item extols the virtues of eating rabbit (‘Underground mutton’). Then along comes Nedra Orme with her bunya pine, an anagram of ‘a bunny pie’. What are you up to, Granny?”

More polarising AI chat (C8), this time from Ross Krippner of Bangalow: “All this talk of potentially nefarious AI super computers had me reflecting on an unsettling piece of science-fiction from years ago, wherein all the computers in the galaxy were connected as one, and the ultimate question was put to it. The question, ‘Is there a God?’, was chillingly answered, ‘There is now’. Ironically, AI was able to tell me that this was from a short story ‘written by Fredric Brown, and published in his 1954 collection, Angels and Spaceships’.”

“For the rest of us mere mortals whose entries only occasionally make publication here in Column 8, a personal AI investigation is a sobering confirmation of one’s place in the true order of things,” laments Paul Taylor of Winston Hills.

Regarding celebrity encounters (C8), Don White of Frenchs Forest was at LAX in the early 1970s on a visit to the US: “I was waiting for a payphone when the guy ahead – after fumbling in his pockets – asked me if a had a spare dime. From my handful of loose change I displayed for him, he picked one out, saying ‘Thanks, Buddy, I owe you’. After he finished his call, I noticed people rushing up to him asking for an autograph which was quietly declined. When I asked someone who he was I was told ‘Marlon Brando, of course’. I never did receive my dime back.”