UNDERSTANDING AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH
McKenzie, Ian (lulu.com, July 2012, ISBN 9781105912054)
A few years ago, I bought a sheet of melamine at Bunnings Warehouse. I asked the lumber handyman if he could cut it into quarters for me.
“Sure,” he said. Continue reading
SECONDHAND SMOKE EXPOSURE AND CARDIOVASCULAR EFFECTS
Committee on Secondhand Smoke Exposure and Acute Coronary Events (National Academies Press, February 2010, ISBN 9780309138390)
The backroom at La Casetta lived under a haze of smoke. No fan whipped it into turbulence. No window let it escape. Instead, from opening to closing, it hung in unmoving bands like the smog over a miniature city with skyscrapers of stacked pizza boxes. I liked to imagine Remo, the manager, nailing up the ‘no smoking’ sign while smoking a cigarette.
The drivers smoked on one side of the room while they waited for orders to come in. The receptionists smoked on the other next to the telephones. A long stretch without orders had caught me in the crossfire of their combined output. By the time the call came in, I’d wheezed through a nicotine cloud for twenty minutes. I didn’t know it then, but at that moment a receptionist listened to a tenacious customer explaining the importance of delivering disposable cutlery with his meal. Continue reading
MANAGING THE HUMAN FACTOR IN INFORMATION SECURITY
Lacey, David (Wiley, 2009, ISBN 9780470721995)
I buzz into the supermarket’s parking lot at six in the morning.
From there, I can already hear the klaxon. Inside the store, it sounds like a fire drill on the morning of a hangover. Continue reading