A Isn't Always For Apple

Core Blimey, It's Got Four Legs, Mate

Photograph copyright: DAVID McMAHON

This shot is for Mrs Nesbitt, who invites fellow bloggers to post a photograph for a different letter of the alphabet this week. You can have a chuckle at her own post A Is For AGA. I was about to dig out images from my folder marked `Algonquin National Park', where any mug can take a great shot. Then, as I pondered a suitable ``A'' shot, I remembered this picture that I took recently.

It's a simple shot of a neon sign outside an Amcal chemist in central Melbourne. No, it's not a cropped image, prepared specially for this post - what you see is the whole frame, exactly as I shot it. And the reason I composed it this way was to show that the sign actually seemed slightly warped, for some strange reason.

But don't believe that A always stands for Apple. Good friends of ours have a lovely daughter who caused great consternation when she was at pre-school. Every time she saw a picture of a horse, she would chant, ``A for Apple.''

Er, no, said the teacher, with growing consternation each time this happened, on a regular basis. ``That's H for Horse.''

But the little girl would shake her head vehemently and declare, ``A for Apple.''

She was immovable. And each time this happened, the teacher grew more worried about her tiny pupil's grip on reality.

After a few weeks of this apparent obstinance, the teacher sent for the parents. Shifting uncomfortably in her seat and wringing her hands with concern, the teacher explained that the child seemed to be experiencing a very serious learning difficulty.

Why, asked her parents.

The teacher told them about the child's inability to recognise a horse and how she kept insisting it was an apple.The parents burst out laughing. They told the teacher not to worry. They owned a racehorse - called A for Apple.

Click here: Pentax K100D, Shutter speed 1/125, F 8, ISO speed 400.