I was always careful when placing the drying poles in their holders outside the kitchen windows of our flat. When you are nine floors up there us no room for error. I dropped a pole draped in a sheet once and it landed on the washing poles of the flat below. We went downstairs, apologised and collected our sheet and pole.

Your physics lessons as a child certainly had an incentive to get it right… concrete. Colliding and then bouncing off the concrete could have provided a lesson on kinetic or potential energy I guess.

Presently in Singapore one must cover the pole holders with a cap so that rain water does not collect within and inadvertently create a breeding environment for the Aedes mosquitoes that spread the dengue fever virus.

Cheers, John.

My great regret is that my daughters will never acquire the skill of knowing when to let go of the Hills Hoist at various velocities; so as not to fall on the various cemented sections amongst the grass of the classic Ausi urban back yard.

Now that was applied physics