General News

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28415, 23 October 1957, Page 12

General News

Consolation Cocktail

Mr Carl Dudley, head of a cinerama film unit which arrived in Auckland yesterday brought a new cocktail recipe with him called a “Sputnik” cocktail. He said: “They told me when I had to do a trip back to America recently that they had a new cocktail in Washington. It’s the sputnik cocktail—vodka and sour grapes.”— (P.A.) £6OOO Mistake The wrong label on 13oz of tomato seed cost the Government £6OOO. This was revealed in the House of Representatives last night when the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Nash) queried an item of £6OOO on the supplementary financial estimates of the Department of Agriculture. The Minister of Finance (Mr J. T. Watts) said a departmental worker had been obviously at fault. The seed had been incorrectly labelled. Compensation of growers who had used the seed cost £6OOO. Mr Nash: And this cost £6000? Mr Watts: Yes. The seed grew square tomatoes instead of round ones, or something like that.—(P.A.) Long-Range Cooking One Lyttelton housewife yesterday solved the problem of preparing a hot meal despite the failure of the Lyttelton gas supply. She arranged for her father-in-law in Sumner to drive her to his home where she cooked the meal and returned to Lyttelton to serve her family their first hot meal for several days. £5OO To Move Pole The Ellerslie Borough Council got a shock recently when it learnt that it would cost at least £5OO to move a pole at the Harp of Erin, even though the Post and Telegraph Department would nave to contribute half the cost. Alteration of the lights themselves would cost £127, the council was told, and the removal was recommended of a large telegraph pole on the western side of the intersection opposite the main light. This pole carries cable junctions and all the toll lines to Hamilton. The council decided to make the alterations “subject to finance being available.” Antarctic Eclipse Even in the nightless summer of Antarctica explorers and scientists there will lose sight of part of the sun today. For a moment at 6 p.m. (New Zealand Time) the sun will be fully covered by the! moon if it were viewed from a small area of the Norwegian territory of Queen Maud Land. No-I one is likely to be in that region for the nearest I.G.Y. station is at the Norwegian base many miles away. At Cape Town, the nearest! city to that area, more than half the sun will be obscured and a partial phase of the eclipse will be observed over the rest of Antarctica. New Zealanders, except at Scott Base and in the tractor train trekking towards the South Pole, are not likely to notice the eclipse. At Dunedin, only a 6 per cent, arc will be nipped off the side of the sun this evening. “Boss’s” Church In certain towns and communities in New Zealand, especially in those built around a single industry. the church was labelled “the boss’s church or the engineer’s or foreman’s church’’ and, because of that the rank and file did not attend, said the Very Rev. J. M. McKenzie, the retiring Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, at the opening service of its General Assembly in St. Paul’s Church last evening. The roots of the problem lay “in , political and class conscious considerations. It is there and we must face it as an unbridged gap,” said Mr McKenzie. New High School Site After a discussion in committee last evening, the Post-primary Schools’ Council reported that it was making a recommendation to the Education Department about a site for a new high school to| serve the north and north-east suburbs of Christchurch. Island Tomatoes The shipment of 7500 boxes of tomatoes by the Waitemata, which left Rarotonga on Saturday night, brought total exports of tomatoes from the Cook Islands this year to 102.000 boxes. This is a record. Unfavourable weather led to much of the early season crop being lost and most growers replanted heavily for the second half of the season to recoup their losses although past experience has been that prices late in the season are not always good. It is expected that the export season will close with a further substantial shipment in about two weeks. —Rarotonga, October 22. House Sold For £4050 A seven-roomed wooden house on a little more than a quarteracre section in Mansfield avenue, St. Albans, was sold for £4050 at an auction in Christchurch yesterday. The house was offered on account of the Hobbs estate. Bidding opened at £3OOO and rose by seven bids of £lOO and seven bids of £5O. Health Stamps Lyttelton Sea Scouts sold £27 worth of Health stamps in their canvass of Lyttelton households on Saturday. This brought the value of stamps sold by scouts in the Christchurch district in this year’s campaign to £l7OB 8s lid. They have beaten their effort last year by £ 14. Petalomera Crab A crab, found recently at Te Awanga. has been identified by the Dominion Museum authorities as a petalomera crab. Its finding, according to the museum’s senior scientific officer (Mr R. K. Dell), is a new record for New Zealand. (P.A.) PHILLIPS ELECTRIC FANS Light and c impact Plastic Blades. Will hang on wall or stand on base. Priced at 69s 6d. Postage Is 6d. MASON STRUTHERS and CO.

LTD., Colombo street. Telephone 65-079. —Advt.