RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30529, 26 August 1964, Page 30

RANDOM REMINDER

TWO-WAY STRETCH

University students, the world over, are forever seeking new ways to amuse and enliven the staid old world around them. They occasionally repeat themselves; the Avon bicycle race being a prime example. But they do try to find the novel in very recent times, it is all too easy to recall people being pressed into telephone booths, and bath-tubs. Recently a student at Canterbury University whose mind should, no doubt, have been on loftier things was impressed when he tried (successfully of course) to place a newspaper advertisement after office hours with the extreme efficiency of the answering service now common to newspaper

offices. Many readers will be familiar with it the rather metallic voice asking for the name, address, telephone number (if any) of the advertiser, and details of the advertisement. The voice, of course, belongs to a woman: who else would demand such personal information, and not leave an opening for discussion? The student, perhaps a reader of Stephen Leacock’s lovely little story about the Iron Man and the Tin Woman, did his poor best to range the similar services of the two Christchurch daily newspapers one against the other. He put through a call to one of the offices, and when the automatic •nswerlng service went In

to operation, he had a tape recorder working to receive the very automatic voice. With this ammunition, he telephoned the other newspaper office, and when the cross-examination began, he played back his tape. The resulting and somewhat pointless conversation was, of course, taped, and fed back at the appropriate time to the first office. Not. perhaps, the joke of the century. But if our information is correct, it brought about a puzzled frown or two In Cathedral square and Kilmore street; and no doubt, a girlish giggle or two. And there is nothing like a girlish giggle to start the day off Properly. Particularly on a Monday morning.