RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31112, 15 July 1966, Page 22

RANDOM REMINDER

WITH A HEY, NON-O NOT NONNY-NO

We lire sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings for Mr Fardell, and the Christchurch Transport Board, but he and they may as well face the facts now, instead of learning the bitter truth later, when it will be too late to stop the Non-0 movement and the full dread effect it is going to have on their works. Some of the inspectors might get bit parts in Bond films but there will be all those out-of-work drivers. . . . Living up Memorial avenue, near the vast and handsome acres of Burnside park, is a businessman whose regular habit it is to catch a bus to work in the morning, in company with perhaps a dozen other men, all of them known to him. At his office, there is a very active Non-0 cell. Non-O is self-explanatory if the term ia looked at as a

symbol, or rather if the O is given particular attention. The O is the usual shape of middle-aged businessmen. And the Non-O folk are those who boast to each other about how many miles they have run and how many pounds of blubbery fat they have removed. Our man in Memorial avenue, in self-defence, has joined the Non-O’s and has added his quota to the office discussions on stoic self-denial and murderous mileage. He has become so involved that he now has to do something to cover his non-existent tracks and he has just about talked his fellow bus travellers into doing a bit of running before the bus comes along. They are all busy executives and haven’t the time to do a full run and get back and shower. They plan a gentle jog round Burnside

park, after getting ready for work then all together on the bus. After a while, the whole lot—bowler hats, umbrellas, satchels and all—will run one stop further down the road, and then two stops or three. The only real purpose of this note is to warn other and more rational residents of the startling developments likely to take place shortly: and, of course, to let Mr Fardell know. He might retaliate by shifting the stops and increasing the distance between them, so he can pick up a few stragglers. But, you say, the Transport Board doesn’t even operate up Memorial avenue? Perhaps not: but the runners will soon be travelling far down Fendalton road and with the spread of the Non-0 cult, they will be coming from everywhere. And it will be all right as long as the O’s become I’s and not—'a.