RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31143, 20 August 1966, Page 46

RANDOM REMINDER

TIME MACHINERY

There’s nothing, a correspondent says, quite like getting a letter posted tomorrow asking you to have something done by the end of last month. His letter was from a Government department in Wellington, and he received it on August 2; it was postmarked 3.8.66 and it asked him to send his comments on an enclosure by the end of July “if possible." Perhaps we are out of touch with modern developments, for this communication has something in common with an advertisement in' the “New Zealand Herald” announcing a cruise on the good ship Canberra which will leave Auckland on July 1, 1967. Those with the time and £6OO to spare can sail on

it, have about a month on the continent and return on the Orcades, reaching Auckland on October 28, 1867. So, without consulting us, they have been inventing time machines. But a word of warning. They couldn’t sail into Auckland on the Orcades in 1867. Does this explain the mystery of the Marie Celeste? Or does the Ancient Manner sit at the captain’s table? Another disappointing feature of the arrangements—the timing seems a little thoughtless, for South Island passengers. They would get back to Christchurch nearly three months too late for the unveiling of the Godley statue and three weeks after the opening of the railway line to Selwyn. On the other hand, they would

have something to look forward to, such a* the release of the sparrows and starlings at Auckland on November 23: which is when the Mangere business really started.

South-bound passenger* from Auckland after the cruise would be well advised not to book on the Caroline. That was wrecked at Oatnaru on November 26. But Canterbury people would get home, by tome other means, in time for the opening of the Lyttelton tunnel on December 9. And the Otago contingent would no doubt make it home for December 10, which was when the Caledonians began to be effete. That was the day the Mayor of Dunedin turned on the town’s water supply and they started to spoil the whisky.