Reporter’s Diary

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33712, 9 December 1974, Page 3

Reporter’s Diary

Check to banking OUR bank says that the cheque book situation should be back to normal by the holidays. To satisfy the computer, cheques these days have individual account numbers printed in magnetic ink, but the only printer of such cheques in the South Island has been having all sorts of difficulties with production. Consequently bank branches have been putting the customers’ numbers into the cheque books themselves, which has been holding up banking quite a bit. Some have had to order back-up supplies from the only North Island printer of these cheques, but one or two banks have stolen a march on their competitors —they have their own special printing facilities.

Bad egg SOMEONE with a mischievous sense of humour has chosen Rotorua as the place for the International Clean Air Conference on February 17. In that city’s unmistakable "rotten eggs” atmosphere, the delegates’ minds should never wander from the subject. Mistress Mine “THE TIMES” of London has discovered what must be the ultimate in male chauvinist piggishness. In its December 3 issue it reproduces a small early painting by Delacroix, now on show in a London gallery, called “The Duke of Orleans Showing His Mistress to the Duke of Burgundy.” The painting shows one young duke sitting cross-legged on the pillow of a four-poster and holding up the sheet to display his prize possession to an obviously approving friend. Gone East RECESSIONS and rumours of recessions do not seem

to have affected the travel plans of those who can afford trips abroad. Figures from Hong Kong show that the number of visitors from Australia and New Zealand has jumped by 24.5 per cent for the first nine months of this year compared with the same nine months last year. They numbered 10,866 in September this year alone. Most would have been Australians, but a travel agent tells us that the number of Christchurch people travelling to Hong Kong is definitely growing. The ordinary air fare is a whopping $9OO return, but low cost packages bring it down to a more manageable $6OO. And as our agent pointed out, that is only $lOO more than a package holiday in Fiji, which has already established itself as the winter playground of the city's well-to-do. Force field RESIDENTS of Prebbleton and Lansdowne should be advised that high voltage

electric cables—the sort which the Electricity Department is trailing around the country—can cause live creatures to become brutal murderers, regicides and suicides. This is the finding of Professor Geza Altmann of the Zoology Department of the University of the Saar, West Germany, who has discovered in tests with 16,000 bees that when they come within the magnetic field near high tension electricity they begin to panic. They sting their comrades to death, they murder their leaders, and then knock themselves off by sealing off their little homes and slowly asphyxiating. Now Professor Altmann wants research to be done on the effects of nearby overhead wires on human health and mental balance. Political truths SOME of the most cherished traditions of politicians are coming under attack. In the United

States a bill has been passed, requiring the Government not to be so secretive—in spite of President Ford’s attempt to veto the bill. And in Australia the Opposition has tried to force through a motion requiring Ministers to tel! the truth, not only in Parliament, but also when talking to the news media. This ludicrous motion met the fate it deserved; it was defeated in the House of Representatives by 60 votes to 51. Keep her busy QUITE a common thing among pensioners at this time of year is to find a temporary job to supplement the pension for Christmas. An old chap of 93 was sitting in the public bar the other day looking through the “Situations Vacant.” Someone asked if he was after a job. "Yes,” he replied, as he poured a gin into his beer, "but it's not for me, it’s for the wife.”