Reporter’s Diary

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33753, 28 January 1975, Page 3

Reporter’s Diary

Crime prevention PARK security was alert at the New Zealand Games closing ceremony, Mr Peter Austin, honorary consul in Christchurch for Finland, had lent the Finnish team the consulate’s flag to be flown on the stadium perimeter. To make sure that no-one “liberated” it on the last day, he sent his son, Guy, aged 14, to collect it after the lowering ceremony. But as soon as Guy got his hands on the flag he was grabbed by a security official and marched off for interrogation at security headquarters. But they didn’t have to use any of their ways of making people talk. He explained, they believed him, and he took the flag home to dad. Ifide awake

WHILE the Governor* General (Sir Denis Blundell) was making his official opening speech at Queen Elizabeth II Park on Wednesday evening, a parcel was ominously ticking in a room underneath the stadium. A startled security guard heard the distinct “tick, tick, tick, tick” coming from a parcel on a table when he was

checking a room used by cleaners down in the bowels of the building. He knew what that meant. He called up the chief guard on his radio, and within minutes the basement was swarming with policemen. The parcel ticked on — but just as the Army’s bomb disposal squad was about to leave for the park with all their equipment, a cleaner turned up and claimed the parcel. He planned to take a nap between shifts, he explained, and the ticking came from an alarm clock which would wake him up in time to start cleaning again. The only other thing in the parcel was his lunch. Cars and tveather CYCLONES and bathwater going round one way in the Northern Hemisphere and the opposite way in the Southern Hemisphere may sound like just a funny quirk of nature — but a group of American scientists say we should regard the matter seriously. They claim that Americans, by driving on the right-hand side of the road, are causing tornadoes. Northern Hemisphere tornadoes turn anti-clockwise, and the scientists say that the opposing streams of traffic driving on the right twist the atmosphere the same way. And “down under” in Australia and New Zealand, if the traffic was

as thick as it is in America, cars driving on the left would do the same. Conflict “ITCHY” has written disputing our reason for people saying “God bless the Duke of Argyll” when they scratch their backs on a corner of a building. Our information was that a Duke of Argyll had provided posts for an itchy old horse, and that his estate workers gratefully used them too. But “Itchy” says a more commonly accepted version is that it was an early Duke of Argyll who caused milestones to be erected along the highways. “Thus the traveller could tell how far he had progressed on his journey, and at the same time scratch his back. It was while enjoying this fringe benfit that he would call on the Deity to bless the duke.” (Our version, however, is supported by Brewer’s “Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.”) Costs in China SALARY scales for workers in Chinese industry, both rural and urban, are coming down, according to a Hong Kong tour leader quoted in the Bank of America’s Asian office news-sheet. He says China's young technicians and engineers are now satisfied with a salary of from $5O to $6O a month, compared with the $lO5 a month that an engineer would have expected

before the Cultural Revolution. Rent for single workers in urban areas now costs only 6c a month, electricity and water cost next to nothing, food costs on average $4.25 a month for one person, and medical service is free. Rent for a couple with one child costs 85c to $1.25 a month, primary schooling costs $2.50 a year, and secondary schooling $3.40 a year. University education is free. Sutch case FRIENDS of Dr W. B. Sutch are collecting money towards the cost of his defence against the charge brought under the Official Secrets Act. Dr Sutch, a former Secretary of Industries and Commerce, stands trial next month accused of obtaining, for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State, “information which was calculated to be or might be, or was intended to be, directly or indirectly useful to an enemy.” Now the Sutch Defence Committee is seeking contributions to a trust fund to help fight the charge. Mr Wolfgang Rosenberg, one of the trustees, said yesterday that there had been a fairly good response so far, although he could not say how much money was in the fund. The committee wants the Official Secrets Act and Security Intelligence Service Act repealed, and some of the money will finance a campaign to that end.