Reporter’s Diary

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33774, 21 February 1975, Page 3

Reporter’s Diary

Shaky islands

VIOLENT eruptions of ash and lava blocks from Mount Ngauruhoe send nervous people racing to the scientific literature — but there’s little comfort there. The. type of eruption that Ngauruhoe is noted for is the kind that has ejected from 3000 to 5000 cubic miles of rhyolitic rock from the Rotorua-Tgupo district in the past, according to an Auckland vulcanologist, Professor E. J. Searle, writing in “New Zealand: The Physical Environment.” That was enough material to cover all of New Zealand to a depth of more than 200 feet. In prehistoric times, he says, such violent eruptions must have been “among the grandest cataclysms to affect the earth.” And the future? “The probability of future eruptions from Taupo and the Rotorua area is so great.as to be a virtual certainty,” says Professor Searle, “but whether within the next century or the next thousand years, no-one can predict.” Cage wanted A CITY advertising agency is preparing a television commercial with an old-

fashioned setting inhabited by a little old lady. The setting calls for an ornate old birdcage — not for the old bird, but for a parrot, of which the agency has several on call. Efforts to obtain an antique cage in Christchurch have so far proved fruitless, and anyone who has one hidden in the attic will get a grateful reception from Mr Dave Sigglekow at telephone 60-293. Wordsmiths

AN international essay competition organised by Radio Japan is offering four winners an eight-day trip to Japan. Contestants can write in any one of 21 different languages, the length of the essay depending upon the inherent wordiness of the chosen script. Linfortunateiy if you hanpen not to live near an airport used by Japan Air Lines you must buy yourself a return ticket to your nearest J.A.L. airport — Sydney for us. New. Zealanders write a 500-word essay but have to turn stowaway to claim their prize. If you are Japanese the essay is 1300 characters long. If you are Portuguese it is 600 words and no planes; and if you write in Swahili it is 800 words and still no planes. Best bet seems to be to write from England, where it is only 500 words and a good long flight from Heathrow.

Full circle GETTING enough money in to pay your own bills is a well-known vicious circle in the business world today. One Christchurch firm has put the problem into words on a note it sends out with its account: “Please pay us, So we can pay them, So they can pay you.”

Blank next time OBSERVERS of the maritime scene say it has become accepted at Lyttelton that the girls who ply their trade in ports should be allowed to stay aboard ship without being harried by the authorities. It’s tidier that way, and they often provide other amenities such as washing out the sailors’ socks. One ship’s master who holds his telescope to his blind eye when the girls troop aboard does lay down some rules of his own. One is that they keep out of his way. So when he came out of his cabin one day recently to find one of the crew’s comforts prowling around his quarters, he had a stern word with the bo’sun. Next time he saw the girl she was sporting a black eye. Primary growth PRIMARY schoolteachers are going from strength to strength. The New Zealand Educational Institute, which represents the country's 20.000 State primary teachers, has just moved

into its new multi-million dollar office building in Willis Street, Wellington. Owned by the teachers themselves, it rises to 14 storeys—right alongside a slightly smaller 10-floor block also owned by the N.Z.E.I. From the top floor of the new building, the primary teachers’ representatives look down on the Post-Primary Teachers’ Association, which owns an elderly three-storey block nearby. Request declined SINCE the printing of the telephone number of Mrs Jennifer Parker, the Christchurch tea-lady running the petition to save “The South Tonight,” her telephone has hardly stopped ringing. “It rang from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m.,” said Mrs Parker, “and I think I’ve heard from every drunk in town.” One who said he was ringing from a room at a hotel was most insistent that Mrs Parker bring the petition along to his room for him to sign. “Of course I didn’t go,” she said. Silent army MIDDLE - AGED chap watching the Territorial Army band in the Square yesterday: "My regiment didn’t have a band.” His neighbour: “Oh? Which regiment was that?” Returned chap, furtively: “The Royal Canterbury Deserters.”