Reporter’s Diary

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33776, 24 February 1975, Page 2

Reporter’s Diary

Quicker liquor

WHOLESALE liquor stores can now fill a customer’s minimum legal order with only two bottles. Customers must buy two gallons of liquor if they shop at wholesalers, and they usually make up the amount by buying 12 assorted bottles of wines, spirits, and ales. Now they can do it by buying two one-gallon bottles of Scotch or bourbon. Dahlia show

GARDENERS will beat a path to the Horticultural Society Hall on Wednesday for the opening of the two-day dahlia and earlyflowering chrysanthemum show. As well as the locally grown varieties, they will see dahlias from Britain and the Continent,

and commercial exhibits from the North Island. The society's Dahlia Circle will have a special table of recommended varieties available in Christchurch. All the chrysanthemums on show can be grown locally, too. More tender varieties will appear at the main chrysanthemum show later in the year. Faultless

A BOTTLE of champagne and a plate of caviar supplied by room service at 3 o’clock in the morning has earned the Dorchester Hotel, London, the diploma of the Committee of European Excellence. The order arrived in 10 minutes, with the champagne at correct temperature and the caviar in perfect conditition, said members of the committee who stayed anonymously at the hotel. The committee was formed to recognise quality, creativitiy, and excellence in all fields. “Altogether we could not fault the Dorchester,” it said.

Dolly Club THERE is no Playboy Club in Lyttelton, but they do have an exclusive organisation called the Dolly Club. Its members are drawn from all walks of life. To qualify you have to strike a dolly — one of those dummy capstans that stand quietly on the wharf waiting to put dents into unsuspecting cars. Can’t sleep

THE Marchioness of Reading is claiming £250 ($440) over a squeak in her four poster bed. She says that the firm which moved her furniture into her new London house should pay to have carpenters eliminate the squeak. The workmen could not get the bed up the staircase, and it wouldn’t go through the window, so on an expert cabinetmaker’s advice they sawed the bed in half, moved it into the Marchioness’s bedroom, then dowelled it together again, “we advised the Marchioness against it,”

said a spokesman for the moving company, "but she insisted on it going into that particular room.”

“ZzZZg”

THE ROYAL round is not to be envied. Kings and ?ueens tramp from one ormal event to another, doing their best to look interested. But sometimes they nod. Miss Deborah Cranko, who has just returned from working in Tonga for Volunteer Service Abroad, was one of a very puzzled audience at a school-building opening ceremony attended by the King of Tonga. An elderly spinster of high birth had done a ceremonial dance and prostrated herself at the King’s feet, offering him first sip at the bowl of kava. The audience waited and waited, but the maiden didn’t move, and neither did the king. It turned out later that the King had fallen asleep, and the maiden was waiting for him to wake up — encouraging him by whispering urgently, “psst Pssst.”