Reporter’s Diary

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33790, 12 March 1975, Page 3

Reporter’s Diary

Camera obscura THE wooden tent parked under a tree in Cathedral Square is really a giant camera, its designer said yesterday. Or at least it will be when it is completed next week. Not a conventional camera, but a camera obscura in which a large lens in the apex will project the image of the sky, clouds and aerial objects, on to a low table on the floor. Mr Larance Shustak, a lecturer at the School of Fine Arts, invites the public to help art students give the construction its finishing touches at noon today. It is to be painted a deep ruby red inside, and covered with a reflective surface outside, trimmed in such a way as to create a “South Sea Islands effect.” After the Arts Festival, the structure will be given to a Christchurch school for use in the playground. Mir corridor’

A CITY Council “building permit” is expected today for another piece of sculpture to grace the Square during the Arts Festival. It is the big inflated “air corridor” designed by another fine arts lecturer, Mr Martin Mendelsberg, and pictured populated by clergymen on the front page of “The Press” on Monday. Mr Mendelsberg said vesterday that he had submitted his plans and specifications to the council and was now awaiting permission to allow people to walk through it. “The council was a bit baffled,” he said. ““I have to make some • 6ft incisions for emergency ingress and

egress. No, it won’t collapse. It can take quite a few rips and tears before it falls down as long as the fan keeps going.”

Colourful language “THESE ladies have been working like niggers,” said a speaker introducing a display of handiwork in Christchurch yesterday. No-one else seemed to cringe at the word, said our reporter, who was astounded to hear such an expression in 1975.. I.D. cards ALL members of the staff at Queen Elizabeth II Park would be photographed and issued with identity cards, said the park manager, Mr R. E. J. Goulden, yesterday. This decision was prompted’ by his recent experience when a volunteer gate-manner did not recognise him. Mr Goulden said he would not like anyone to think he had been trying to get into the event for nothing —on the occasion mentioned he had arrived with an official visitor from Sydney to show him around the complex. “If I’m attending some event at the park I always pay for myself and my. family,” he said. Mistake PREPARATIONS were put in hand to repel hordes of angry Judy Garland fans yesterday after a mistaken reference to Shirley Temple having been the star of “The Wizard of Oz.” Of course Judy Garland was the moppet in that film classic. Lost pen-pal A MALAYSIAN’S arrival in Christchurch yesterday should have been the high point in a long history of penfriendshin—but he has forgotten the address of

his pen-pal. Captain (Tommy) Ng Seng Yok, who comes from Muar Johore, is public relations officer for a Malaysian contingent of 140 officers and men here for exercises with the New Zealand Army. Captain Ng found the name of a Christchurch girl in a pen-pal magazine when they were both about 16, and they corresponded for many years. Captain Ng is now married, with four children, and his pen-pal is married too — to a farmer. Her maiden name was Margaret CaverhilL But they haven’t written for seven or eight years, and Captain Ng lost her address when he last moved house. Now that he finds himself in Christchurch at last, he is keen to meet her and her family. Not fair A YOUNG woman was refused a drink in a Christchurch hotel a couple of days ago—not because she appeared to be under-age, but because she was not wearing a tie. Her shortcropped hairstyle (brought hack from the United States) combined with an open-necked shirt led the barman into an error which also serves to illuminate an area of sexual discrimination. For some reason the licensed trade in New Zealand feels that the male neckline should be decently hidden, in lounge bars at least, while female chests can be blithely exposed. Special knowledge

A HAND-WRITTEN letter from a ratepaver caused the Lyttelton Town Clerk (Mr J. Ewing) some trouble on Monday evening. He couldn’t read the writing. But the Mayor of Lyttelton (Mr J. B. Collett) came to his rescue with a fluent translation. “It’s handy to have a chemist on the council,” said a grateful Mr Ewing. “He’s used to reading doctors’ handwriting.”