Reporter's Diary

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33883, 1 July 1975, Page 3

Reporter's Diary

Joined the club MR J. D. L. RICHARDS’ appointment as headmaster of a girls’ school — Woodford House in Havelock North — qualifies him for membership of a small but growing club. At least six Church of England girls’ schools in New Zealand now have male principals, and the signs are that there are more to come. St Mary’s Roman Catholic school in Christchurch has announced that it will be seeking a new headmistress — or headmaster. Craighead in Timaru has Mr T. Jackson as headmaster. Marsden Collegiate in Wellington has the Rev G. H. Clark, Nga- ; tawa in Wellington has Mr D. J. R. Cooke, St Mary’s in Stratford has the Rev D. Tonkin, and St • Mathews in Masterton has . the Rev E. M. Dashfield. ’ But it's a one-way street: no boys’ high schools have headmistresses yet.

Home appliance THE DAY of the multipurpose home computer, which will do anything from letter-writing to composing music — all for the price of the family car — has almost arrived, according to British scientists. Mr George Coulouris, a London University specialist in low-cost applications of computers, says that within only five years the public will be able to buy a minicomputer with a wide selection of programmes, rather like records, to suit whatever task they want it to perform. Glass breakers A TRAVELLER returned from Wellington reports a commendable abundance of fire alarms, sprinklers and extinguishers in New Zealand’s biggest wooden building, the historic Government Buildings where the Department of Education now lives. He says there are fire alarm devices at every turn. And

beside each one, for the assistance of civil servants weakened by gallons of departmental tea, is a chained little wooden hammer for breaking the glass. Alger Hiss THE United States Government has agreed to let Mr Alger Hiss, a former State Department official, inspect the microfilmed “Pumpkin Papers” — the crucial evidence that sent him to prison for perjury after two sensational trials in 1949 and 1950. Mr Hiss, now 70 and a printing salesman, has always maintained his innocence. He served nearly four years in prison after his conviction. The case provided an important boost to the career of the former President, Richard Nixon, when he was a young California congressman. He insisted upon pursuing allegations by Mr Whitaker Chambers, an admitted Communist, that Mr Hiss was part of a Communist spy ring. The most telling evidence against Hiss came from Mr Chambers, a former magazine editor who testified that in 1938 Hiss had passed him Government

documents which were microfilmed and stored in a hollowed pumpkin. Dressed the part OUR traveller felt he had been transported back to the turn of the century when traversing the corridors of the old place. The capital had just had its worst frost for seven years, and literally dozens of little secretary birds were gliding about in floor-length skirts, giving the old buildings an appropriately antique air. New ground MISS TERI MORAN says a girl can't be a topless dancer forever, so she has become Oklahoma City’s first topless shampooer. She switched this week from topless dancing at a local club to topless shampooing at Bob May’s barber shop. Customers have accepted the innovation apparently with a minimum of adjustment. Now Teri, who is 27, wants to become a men’s hair stylist, but, doubts if she would remain topless for that. “Loose hair has a tendency to fly and stick to you,” she said, “and a hairy chest on a woman isn’t appealing.”

Women in conflict THE WORLD Conference on Women at Mexico City developed such a split between delegates from developed countries and those from the “third world” that they ended the conference with two conflicting draft texts of the “final statement." The two groups did not agree on whether progress and development depended on the improvement of woman’s condition or whether the improvement of woman’s condition depended on progress and development. While the draft statement presented by the United States emphasised equality between the sexes in education, jobs and wages, the text presented by the “Group of 77” non-aligned countries called for a new economic world order first. Fetching hat “WAR AND PEACE” on television may have helped, or it may be just another example of galloping inflation, but the hat worn by Napoleon during his. disastrous Russian campaign brought 170,000 fraiics ($32,858) at auction in Paris recently. That was an auction record for a hat.