Reporter’s Diary

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33928, 22 August 1975, Page 3

Reporter’s Diary

Provocative ONLY one reader spotted the clear connexion between the 10-page feature about Noahs Hotel in "The Press” on Wednesday and the consequent torrential rain. “I think that’s tempting providence,” she rang to say, “there will be nothing but floods now.” No complaint has been heard from the hotel. Perhaps it takes its cue from the old patriarch himself, as quoted by G. K Chesterton: “And Noah he often said to his wife when he sat down to dine. ‘I .don’t care where the water goes it if doesn’t get into the wine’.”

Resourceful BUS DRIVERS have nicknamed the “City Clipper” the “Babysitter.” They say that growing numbers of mothers (and some fathers) are ushering children on to the free bus and giving them instructions to stay on for a certain number of circuits and then get off at the same stop, where the grateful parents will be waiting — shopping done — to take them home. If the trend continues, the bus could become a tumultuous mobile nursery next week, 'when the school holidays start.

Dearer is cheaper DEVALUATION produces more than its fair share of economic riddles. One is: When is an increased air fare cheaper than before? The answer: when the country devalues by 15 per cent and the air fare is put up by 12 per cent. The result is that overseas air travel is now cheaper — in terms of overseas currency — than it was before the price went up. The Auckland-to-Sydney economy-class return fare cost $250 before devaluation. This was worth £148.32 in British . money. After devaluation $250 was worth only £126, so the fare should’ have gone up by £22.32, w'hich is $44.28 at the new exchange rate. But the airlines have increased the fare only $3O, so the saving on the old air fare (again, in terms of what your money could buy in

overseas currency) is $14.28. Tanked up THE SERVICE department at the New Zealand Motor Corporation’s garage had never seen anything like it • — more than 6J gallons of water in the petrol tank of a car that was abandoned in Manchester Street for more than 24 hours during the rainstorm. “We’re wondering if someone played a joke on him.” said one of the staff. If so, the owner is not laughing. His house at Governor’s Bay had no heating or lighting, the basement is flooded, and he had to get a taxi to work — the long way round through the Lyttelton road tunnel because the Dyer’s Pass route was closed.

A peg or two WAIMAIRI County Council has decided to pay $2O to one of its residents to help with the expense of having a surveyor place a new peg on his boundary. Mr N. A. McKechnie says the old peg was inadvertently removed from his property in Gardiners Road during footpath construction, but the council does not admit that it was responsible. The county’s

insurance company agreed that there was “insufficient evidence to implicate the council”, so the $2O grant is in' the form of an ex gratia payment “without prejudice”. It cost Mr McKechnie $50.60 to have a surveyor replace the peg.

A’o Peking MR lAN SMITH’S Government has hired a public relations firm to campaign against terrorism in Rhodesia. It is flooding public amenities in Salisbury and other major cities with stickers carrying such slogans as: “This bog is bugged,” "Think of national security, don’t talk about it,” “Engage brain before opening mouthpiece,” and “Loose talk kills.” One sticker seen in a Salisbury public lavatory asks “Have you got a Mao TseTung?” Some like-minded graffitist has scribbled the reply, “Yes, it is Chou en Lies”.

Improvements A CHURCH at Telscombe, southern England, recently unearthed the following ancient bill for repairs to its wall paintings: “To renovating Heaven and adjusting the stars, washing servant of the high priests and putting carmine on his cheeks, and brightening up the flames of Hell, putting a new tail on the Devil, and doing odd jobs for the dammed, correcting the Ten Commandments — £10.”