Reporter’s Diary

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33933, 28 August 1975, Page 3

Reporter’s Diary

Cooking row THE EMPLOYER of a chef who took part in the “Catering 75” cooking competition at the Industries Fair has protested to the judges about the winning entry. Mr David Johnston, of. the. Talk of the Town restaurant, told the judges that they should not have awarded first prize in the meat section to Mr A. T. Casey, of the Hennitage, because his winning dish was pheasant pie — and that was not meat, it was fowl. There had been a poultry section on Monday. Mr Johnston’s chef, Mr Gerry Weed, came second with his Fillet of Beef Wellington. The judges refused to accept the protest. Mr Johnston said it took Mr Weed 12 hours work — at overtime rates — to prepare his entry, and he questioned the competence of the judges. But Mr Chris Ealey, of the committee of “Catering 75,” said Mr Weed should have read the rules, which said the judges’ decision was final. It was not an international competition where everything could be sectioned off, and anyway, as far as they were concerned, pheasant was meat. Aof hot

BICYCLES are the subject of a police survey at the moment. They are ‘ doing spot checks around Christchurch, calling frame numbers over the radio to the central office and checking to see if they are on the "wanted” list. One cyclist who was checked in Addington yesterday morning was checked again in Shirley only three-quarters of an hour later. There were no suspicious circumstances, as they say. Old scandal

A LITTLE-KNOWN byway of Christchurch’s history is recalled in “Shadows on the Stage,” a new book by Peter Downes about theatre in New Zea- ' land. In 1862, a comedian called Charles Thatcher arrived from the goldfields of- Otago to entertain Christchurch in its Town Hall. One of his talents was to compose and sing songs' about the personalities and events of whatever town he was in. Some days before his arrival there‘had been a barefist prize-fight which attracted a large crowd to the banks of the- Waimakariri in spite of police efforts to stop it. Among numerous Government officials watching the fight was the Resident Magistrate. who was also rumoured to have backed one of the fighters. Thatcher wrote a "deliciously slanderous song” about it, which drew the ire of one W. T. L. Travers, the solicitor who was obliged to prosecute the fighters. Mr Travers called Thatcher a “travelling mountebank." but Thatcher discovered that Travers was not free from scandal himself — he had assaulted his gardener and been obliged to pay damages. The next Town Hall audience got a song about that. Safety doors CHRISTCHURCH Hospital will have the latest thing in smoke-stop doors in the connecting corridors of its new wards and clinical services block. Double-' swing doors at each end of one proposed corridor

will be held opened by magnetic catches which will be automatically released if the fire alarm goes off, allowing the doors to swing shut. Crusher rush THE GREAT garliccrusher shortage is over. A shipment of them has arrived in New Zealand, according to word from Wellington, and the television chef, Des Britten, who started it all, is able to deliver the goods on the rash promise he made during his last series. A small girl wrote to him saying she could not get a garlic crusher anywhere, •and sent him- $2 to get- her one. When he mentioned this on his programme there was a flood of $2 notes from viewers having the same trouble. Before long he had $2OO in his Garlic Crusher Trust Fund. Now a Wellington department store is redeeming the pledges and sending off the newly arrived crushers to cooks all over New Zealand. Money club THE chances of winning $5OO in the first draw of the Festival 1000 Club raffle next Wednesday may be better than its members expected. The idea is to sign up 1000 members, who will subscribe $1 each week for a year. Each member participates in a weekly raffle for a prize of $5OO. But up to yesterday the club had not quite 600 members, improving the odds considerably for the first draw. If they get their 1000 members, the organisers of next year’s Arts Festival will raise $26,000 towards the cost of the festival. A similar amount will be paid out in raffle prizes, which can be taken either in cash. ■or as $5OO worth of overseas air travel. Quite a few syndicates have joined the club, including theatre groups, social clubs, and families. Over-eager THE ARRIVAL of the Lord Mayor of London (Sir Murray Fox) and Lady Fox at a civic reception at the Town Hall this week was not as dignified as it should have been. The car in which they arrived swept silently over to the kerb and stopped. The two men in th£ front seats moved out quickly to open the rear doors. Just as Sir Murray and Lady Fox began to step out of the car it rolled steadily back in a not-altogether-dignified way. In his hurry to help his important passengers to alight, the driver had overlooked the parking brake. “Torrent Tango"? AUSTRALIA has shown that disasters similar to Canterbury’s recent gales and deluges can be turned to commercial advantage. A song based on the Derwent River bridge disaster has recently hit the top of the hit parade in Hobart. Called “The Ferry Board Shuffle,” it sings of the fortunes made by the ferry-board operators as a result of the collapse of part of the bridge, and the greatly extended travelling time of commuters. Perhaps the airwaves of Canterbury will soon throb to the sounds of “The Nor-west Mazurka” and "The Torrent Tango.”