Reporter’s Diary

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33958, 26 September 1975, Page 3

Reporter’s Diary

"Black boxes' IF THE WORST had happened. investigators would have been looking for the device known as the “black box” to learn why an Air New Zealand DCB was flying so low over the Wellington suburb of Newlands last Sunday. Like all commercial airliners. the DCB is equipped with the “black box” to record flight information — but it is not black at all. it is bright orange. In fatt, there is no standard colour for flight recorders. The “black box” in N.A.C.’s Friendship aircraft is a red fibreglass capsule, known internally as “the red egg.” Only in the Boeing 737 s is the “black box” really black.

In the chair THE CHAIRMAN of the Isle of Man information office, which has opened in the exclusive Mayfair district of London, is simply called Doolish, and he has no tail. Doolish — the • Manx word for Douglas, the island's capital — is a Manx kitten, and has been given his own private office with a new plush armchair. His job — for which he gets £2O (about S4O) a year — is to persuade Londoners that the Isle of Man is a perfect place for a holiday. Jenny Jeansley. the vice-chair-man and administrator of

the centre, says*she will consider giving Doolish a rise when he gets bigger and needs more to eat. The kitten travelled from the Isle of Man in his own executive cabin on the ferry, first class on the train, and alone in a London taxi to his office. Alternatives “IT IS BETTER to be a rich lawyer than a respected doctor,” was the proposition debated between law students and medical students in the Glastone Hotel on Wednesday evening. The proposition appears to ignore the probability that the doctor is rich too. but the two sides debated the matter largely on the question of whether it was possible for a doctor to earn respect. and to what lengths he had to go in seeking it. “It was just a lighthearted debate,” said Douglas Taffs, president of the Students’ Law Society. “We were declared the winners and had to drink a yard of beer.” The debate is likely to become an annual event. Biggest 'burger THE AUSTRALIAN Meat Board made what it claimed was the world’s biggest beefburger for the 1975 Perth Royal Agricultural Show. It took three steers, one-and-a-haif-

tonnes of wheat, 23 litres of tomato sauce, four crates of lettuces, four crates of tomatoes, two bags of onions and 12 hours in the oven to produce the monster. The burger was 2.7 metres across, and the board said this was almost twice as big as the one in the Guinness Book of Records. It weighed 500 kilograms and led the grand show parade. Free meals

CHRISTCHURCH'S first health food restaurant, Alison Allstars Natural Foods in Hereford Street, was giving away free meals yesterday in celebration of its "change of ownership. Mr Clive Wannell has bought the restaurant from its founders, who are off to India on Monday to learn to be yoga teachers at Pondicherry7, on the east coast south of Madras. Metric "Striae' METRICATION officials in Australia are quite annoyed with the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) for conducting a campaign to prove that his pronunciation of the word “kilometre”, with the accent on the “om”. is correct. Officials say that “kilometre” with the accent on the "kilo” has been adopted as the correct pronunciation, and that other countries, including New Zealand, have accepted that version. But Mr Whitlam has invoked Greek grammar to support his claim, and

says (incorrectly) that all migrants pronounce kilometre the way he does. In support, he mentions the pronunciation of "speedoceter”, “gasometer” and “thermometer”, but his critics retort that these all deal with meters, not metres. Big reicard A TEACHER who lost a string of stone beads somewhere around New Regent Street is so upset at their loss that she is offering a $lOO reward for their return. Mrs Robin Fryer collected the stones, including a turquoise, in Afghanistan, and had a local craftsman bore holes through them. Also on the string were tw 7 o tiny carved elephants. She lost them a month ago, and although she is now teaching at Blockhouse Bay, Auckland, she has arranged for notices advertising the reward to be placed in several shop windows in the area. Precautions

SIX CHILDREN in seven years despite the pill. A man in Heilbronn, West Germany, now in his 50s, was so incensed over this increase in his family that he complained to his doctor. “Modern medicine is no good,” the man protested. The reason for his ill luck, it turned out, was that the father — and not his wife — had been taking the contraceptive pills. He did not trust her to take them regularly, he told his doctor.