Reporter’s Diary

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34105, 18 March 1976, Page 3

Reporter’s Diary

Local product ROBILLIARD’S, the High Street jeweller, is doing a roaring trade in rings which have deadly katipo spider embedded in them. They have been around for "some time, but most customers are surprised to learn that the red-backed spiders all come from New Brighton beach, right by the clock tower. The Blenheim man who collects them and inters them in clear plastic claims to collect as many as 300 from that part of the beach in one swoop. The business is not without its hazards. Some people have died from the bites of katipo spiders (only the females are deadly), and the collector has been bitten badly enough to re-, quire three spells jn hospital.

Fleeced

SENATOR William Proxmire has given his monthly Golden Fleece award for Government waste to the National Science Foundation for spending $U546,100 on a study of the effect scantily clad women have on male drivers. The study, designed to produce new information about “environmental determinants of human aggression,” produced the finding that male drivers smile at a young woman attired in a halter and short shorts, watch her walk down the street, and sometimes whistle or make sexuallyorientated comments. In the last year, Senator Proxmire has also criticised N.S.F. grants to study romantic love and

teeth-clenching in monkeys.

Royal ruling

IT WAS the redoubtable Queen Victoria who laid down the rules which the Snowdons have been loosely observing for some years. Her pronouncement on the subject came when the marriage of her daughter, Princess Louise, to the Duke of Argyll started to go wrong. “Let them lead their separate lives under the same roof where possible,” said the Queen, “and avoid scandal.” In clover

BIOGRAPHICAL notes on one of the candidates for the Christchurch Boys’ High School board of governors say that two of his sons have been boarders at Acland House. That may not sway many voters, but it is sure to make the boys the heroes of the senior forms. Acland House is the boarding establishment of Christchurch Girls’ High School. Fine example

IF NEW ZEALAND politicians are really concerned about the cost of television, and of the wages of those who must work erratic hours to provide the service, they might consider the example of Iceland. There, with only one channel, there is no transmission on Thursdays in an attempt to reduce shift work and overtime. In the summer, for the same reason, television shuts down completely for a month. The peace — and the free-

dom from nightly political wrangling on “the box” —must be blissful.

Soft landings

NEW “FAT FEET” have made it possible for N.A.C. to fly its Boeing 737 airliners through Palmerston North since the last of the Viscounts were withdrawn from service in December. The new low-pressure tyres, developed in the United States by Firestone, enable heavy jet airliners to use less developed airports with low-strength hard surface or even grass runways. Palmerston North’s runway surface is too weak to withstand the pounding which the heavy Boeings would give it if they were fitted with the standard high-pressure tyres used on other routes. Herr 10 per cent BREAD for the World, a charitable organisation sponsored by the Protestant churches in W’est Germany, recently announced that an anonymous businessman from the Rhineland had, for the seventh time since 1969, given 10 per cent of his annual earnings on condition that 30 other people follow suit. Over the years more than 200 have done so. Fishy

PENGUIN Books appear to have parted company from their feathered friends in naming a new category of books. After Penguins, Pelicans, Puffins, Kestrels, and the marginally ornithological Ladybirds, the publishers have gone to Minnows for a new series of simple illustrated stories for young children.