Reporter’s Diary

Press, 3 August 1976, Page 2

Reporter’s Diary

Always wrong? “YOUR television page is never where you say it is,” fumed a frustrated reader who telephoned the printer one evening. She said she had checked the index in “The Press” every day for the last six weeks, and it was never right. Television was shown as being on page 19, 22, or around there, but it never was. The printer solved tier problem and absolved the newspaper in one stroke. She had been looking at the index to classified advertising. The complainant was suitably contrite, and extremely grateful. “Don’t leave it six weeks before inquiring next time,” the printer advised. Musical honours WHILE some prayed for John Walker’s success in the 1500 m race at Montreal, others waited and wondered. A reader says she was sitting in church at the 10 a.m service on Sunday, and wondering, with everyone else, how the New Zealander was doing in his big race. Suddenly the organist started to play 7 “God Defend New Zealand,” and the whole church knew the result. Demented hen “HERE’S ONE ” cried a passing cyclist yesterday as the hen in the picture ran up and down outside

the front door of “The Press.” How it got out of the building, no-one knows, but the poor thing was clearly demented. Its plumage, though grubby (perhaps from muck-rak-ing) showed it to be of the White Leghorn variety. When chased, it ran under a bus and hitched a ride on the back axle, which may have been how it got to Cathedral Square in the first place. Eventually, three kind girls rescued it from the traffic and set off home with it. To the pot? They said not. Empty promise A NAVAL veteran advertising in a Californian newspaper offers the following service: “Post me your full bottles of scotch, bourbon, rum, or gin, and I will send the. i back to you post free and b, return, guaranteed ready to receive ship.” Observant

CHRISTCHURCH has a reputation of being cliquish and hard to break into. A city man who moved to a little country town in Canterbury found exactly the same problem there. His neighbours appeared to ignore him for six weeks, until the day he wept outside to plant up his garden. That day, his neighbour leaned over the garden fence and watched him all morning as he prepared the ground,

picked up the plants, and firmed them in. When he finally spoke, it was clear that he had not been inattentive. “Doing a bit of gardening?” he asked. Brunner ‘Press' AT ONE time it was the practice of people who knew and loved Lake Brunner to keep very quiet indeed about it. It is probably New Zealand’s most under-publicised big lake and its bush-fringed attractions were guarded very jealously by those in the know. But with the opening a few years ago of the Stanley Goosman bridge over the Taramakau River, the queen of the Westland lakes has become much more easily accessible and the secret is out. Instead of keeping the place to themselves residents and holiday visitors are now actively promoting Lake Brunner and the surrounding townships. Their latest move is to launch the Lake* Brunner “Press” as official organ of the Lake Brunner Promotions Society. Those who hanker for the tranquil days of yore may feel that the Philistines have committed the ultimate sin in their second issue. The news-sheet welcomes a noisy national jetboat marathon on the lake in September. Ham tours HIGH schools from Blenheim to South Otago, including one girls’ school, have booked tours of the school of engineering conversazione at the University of Canterbury next

Friday. But the organisers have been disappointed with the response from Christchurch schools. Students will act as guides for school parties and the organisers hope local schools will book tours early this week. The conversazione, an eye-opening demonstration illustrating the almost boundless range of teaching and research in civil, mechanical, electrical, chemical, and agricultural engineering, will be open to the public all day on Saturday. Pottery show APOLOGIES to the Rangiora Pottery Group for putting their exhibition in the wrong gallery. The right place is Several Arts Gallery, 809 Colombo Street, where the show will run from next Monday to August 20.

Sinister FREQUENTLY, the pens provided by banks at those little desk cubicles have been torn bodily from their chains or strings. Petty theft? No, sheer frustration, said one of the guilty parties yesterday. Such pens are invariably attached for the convenience of righthanded customers, and the chains or strings are seldom long enough to be used bv left-handers. Some do their best by placing the bank forms in the top right hand comer of the desk and attempting weird contortions. Others stealthily grab the pen in the next cubicle to the left. But many just rip the darned thing off.

—Garry Arthur