Reporter’s Diary

Press, 21 August 1976, Page 2

Reporter’s Diary

Arts Centre man AN AMERICAN who has succeeded at such diverse occupations as fish farming, clothing manufacturing. and house-building has taken on the job of general manager of the Christchurch Arts Centre. Mr Brett Riley, who has been in New Zealand for five years, mostly in Nel-

son. sees his job as that of "turning a dead university’ into a living arts centre.” But he finds that the people of Christchurch are still not very sure what the Arts Centre is or where it is (it is in the old university townsite buildings), and is convinced that publicity is its first requirement. The

centre has 60 tenants, ranging from a symphony orchestra to Alocholics Anonymous, and is really ramping at the week-ends. Mr Riley would like to see

it .brought to life during the week. too. He is a graduate of the University of California, and has travelled widely in pursuit of three personal interests — art galleries, medieaval buildings, and restaurants. Sebastian

RICCARTON has lost one of its more monotonous characters — a donkey named Sebastian. He has been a proper little Sebastian at times, but now his owner, Dr C. Foster Browne, has moved to a much smaller property in Merivale, and Sebastian has been put out to graze at Oxford. Dr Browne bought Sebastian three years ago, and gave him pride of place in the family’s minor suburban menagerie. He was sometimes to be seen (Sebastian, that is) pulling a donkey cart about Riccarton, and he was in the news when he scoffed the Browne’s Christmas pudding. Once when he was mistaken for a runaway circus donkey, the police got the Brownes out of bed in the middle of the night to vouch for his identity and good character. Sebastian cleaned up the donkey prizes at the last Kaikoura Show, just to prove his good breeding, and is now bossing the horses in his paddock at Oxford. What Dr Browne regrets most about the move is that he is now without his chief lawnmower. Tom and Ben THE 8.8. C. has chosen a bell with an equally resounding name to chime out the quarter-hour while

Big Ben is being repaired. Its microphones have been set up in the south-west tower of St Paul’s Cathedral to pick up the chime of Great Tom for World Service listeners. Parkinson ?

AN ARTICLE sought by a colleague on the subject of incentive commissions to public servants who achieve savings was probably C. Northcote Parkinson’s “The Law and the Profits,’’ or an adaptation of it, said Mr G. A. Pollock yesterday. The author of the famous Parkinson's Law suggested a tribunal to consider economies in Government departments. One of its functions would be to reward successful cost-savers by remitting their income-tax to a total related in some way to the amount saved. Parkinson went on: “The last function of the tribunal would be to recommend for honours the citizens whose suggestions had resulted in the greatest economies, as also the civil servants who had been most successful in reducing needless expenditure. A minor revolution would date from the day when officials came to realise that a knighthood was more readily to be won by saving money than by spending it.” “Alice” in Abo. "ALICE IN Wonderland,” already known to children in 43 languages, has now been translated into the Pitjantjatjara language of Australia’s central desert Aborigines. It is believed to be the oldest language used to tell the story. Nancy Sheppard, of the University of Adelaide’s department of adult education, has made the adaptation. She spent nine

years at an Aboriginal school in a remote part of South Australia.

Green berg

A PITY we have no colour to reproduce the cover picture of the American National Science Foundation’s "Antarctic Journal.” It features a beautiful bright-green iceberg floating in a dark blue sea. The iceberg was photographed on March 10 this year at the South Shetland islands near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Because of its water-worn appearance, it was believed to have overturned. The journal says its bottle-green colour is an oddity not readily explained. A biologist who saw it is sure that its colour was not biological in origin. She reports seeing red. brown, and green ice in other locations, presumably coloured by microorganisms. But the even colour of the green iceberg suggests that it. is green throughout, and most likely coloured by enclosed fine rock material. Scientists think it. might contain iron, copper, or other metallic compounds. Ao bending VISITORS to Bulgaria brace themselves for the most upright behaviour after reading a road-safety leaflet containing the rule: "When red signal has been given on the signal light, bending to the right is strictly prohibited.” The leaflet ends on a friendly note: "The transport control organs at the Ministry of the Interior are calling upon you for keeping strictly to the rules and wnshes you pretty jolly good time in People’s Republic of Bulgaria” —Gam- Arthr.