Reporter’s Diary

Press, 18 September 1976, Page 2

Reporter’s Diary

Bottle bagger NOW THAT empty beer bottles are .rorth 36c a dozen, they are attracting the interest of the unscrupulous. A well-dressed middle-aged man driving a blue Avenger car with cream vinyl roof has been seen pinching empties from glass disposal bins around Christchurch. The cost of petrol being what it is, it is doubtful whether the pilferer is making a profit, but he is certainly reducing the income of the Neurological Foundation, which gets the proceeds from the used-glass sales. Massed old girls UP TO 3000 old girls of Christchurch Girls’ High School have booked the Christchurch Town Hall for their centennial celebrations over a long week-end next September. It is the second largest booking the Town Hall has had (the biggest was an international Lions Club convention) and practically the entire celebrations will be held there, except for an opening sherry party at the school. There will be a conversazione, a church service, a pageant, an official assembly of old girls, and finally a grand ball. Girls’ High is the oldest State secondary school in Christchurch. Selective BURGLARS who did over a flat in Hurley Street the other day were very selective. They took the tenant's complete collection of “Playboy” magazine, dating back to 1971, and his yardglass. That was all they wanted. 60 per cent of 70 READERS may have been misled by a Press Association report published yesterday regarding the level of payments under the Government’s new superannuation scheme. It said that married couples over the age of 60 would get superannuation at 70 per cent of the average ordinary time wage, “and single beneficiaries 60 per cent.” Single beneficiaries will not get 60 per cent of the average ordinary time wage. Thev will get 60 per cent of the 70 per cent which married couples get. In other words, they will get only 42 per cent of the average ordinary time wage.

Feminists’ symbol MRS PAT UNGER, a sec-ond-year graphic design student at Christchurch Technical Institute, has won a contest to design a logo and letterhead for the United Women’s Convention to be held in Christchurch next June. Her design, which won a $5O prize, combines the bio-

logical symbol for female and the dove of peace. Both symbols were also used, in a stylised way, in the United Nations’ logo for United Women’s Year, which was used for the second New Zealand women’s convention. A huge blowup of Mrs Unger’s winning design will be used as the backdrop to the next convention in the Town Hall auditorium. The theme of the convention will be “Changes, chances, choices.”

On the buses

NEW BUS drivers seem to be getting their first try-

outs on the Fendalton route these days. Last week the driver of a bus for early workers got lost twice on the way into town. He lost his bearings at the Clyde Road intersection, and had to ask his passengers what way to go. and further on he took Wairarapa Terrace instead of Holmwood Road. This week another new driver had the same trouble at the Clyde Road lights, and then overshot Fendalton Road and had to reverse to the corner. Cheerful A READER who has noticed an occasional slip in “The Press” has sent in the following comforting paragraph from the New Zealand Medical Journal: “It is found most convenient for the surgical examiner to include breast, lymphatic system, abdomen, pelvis (including cervical smear), colon and rectum (including proctoscopy and sigmoidoscopy) and the male genial organs in his examination.” Knew the ropes THE TWO policemen who were the subject of the search on Mount Torlesse on Wednesday set out on an easy day tramp, and did not bother to take a compass. They did not expect to get caught in a whiteout and lose their bearings on the summit of Mount Torlesse. Unable to find the correct route down in the fog, the men dug a snow cave for shelter, and to enable searchers to find them they ran a rope away from the cave entrance and tied it to an ice axe. When the searchers arrived, this rope led them straight to the cave. Such forethought was not unexpected—one is a member of the police search and rescue organisation and the other has been an active member of the police tramping club. Charmed life THE WIZARD, back in Cathedral Square for his “spring offensive” yesterday, seemed complely unaffected by the pranks of some playful citizens who buzzed him continually with a plastic skimmer called a Frizbee. Members of his audience joined in the fun, catching the gadget and skimming it within centimetres of the Wizard’s head, but he neither faltered nor deigned to notice his unofficial “familiar.”

—Garry Arthur