Reporter's Diary

Press, 11 December 1976, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

[ Borrowed plumage Brian McClelland, the Christchurch barrister who has just been appointed a Queen's Counsel, has had to borrow a silk gown for his admission to the inner bar of the Supreme Court next Friday. The appointment is tradi-

tionally known as "taking silk," because the Queen's Counsel exchanges his ordinary barrister’s gown for a fancy silk one. But Mr McClelland finds there is no silk of the right sort in New Zealand, and will have to wait to have one made. Not that there is much call for Q.C.'s gowns. Mr McClelland will be the only Q.C. in the South Island, and one of only Ift in the whole country. Mr McClelland is an expert in industrial law, and a successful criminal trial lawyer. He was junior counsel for Juliet Hulme in the famous Hulme-Parker murder trial in 1954, and more recently was the man who took the big Eurnpa Oil Company tax case to the Privy

Council. As a Queen’s Counsel, Mr McClelland will have to leave the firm of which he is a partner and hang out his own shingle as a barrister. He will now be required to have a junior counsel with him whenever he appears in court, and he wil! not be allowed to appear in the Magistrate's Court except in exceptional circumstances. Comforting IT WAS not all gloom for the Christchurch man who went to Auckland for his mother's funeral. While there, he looked in on an exhibition to do with the American bicentenary where there was a competition to guess the number of people present. Fie wrote down his late mother’s telephone number — and won a trip to Disneyland. Game for ‘Rita’ THE CHRISTMAS spirit is about already. Even the meter maids seem more joyable at this time of vear, and one of their regular customers has prepared a present for them. Panic Print, a photo-copying firm which has its offices right in Cathedral Square, gets as many as ,28 parking tickets a month for infringements by its extremely obvious office Mini, which is painted up in the firm's colours. “It stands out like a sore thumb,” said Mr Paul Merrin, the firm's manager. “I know its our own fault we get so many tickets, so we have giftwrapped a big blow-up of the car to give to Mrs Weston, the senior meter maid.” The picture has a white space for pinning the ticket and is intended for target practice — something like lhe game of pinning the tail on a donkey. The card says the gift is in appreciation of

the meter maids' determination and conscientiousness in the pursuance of their duties.

Owner found TWO boys at the Canterbury Sheltered Workshops were feeling pleased yesterday at a job well done. The two handicapped 18-year-olds had had a letter from the police to say they had traced the owner of a purse which the boys found. They found it beside the Avon River near Hereford Street, and took it io the police station, with the contents — $209.81. Cool time ahead ICE ages—in which New Zealand, Britain, and other countries in temperate zones have been submerged under vast sheets of ice — are a mystery no longer. A team of American and British scientists has established that the recurring ice ages are caused by periodic changes in the Earth's orbit around the Sun. Scientists have been puzzling about the ice ages for years, but this team, led by Dr James D. Hays, of Columbia University, New York, says it is certain of the cause. The scientists' reconstructed the Earth’s climatic history over the last half-mil-lion years and compared cycles of climate change with cycles of changes in the shape, tilt, and seasonal positions of the Earth’s orbit. There have been eight major ice ages in the last 700,000 years. The last one retreated 11,000 years ago, and the Earth is now in one of its warmest periods. But a cooling trend has already started. Dr Hays says 'the next ice age will build up over the next 20,000 years. Not done

ONE of the defendants in the supermarket robbery case made a bit of a slip

at the preliminary hearing in the Magistrate’s Court this week. Addressing a detective who was giving evidence, he said “Graham — oh, I am sorry — Detective Stebbings . . .” this caused amusement in court, where such familiarity is considered not quite the thing. Too harsh PICTURE theatre managers feel they were harshly treated in yesterday’s item which said there was nothing much on for school children next week. Although secfl nd a r y-schooi pupils (some as young as 13) have now started their holidays, it is the prim-ary-school children for whom the theatres try to provide in the Christmas holidays, and they don’t break up until next week. For lhem. next Friday, the Avon will start with “Bugsy Malone,” a G certificate spoof of gangster films; the Westend will have “The Pink Panther Strikes Again,” which the censor considers unsuitable for those under 13: the State will have “Mary Poppins” (G); the Carlton, Disney double feature, “Ride a Wild Pony” and “Dumbo” (both G certificate); and the Cinerama “Logan’s Run,” also considered unsuitable for those under 13. .Masters’ Suburban Theatres will not start - their children's features until after Christ- ■ mas, when the Hollywood ’ and the Avenue will have ; matinee sessions of such [ films as ‘‘The Railway > Children,” “Robin Hood,” [ “Yogi Bear” and “Tin Tin and the Lake of Sharks,” ■ all G certificate. No bull THE most polite “Keep out” notice heard of so far is at the entrance to a farm paddock. It says: -I “Trespassers are requested to shut the gate behind them to prevent savage bull getting out.” —Garry Arthur