Reporter s Diary

Press, 30 December 1976, Page 2

Reporter s Diary

Mirage harbour

ANDY CRAWFORD did not find it difficult to believe that Christchurch people saw a mirage of Russian ships this week. He was with the long-range desert group in die Sahara in 1942, and his patrol suddenly saw before them a mirage of an entire harbour full of cargo ships. The patrol was near the Sand Sea area at the time, and he remembers the mirage as looking like a television picture “a bit off the beam.” It was shimmering too much to identify the vessels, but they could see that there were no warships in the harbour. The patrol counted about 35 ships in the mirage harbour, but to this day noone has been able to say which harbour was being reflected by the desert heat waves. Mr Crawford says the nearest one was Suez (Port Tewfik), about 400 miles away, but some members of the patrol thought the harbour looked more like Port Said or Benghazi. They’re champion

AUCKLAND bus operators could be down here on driver-poaching expeditions after Mr Graham Mathison gets back from his holiday in Christchurch.

He thinks Christchurch bus-drivers are marvellous, end that if drivers of the type he has met here wanted jobs in Auckland they would be snapped up. The driver who so impressed Mr Mathisoi and his wife was one who had to work on Christmas Day. The Mathisons took a bus from the Square to where they are staying in Somerfield, and got away to a good start with the driver wishing them — and every’ passenger who stepped on — a merry Christmas. They were a bit unsure about their destination, but when they gave the driver the street number, he stopped for them right at the gate. “If he is any indication of busdrivers in Christchurch.” said Mr Mathison yesterday, “they’re champion.” They watched the same driver help an old lady across the street, and decided on the spot that they would travel by bus for the rest of their stay in Christchurch. Final draft TWO pages of what may be the long-lost final draft of America’s Declaration of Independence from Britain have been found in an attic in Boston. “I do not have any doubt that it is the document lost 200 years ago,” said the Reverend

Janies Allen, who discovered the documents among old papers given to him by a friend. An expert at the National Archives in Washington who examined the document 10 days ago said it would take much work to determine if the fragile, yellow papers were authentic. The original declaration, handwritten with quill pen and ink by Thomas Jefferson, who later became America’s third President, was approved by the continental Congress on July 4, 1776. It was given to a printer who worked through that night to produce 1000 copies for distribution throughout the 13 colonies. All four pages of the original from which the printer worked were lost. Mr Allen said there was ample evidence that his document w r as the original. “This second page includes three lines that were dropped bv the printer of the broadside, but were later put back in,” he said. Medical hazards DOCTORS in Britain have largely given up smoking, but alcoholism seems to be one of their occupational hazards, according to two research articles in the "British Medical Journal.” One, from Sir Richard Doll’s unit at Oxford University, concludes his 20 years study

of doctors and smoking. During that time, many doctors stopped smoking, and after they had stopped for 15 years or more, their mortality fell to about that of lifelong non-smokers. For those under 45 who continued to smoke, the risk of a fatal heart attack was 15 times higher than for non-smokers. In the second report Dr Robin Murray examines the progress after treatment of 41 doctor alcoholics. He found that alcoholism was nearly three times as common in doctors as in other professional men, and that doctor alcoholics had often started drinking as students, who were expected to be able to hold their liquor.

Flushing syndrome A PSYCHIATRIST hopes to find clues to the cause of alcoholism by studying the reasons why liquor causes some people to become red in the face. Dr Donald Goodwin, chairman of tiie psychiatry department at the University of Kansas medical centre, says the fact that Orientals often become red in the face after drinking only a moderate amount of alcohol, but whites seldom do, could prove important in alcoholism research. Dr Goodwin, who says alcoholism could be hereditary, said the re-

action is called “flushing” and usually starts within 15 to 30 minutes after a person starts drinking. “It usually starts around the mouth, ears and eyes and then spreads. It’s very visible, the skin becomes a bright red,” said Dr Goodwin, who made a study of the flushing syndrome earlier this year. He used 52 Oriental men, either Japanese or Chinese, and 11 Caucasians. All were paid volunteers between 21 and 30 years old. They were given a soft drink spiked with one-half ounce of alcohol, once ever 15 minutes for an hour. “Sixty per cent of the Chinese and 77 per cent of the Japanese subjects had a visible flushing response,” Dr Goodwin said. The ones who flushed often had more severe side effects than the Caucasians, including dizziness, sleepiness, anxiety, a pounding in the head, muscle weakness, nausea and a dry mouth. But Dr Goodtvin found that only about 3 per cent of non-Orientals flush. Coffee boycott

SUPERMARKETS in New York have put up signs announcing a coffee boycott and restaurants are featuring specials on tea and other beverages. A protest against the rising cost of coffee has been officially launched by the city’s con-

sumer affairs commissioner (Elinor Guggenheimer) who started her day with a cup of tea instead of what usually would be the first of up to 15 cups of coffee. “We’re trying to educate consumers on what to do if there is a runaway price increase,” Mrs Guggenheimer said. In New York supermarkets, coffee is selling for more than $3 a pound. Ad rance sales

A GRANDMOTHER in Meadowbank is the latest victim of Auckland’s phantom brick salesman. She was window-shopping around Ponsonby when she came across a sign saying “Bricks for sale.” She wanted to pave a small courtyard so she approached the bearded vendor and ordered $3O worth of bricks. He showed her the building next door and said the bricks would come from that when it was demolished. She trustingly paid a $lO deposit for the bricks to be delivered within three weeks. That was five months ago. The building is still standing, and is expected to be there for many years yet. The Auckland police fraud squad has a substantial file about the phantom brick seller, who has deceived dozens of gullible Aucklanders.

—Garry Arthur