Reporter’s Diary

Press, 26 February 1977, Page 2

Reporter’s Diary

Interlude DICTATING messages to a dictaphone while travelling does have its disadvantages, as one gentleman, connected with the Accident Compensation Commission, recently discovered. While driving to Ashburton for a presentation. the gentleman dictated a statement, which he was to give to members of the press when he arrived. In mid-sentence a car careered around a corner in front of him and our friend let forth with a string of invective at the offending driver, forgetting that his dictaphone was still running. He then continued speaking into the microphone and finished as he pulled up at his destination. Playing the tape back, he found to his horror an interlude of blue language that would turn any typist’s face bright pink. Curtain falls

THE SOVIET Union will enforce the 200-mile fishing zone around the greater part of its coastline from March 1. Foreign ships will be able to fish inside the zone only with Soviet consent. The zone was declared in principle last December without any date being set for its enforcement. The Soviet Government issued a decree yesterday saying the zone would apply from next Tuesday to Soviet coastal waters in the Bering Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk, the Sea of Japan, and the Chukchi Sea. Seaboards on the Pacific and Arctic Oceans are also included, together with 200-mile zones around the Soviet islands. Down trowels

SEVERAL green-fingered women in the Paparua County are sticking up for their rights. When the prize list was announced for the best gardens in a recent garden competition they found that their husbands’ initials were listed. “Wally doesn’t do the gar-

den, I do it," one indignant woman told Cr E. L. Brittenden. The deputy county clerk (Mr K. G. Head) dismissed the complaints as “so much rot and piffle. The husbands probably brought along the cow manure anyway.” Wrong gear

UNIFORMS can be deceiving and the man in the front seat is not always the driver. Captain Nicholas Thornton, the NewZealand equerry to the Queen, sat in the front seat of the Royal limousine on its drive to Ellerslie Racecourse this week when the Royal tour got under way. As he stepped from the car resplendent in gold braid and epaulettes and sprang to open the Queen’s door, a schoolgirl asked him: “Are you the chauffeur?” Captain Thornton is the son of Lieutenant-General Sir Leonard Thornton, the former Chief of Defence Staff. Head man

A COVENT GARDEN porter with a head for heights broke his own world record yesterday for carrying baskets on his head. George Rutledge, aged 50, carried 18 fruit and vegetable baskets for several paces at London’s famous produce market, using only his hands to keep the baskets steady. He failed in a later attempt to carry 19. His previous record, set last year, was 17. The fourkilogram baskets, each 31cm (Ift) high, stretched to the second storey of Covent Garden buildings. Cold reception

OUR PARAGRAPH on Wednesday of the troubles of one young man attending his sister’s wedding prompted a reader to telephone us with details of a similar incident. A young woman found at her own wedding that her husband-to-be arrived at the church minus just about everything but the ring

and the clothes he stood up in. Money, handkerchief, comb, key to the honeymoon car, all of these things he had left behind. So, when a few months later her brother was getting married, she determined that he would be fully equipped. She fussed, prodded, cajoled and reminded him and happily he did indeed arrive at the church fully equipped. It was not until she sat down on the cold pew, however, that our heroine realised the same could not be said of her. She had forgotten her pants. Cheep holidays BIRD-BRAINED it may be, but it is catching on. The Isle of Man is taking holiday bookings for budgies. Already six budgies, a canary, and a parrot have had their names put down for flights to and from the island (by aircraft and not under their own steam), and for perch-and-seed accommodation for the length of their stay. Other owners have applied for bird passports which are needed before they can land on the island, in petmad Britain the tourist gimmick has really caught on and the Isle of Man is reaping the profits from the bird holidays, pass= ports and ancillary money-spinners. Judgment of youth A F I V E-Y E A R-OLD Christchurch boy who recently began his education at a Catholic school cheeked his mother and received a good whack for his pains. Slightly tearful he drew himself up to his full height and told his mother as calmly as he could: “They taught us at school that hands are made for kindness.” He was certain, he informed his mother, that the nuns would not approve of the laying on of hands in punishment. He then went through to dad and issued his judgment with as much scorn as he could muster: “I don’t mind her smacking me so much, it’s her attitude I don’t like.”