Reporter's Diary

Press, 17 March 1977, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Snarky SOME Tauranga residents are unhappy with the name of their street and are petitioning their City Council to have it changed- The name, Boojum Street, comes straight from Lewis Carroll's “Hunting of the Snark.” Most of the street’s residents feel that it is embarrassing and ridiculous to say “Boojum Street” whenever they get into a taxi or are giving their address. The name was applied by the subdividers and was approved by the council under the broad

reference of "association with ships with New Zealand connection.” Apparently the good ship Boojum once plied the Austra-lia-New Zealand route, but this information does not console the residents. They would prefer that the name, like the hunters of the Snark, would “softly and silently vanish away.” Jung'.e bungle

THE flick of a wrong switch caused some red faces at the 8.8. C. at the week-end and sent a commercial radio broadcast over the B.BC. airwaves to West Africa. A technician at Bush House, home of the corporation's world service radio programme, slipped up on Saturday and switched in London’s Capital Radio, commercials and all, for almost a quarter of an hour. Intrigued natives heard spot commercials on shopping bargains at a trendy London furniture showroom and the benefits of investing in the Anglia Building Society. Said a 8.8 C. spokesman, "It was a bit unfortunate, but we see the lighter side of it.” Cool reception

A BRITISH member of Parliament, Mr T. Tomey (Labour, Bradford), has delivered an icy rebuke to what he calls “batty” E.E.C. regulations which, he says, will make British

ice-cream more scarce and costly. The E.E.C. rule will come into force later this year. It prohibits the use of the name “icecream” for anything but ices made with the cream of milk. Most ices made in Britain are produced from vegetable fats. “We cannot for much longer allow these batty E.EC. regulations to interfere with our domestic affairs,” Mr Tomey declared. “Things have come to a pretty pass when we cannot even call an ice-cream what we like. The dead hand of the Common Market strikes again, this time at the humble ice-cream.” Royal flight ONLY a matter of weeks after taking the Queen and Prince Philip to Pago Pago on the start of their jubilee year Royal tour, British Airways has mounted another royal flight, this time with a sting in its tail. The flight is between Auckland and Teheran and will be the first of seven between New Zealand and Iran. The royal V.I.P.s are 120 queen bees, each travelling in her own plastic box, with an ehtourage of 10 escort bees apiece to keep them warm and fed. Altogether 840 queen bees will be making the longest flight of their lives to a preserves company in Iran, which needs about 30,000 queen bees a year. Supersheep

CHINA has bred a new strain of sheep, according to the monthly newsletter of the New Zealand Wool Board. The sheep, bred in China's north-east Chinhai province, have fine wool and tender meat. A cross between the local sheep and the Sinkiang fine-wool sheep, the new breed can graze on the cold grasslands 3000 m (about 10,000 ft) above sea level throughout the year and needs only a small amount of supplementary feed during the winter and spring. According to

China’s news agency, the sheep possesses strong endurance powers, is resistant to disease and produces four or five times as much wool as other breeds in the locality. The agency did not say, however, how much wool this is. Underground A SMALL fortune in silver awaits a finder in Berkshire, England, as the result of “underground” activity by a man who feared a German invasion during World War 11. Alan Turing, a mathematician and computer pioneer, was worried about what a German invasion would do to the value of his bank account, so he converted it into silver bars and buried them in woodlands around Bletchley. The trouble is, as a friend of the late absent-minded scientist has now reveiled, Turing made no map to show where it was hidden. When he went to dig it up after the war he could not find it. Worth £3OO in 1940, the silver would realise about SNZI6,OOO today. Wife's worth A WEST GERMAN high court has ruled that a housewife is worthy the equivalent of SNZIS7 a week —in West Germany; it has made no suggestions about the worth of a New Zealand housewife. The verdict followed a traffic accident in which a woman was injured. The insurance company offered to settle the woman’s claim for SNZI322 but the court ruled that she was entitled to SNZB992. The judges calculated her working time at home at 46 hours a week and took into account a pay agreement worked out previously between the German Housewives’ Association and the Union for Food and Hotel Workers. Liberian laughs IN THE WAKE of a recent chain of maritime mishaps, the Liberian tanker joke has ousted the Polish joke as a mainstay of American humour. One example

is, “How many people in a Liberian tanker’s crew?" The answer, “A thousand: the captain and 999 little Dutch boys to put their fingers in the holes." And another, "How c- you tell the navigato of a Liberian tanker?” “He’s the one who shouts ‘We’re home’ when the ship breaks up on a reef.” Worth copying? MUNICIPAL workers in Takaruzuka, Japan, have been ordered to wear "on leave” badges whenever they are out of their offices so that the public knows they are not loafing on the job. Unknown

BRISBANE’S Lady Mayoress, Mrs Norma Sleeman, was strolling, with Prince Philip on one of the Royal meet-the-people walks but became separated from him as he moved into the crowd. As she tried to follow him, she was grabbed by a policeman and thrust" behind a barrier. According to Mrs S[eeman, when she tried to explain who she was the policeman said, "Oh yeah, and I’m King. Kong so clear off.” Mrs Sleeman is demanding a public apology from the policeman. Take your pick SOME wit has devised a devastating summary of how London’s newspaper readers see themselves. The list reads: “The Times”, read by people who run the country; "Daily Mirror”, read by the people whc think they run the country 1 ; “Morning Star”, read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country; “Daily Mail", read by the wives of the people who run the country; “Financial Times”, read by the people who own the country; “Daily Express”, read by the people who think the country ought to be run as it used to be run; "Daily Telegraph”, read by the people who still think it is; “The Sun”, read by those who don’t care who runs the .... ing country provided she’s got big boobs.