Reporter's Diary

Press, 18 March 1977, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Horror t .* LORD know* what effect the Prime Minister’s visit to Australia will have. The author. Gordon McLauchlan. tells of his meeting last month with Robert Lacey, the British author of “Majesty” and giving him a Muldoon Mask after Lacey had expressed an interest in them. McLauchlan left the mask at Lacey’s hotel immediately before the latter left New Zealand, with a note telling him not to frighten the children with it. McLauchlan has now received acknowledgement from Sydney by postcard. It reads: “Thanks for the Muldoon Mask. Showed it to Mr Whitlam and it frightened him silly.” Inflated GOOD news for players of the bagpipes who find they have not as much wind as they used to — the pipes have gone electric. Piper John Mackinnon, from Inverness, was forced to turn to modem technology after an operation three years ago. and amid mixed feelings from his fellow pipers, he revealed his invention to a pipe band association meeting at the week-end. An electrically powered compressor in the bag provides the necessary wind, requiring the piper to worry only about the finger-work on the chanter. “It is intended principally for the older piper who cannot find the breath to play,” says Mr Mackinnon, who plans to market the device in five countries. Commented one elderlypiper with disdain: “If you’ve not got the wind, you shouldn’t play.” Clear as mud

REALISING that computer jargon is getting a bit much for most people these days, the Honeywell Corporation has produced what it calls a "DSE Glossary” to explain the language. “DSE.”

one learns, stands for “distributed systems environment.” This is helpfully defined as “Honeywell’s wide arena of informationprocessing capabilities, governed by a set of design concepts, allowing users flexibility in the implementation of distributed system configurations.” Also clarified, for example, is the term “database.” This is “a generalised, integrated collection of organisation — or installation — owned data which fulfills the data requirements of all applications that access it. and which is structured to model the natural data relationships that exist in the organisation.” It should help a lot. Gremlins

WE thought no-one had noticed, but a letter yesterday from a reader shows that someone did. The issue of "The Press” on Tuesday, March 1, carried that dateline on all pages but one — the front page said boldly “Tuesday, March 2.” Another example of the many gremlins that lie in wait in spite of the most careful precautions in the production of a daily newspaper, it was beyond repair when first espied by the staff. The reader who picked it up. however, had a special reason for so doing. Her birthday is March 1 and she decided to use “The Press” as a gentle reminder to her husband. Alas, the point was lost on him because of the error, but it mattered not; he had remembered anyway. Rip-off THE British Civil Service has decided that its employees are getting through too much paperwork. Not the sort that comes tied up in red tape — it seems there can never be too much of that — but the sort that comes in rolls and is used only onde.

It is costing the British taxpayer almost $BOO,OOO a year for toilet paper for the Civil Service. So, in the name of economy, plans to switch from “standard” to “soft” toilet rolls in ministry buildings were rejected. Infanticide A YOUNG Ashburton girl guide leader returned recently from a visit to India and was asked to speak to a meeting of guides, brownies, and parents about her trip. She selected slides to illustrate her talk, mainly for the interest of the girls, but included some which would perhaps be of more interest to the adults in the audience. In the latter category was one showing a large slogan painted on a village wall, with a message on India’s birth control campaign. It showed a father, mother, and two children as being the desirable size to which Indian families should limit themselves. Our speaker, naturally, did not think it appropriate to go into details of how this desired state of affairs could be achieved, but dire and dreadful must have been the thoughts going through the head of one little girl. She was overheard to whisper to her neighbour. "What do you think the mothers and fathers do with all their other children?” Curtain calling THE PHRASE the “Iron Curtain” is usually attributed to Sir Winston Churchill in his Fulton speech in 1946. but the recent death of Count S< hwerin von Krosigk, who succeeded Ribbentrop as Nazi Foreign Minister in Admiral Doenitz’s shortlived Government after Hitler’s suicide, removes the man who used the phrase a full year earlier. In a broadcast to the German nation on May 1, 1945. after dealing with a list of Germany’s woes, yon Krosigk said: “In the etast.

the iron curtain behind which, unseen by the eyes of the world, the work of destruction goes on, is moving steadily forward.” It would not have been tactful for any of Stalin’s allies to make such a remark at that stage, nor very morale-boosting for any Nazi leader to admit it beforehand. Whether Churchill was aware of von Krosigk’s coining of the phrase; used it unconsciously as “something he had heard;” or arrived at it independently, is not known. Written in smoke A BRAND of cigarettes available in New Zealand has had to be renamed for the French market. The English name for the cigarettes is More, but the French object to going up to the local tabac and asking for “Un paquet de More” because it sounds like “A packet Of death,” however accurate it may be. Still, it would be interesting to read on the side of the pack: “Warning. Death can damage your health.” Fame THE CITY fathers might need to look to their public image. Cr Newton Dodge, chairman of the Christchurch City Council’s health and general committee and proponent of the do-it-yourself rubbish collection in St Albans, might not relish the concept of him held by one future voter. This 10-year-old was a passenger in the family car which was travelling behind a council rubbish truck, and persistently urged her father to overtake the vehicle ahead. After several appeals to pass the truck. the “politically aware” youngster was asked for her reason. "Because.” she said in a tone of exasperation, “we might see Newton Dodge.” In her mind, no doubt, all persons associated with the council are either rubbish collectors or men at the ends Sf shovels.