Reporter's Diary

Press, 31 May 1977, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Bran coffee 1. McKINLEY, a reader who lives in Mona Vale Avenue, offers this recipe for a coffee substitute: mix together seven cups of bran (from a grain store) and one tin of treacle. Put in trays in a slow oven until brown, stirring frequently. Do not let it bum. Bottle in airtight jars, and use a teaspoon or more to a cup, according to taste. The reader uses it and enjoys it. Coke and water “DON’T buy any coke tomorrow,” Mr Doug Shearer, of Wainoni, told us yesterday. “Wait until the weather clears up and the coke dries out.” Mr Shearer was speaking from experience. He took his trailer along to the Gas. Company three weeks ago, had it filled with coke and was charged SU. That was in fine weather. A week ago, he took the same trailer along and was charged $19.90 for his trailer-load. It had been raining in the meantime and the coke was wet. The coke costs $40.65 a metric tonne and Mr Shearer’s charge was calculated by running his trailer over a weighbridge. He reckons he was charged an extra $8.90 just for the rainwater absorbed by his second load of coke. But Mr Colin Kennedy, an executive of the Gas Company, disagrees. He said that the amount of coke loaded on trailers varied according

to the time the operator held the chute open. Sometimes trailers were seen leaving only partly filled. He said that the moisture content also varied from time to time but was normally between 10 and 18 per cent (by weight) depending almost entirely on the types of coals carbonised. Asked why coke could not be sold by volume, Mr Kennedy said that the Weights and Measures Regulations specified that coke must be sold by weight. ‘Swafo, spanner .. MOTOR mechanics who have to supply their own hand tools usually brand each item with an identification mark. A Christchurch concrete firm is keen to find the owner of a spanner marked with four Xs. It was found when the tractor used for filling the hoppers of concrete trucks jammed its gears on Saturday. They opened up the gear-box and there it was — a spanner in the works. Converted NOW that the weather is rather colder, a reader in Hoon Hay is finding it difficult to convert Celsius temperature readings to Fahrenheit so that he can really appreciate the cold. It is the minus reading that causes trouble. The University of Canterbury’s physics department uses this formula for converting Celsius to Fahren-

heit: Fahrenheit equals nine-fifths of the Celsius reading, plus 32. Using that formula for Twizel’s recent frost of minus 13 degrees Celsius, the equation becomes Fahrenheit equals ninefifths times minus 13, plus 32. The result is 8.6 degrees Fahrenheit. To express minus 13 degrees Celsius as "degrees of frost” in Fahrenheit, the minus is dropped and the eight degrees are multiplied by nine-fifths, producing 23.4 degrees of frost, Fahrenheit. Furtive shopper A WHOLESALER reports that the housewives’ boycott is making some shoppers a bit furtive. He heard from one of his supermarket customers that one woman bought so much coffee in anticipation of the latest price rise that she was too ashamed to let other women see her walk out of the shop with it. She asked to be let out the back door. Gate is back WHOEVER lifted Mrs Catherine Oldfield’s garden gate must have had some pangs of conscience after reading about the theft in this column. Or perhaps the distinctive wroughtiron gate became too hot to handle. Anyway, it was quietly returned at the week-end, slipped in behind the fence without anyone noticing. Mrs Oldfield is very pleased. She is grateful to those who brought it back. “It must have taken a lot of courage,” she said. Chooks recycled THE recycling business seems to be getting out of

hand. General Foods Poultry, Ltd, has applied to the Paparua County Council for permission to put up a plant for recycling chooks. The idea is to take all the feathers and offal from their poultry and "render” it into meal, which will be fed to other poultry. The plant, which the firm wants to establish in Carmen Road, would process about five tonnes of chicken waste a day. Such a cannibalistic system is already operating in New Plymouth. Hard times EVEN the Christchurch Businessmen’s Association is feeling the pinch. Mr Russell Thomas, the association’s president, announced at lunch yesterday that the fees would have to go up. One member did not seem surprised; even the little sugar sachets at his table were empty, he said. In the Bay BLOCKHOUSE Bay had a fascinating line-up for its match with Trans Tours United on Sunday, reports a United supporter. Among the Auckland team’s players for the game at English Park were a Chicken (no. 15), a Hogg (6), a Fish (12), two Codds (8 and 11) and a Lake (2). Slow scorers IF cricket bores you silly, imagine what it must be like for the long-suffering flannelled fools of Leicestershire. England. “Surrey all-out 220 after 90 overs,” said the cabled account of cricket scores from England. “Leicestershire 3-101 after 33 years.” —Garry Arthur