Reporter's Diary

Press, 10 June 1977, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Vof distracted

THE MINSTREL, winner of last week’s English Derby, is a very excitable horse. So much so that his trainer. Vincent O’Brien, was very concerned about how he would react to the highly charged atmosphere of Epsom on Derby Day. To make absolutely sure that his horse kept his mind on the race, Mr O'Brien simply stuffed the Minstrel’s ears with cottonwool. He wasn’t worried about Lester Piggott, who was riding his eighth Derby winner. Piggott is a little deaf anyway. In the wet

RUGBY fever has New Zealanders in its grip. Noone who has the country's honour at heart is stirring far from a radio while the British Lions are rampaging around. One reader reports seeing eight middle-aged men with red faces and bald heads sitting up to their necks in hot water at Hanmer Springs. Rain was pouring down, but they were rapt In attention to the match report coming from a transistor radio sitting on the edge of the pool, wrapped in plastic. Getting close A YOUNG woman in St Martins put on her boots and her dressing gown early yesterday morning and’went out to get the paper. She was delighted; for the first time the delivery man’s aim had

been on target and the paper was lying in her drive, not the drive next door. But she smiled too soon. It was the previous day’s issue. The formalities TWO WEEKS ago a Christchurch girl had to spend one day in hospital as the result of a motor accident. This week Christchurch Hospital telephoned and left a message with her mother that she was to go back again. She had been feeling a few pains in the chest, and thought the hospital must have discovered something serious from the X-rays. But it was nothing like that. When she got there, they told her that they had not officially discharged her after her cneday stay, and they had to get her back to do so. She was duly discharged, two weeks after going home. Coffee break

SOME trade unions have reason to feel pleased with themselves for getting in before the recent price rises and persuading employers to provide free coffee as one of the conditions of their award agreements. In Government Departments, where civil servants used to have to pay into a tea fund, all employees are now to get free instant coffee from the Government at the rate of five grams per person per day — which some consider more than adequate.

Coffee hedge

ANYONE seeking a cheap substitute for coffee needs to look no further than the garden hedge. Coprosma repens, which grows in New Zealand from North Cape to Greymouth in the south, is a shining shrub much used for hedges, particularly in Wellington, where it is generally given its Maori name, taupata. It has been suggested that the seeds of taupata and another species of the genus, Coprosma lucida (shown above), frequently found in New Zealand ' gardens, and known as karamu, might be ground for coffee because the genus is not far removed from that of the coffee plant. Laing and Blackwell’s “Plants of New Zealand,” which has gone through seven editions since 1906, records how a member of the Wellington Philosophical Society, forerunner of the Roval Society, once provided his fellow-members with “coffee” made from the seeds of Coprosma repens. This drink was said to possess a splendid aroma, but the experiment was not repeated. The splendid aroma seems puzzling. The name Coprosma, derived from the

Greek, refers to the evil odour of the leaves of certain species when they are bruised. Taupata is a seaside plant, and also grows in Melbourne where it is called the looking glass plant because of its bright, glossy green leaves. Cold comfort SCREAMS of anguish were heard from the Y.M.C.A. changing rooms yesterday afternoon. Those hardy types who run round Hagley Park in all weathers loped back into the Y, stripped off their gear, and nipped quickly into the showers — only to find that the water was freezing cold. The hot supply had failed. Diversion

ONE household in Shirley is going to be severely disrupted later this year when the Christchurch Drainage Board diverts Dudley Creek through big pipes between Marshland and Hills Roads. Services to the house will have to be cut off. But the board plans to do the right thing — it will put the family up at a motel for three dr four weeks.

— Garry Arthur