Reporter's Diary

Press, 22 July 1977, Page 4

Reporter's Diary

Easing the pain THE SACK is unpleasant for both the sacker and the sackee. To ease the pain on both sides, a new sort of consultant has sprung up in the United States, specialising in “dehiring” or “out-plac-ement.” His job is to make the whole messy business of firing executives look better and feel better. The experts are called in before the sacking is actually done, and while the “termination interview” is taking place, the de-hirer waits in the lobby. When the shocked former employee stumbles out, the consultant is there with a shoulder to cry on. His job is to make the victim accept what has happened, and to find another job. As the poor man goes the rounds of job interviews the de-hirer is always in the background with support and advice. The company that sacked the man pays the de-hirer’s bill— usually about 15 per cent of the salary of the sacked man. “Nessie* MARINE zoologists at Canterbury Museum and the University of Canterbury Museum and the University of Canterbury are sceptical about the "Nessie” which Japanese trawlermen pulled out of the sea 30 miles off the Canterbury coast (yesterday’s “Diary”). They ail think it was probably the chewed remains of a dead manta ray —- a sea creature which can grow very big. The clue was the mention of cartilage on the tips of the “wings”. “If it is

cartilaginous it will be a shark or some kind of ray,” said Mr Geoff Tunnicliffe, of the museum. But all of the scientists consulted say they will be very interested to see the photographs taken of the smelly creature before it was dropped back into the sea. “There is always the chance that it was something new,” said Dr Islay Marsden, of the University’s zoology department. “Plessy?* PROFESSOR Fuhio Yasuda of the Tokyo Fisheries University, who studied photographs of the South Pacific “Nessie,” said it looked like a prehistoric plesiosaurus. But it was impossible to say just what the animal was without a bone sample. He said that marine experts who examined the photographs said the creature did not resemble a whale or a dolphin; its neck was too long for a turtle, and fatty tissue on the skin indicated that it could not have been a shark. The trawlermen threw the carcass over the side for fear that it might contaminate the commercial catch. But Dr John Paxton, curator of fishes at the Australian Museum, was not impressed by the pictures. “Nothing more than a decomposing whale or shark,” he said. “As a decomposing mass, a shark or a whale has been dead

a long time; it is absolutely unrecognisable and could be made out to be anything.” Not guilty “ANON” has written to suggest that it may not always be the patients’ fault when crutches are not returned to the hospital. “When my daughter had an accident a few months ago,” he or she writes, “she was lent crutches from Burwood Hospital, and told to ignore any notice about the $lO deposit, which she did — three times — the crutches having been returned about 10 days after the accident. I wonder how many of the ‘missing’ crutches are in fact returned like my daughter’s. She finally wrote to the orthotics department to explain. We hope she will not receive another notice." Wordy A GROUP of schoolgirls stumped the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) this week when they asked him to sum up his job in one sentence. "He took about five minutes,” said Mr Stuart McPeake, a social studies teacher at Cromwell District High School. Mr McPeake and five of the school’s fifth-formers spent about half an hour with Mr Muldoon as part of a social studies exercise en-

titled "power and influence.” The girls — part of a larger group being billeted in Wellington — put prepared questions to Mr Muldoon and seemed pleased with the discussions. Here, too A PAPANUI reader put down the newspaper yesterday morning after reading about the Auckland woman of 101 who received a jury service summons, walked out to get his mail — and found a jury service summons for his own mother, who is 92. "As I am now in my ninety-second year.” wrote Mrs Margaret Williamson in reply, “and of old age, I don’t think I would be acceptable.” Mrs Williamson keeps good health and still gets about, but did not feel able to spend the day at the Supreme Court. Women’s view AN ALL-WOMEN jury at London's Central Criminal Court has cleared a man accused of rape. He had asked for an all-women jury so that they could bring their “female experience of life” to the case. The 12 women deliberated for five hours before giving their verdict. It is thought to be the first all-women jury to try a rape case. The lawyer representing the accused man told the Court that the jury of women could view the complainant "in a female way.’’ The young woman said in evidence that she was telephoning her boyfriend when the accused engaged her in conversation on the landing of her flat. She said he pulled her into his room and raped her. The accused’s case was that everything that happened had her consent, and that they had been intimate on other occasions. “She only complained of rape,” he told the 12 women jurors, “because her boyfriend is very jealous and he found out about our association.” Caller pays IN THE good old days when TVI had plenty of money, collect calls were accepted without question on such programmes as “Today at One.” But now that the squeeze is on, the viewer has to pay. If TVI asks viewers to telephone in With their views on the economy or something equally gripping, it now refuses to accept collect calls in Wellington.

— Garry Arthur