Reporter's Diary

Press, 23 February 1978, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Third degree A CHICAGO story tells of the customer in a backstreet cafe who called to a waitress after he had sniffed the food she had brought him. “Hey,” he said, “do you know what the cook did to this fish?” “Sure,” the waitress replied. “She grilled it.” “So now you should take it back to her,” said the customer, “it’s ready to talk.” Detained

“THE DEFENDANT sends his apologies,” said the nolice prosecutor in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday when a young man failed to appear on a charge of assault. He was unable to be present, the Court was told, because he was in the cells at Invercargill, facing a number of other charges, one of which involved taking a car so that he could drive to Christchurch for yesterday’s hearing. Mr F. G. Paterson, S.M., issued a Bench warrant to facilitate the young man’s return. Aof to blame

A SENIOR high school teacher feels that Mr B. T. Hawkins, organiser of the Society for the Intellectually Handicapped’s house-to-house collection, was too hasty in blaming school pupils for his society’s collection problems. Mr T. E. Clarke, a deputy principal at Burnside High School, said the explanation was more likely to be found in the behaviour of some of the

city’s adults. He said he had helped various organisations to obtain the services of school pupils as collectors over the years, but in the last year or so he had been concerned about the number of complaints the young collectors had made about being abused by householders. It was also disheartening to them to find that m<zy householders refused to come to the door when they knocked. “Facing abuse and hostility from adults is, regrettably, not a rare occurrence,’’ said Mr Clarke. “Is it any wonder that school pupils appeal increasingly 1/ luctant to collect door-to-door?” Mr Clarke believes that many secondary school pupils have a very strong sense of idealism and a genuine willingness to actively help those less fortunate than themselves. Most were not as selfish or apathetic as Mr Hawkins’s complaint made them seem. Half-hearted A LINWOOD gardener must think that his peach tree could try harder. Hanging from one of its branches is just half a peach, neatly severed around the middle. His neighbour has the explanation, but he has not dared to pass it over the fence. This year’s crop of peaches looked so plump and inviting that the envious neighbour determined to filch one or two for himself. They were ripe, and dropping on rhe ground on the other side

of the fence, and so he was sure one or two would not be missed. To gather them he contrived a contraption involving a fishing rod, a length of wire and a brown paper beer bag. He dangled this sneaky device over the fence, worked the bag up over a likely looking peach, then pulled the wire, which was meant to close the top of the bag, trapping the peach inside. But when he brought it back over the fence and took the bag inside, he found exactly half a peach lying in the bottom. The story is being told here, not to pot the pilferer, but to solve a horticultural mystery. Doubly urong THERE is something encouraging about mistakes made by the Inland Revenue Department. There is always the chance that they might send an undeserved refund. One taxpayer has just received a default tax assessment notice addressed to him as “Mr Flewalyn.” That is not his name, although his third Christian name happens to be Llewellyn. He also happens to have paid his tax for the year in question. Road courtesy MOST cricket lovers can find ways of listening to a radio at any time of the day or. night, but three traffic officers attending an accident on Papanui Road the other day obviously could not tear themselves away from the scene to follow progress. As one driver crawled past with his radio tuned to Sports Roundup, they asked him the cricket score, but he had only just turned it on and could not oblige. One officer was still there directing traffic when the delivery van came back. It was held up in the queue, and so the driver hastily scribbled the scores of the day’s two matches on a piece of paper and thrust it into the traffic officer’s hand as he went past. He was rewarded with a grateful wave in the rearvision mirror. Sour note “THE NEW Zealand diplomatic community in London does not appear to be suffering from any attack

of modesty over the Kiwis’ rather lucky first ever cricket victory against England,” noted the diarist of “The Times” a little sourly. He said he could tolerate the triumphant champagne swilling at New Zealand House in the Haymarket, but it was less easy to swallow the decision to replace the tourist posters in the front window with photographs of New Zealand cricketers. He seemed to feel that Sir Douglas Carter, the High Commissioner, had the right attitude, however. “A man with a superficial interest in the game, he apparently carried on shaving with hardly a hint of emotion,” said “The Times,” “and agreed to attend a champagne do later in the day only when members of his staff offered to supply the bubbly.” Improvised A NEW Zealand Army surgeon has performed skin grafts on a Tongan’s badly mangled hand, using a splint made from scrap metal and two-inch nails. The patient was Vave Kepu, aged 18, who had caught his hand in a machine at the biscuit factory where-he works. The operation was done by Captain G. R. McDonald, a member of the New Zealand Army’s First Field Hospital which is working on an assistance programme in Tonga. In civilian life he works in the cardiac unit of Green Lane Hospital in Auckland. Bandaged skin grafts have a high failure rate in Tonga, and so Captain McDonald used a technique which leaves the graft undressed. He saw it done like that when he served at the New Zealand Medical Team’s hospital at Qui Nhon, Vietnam. A special splint was needed to keep the patient’s forearm immobile and the fingers spread during healing. None was available, but the unit’s catering officer, Staff Sergeant K. M. Antram, happens to be a Waikato Hospital splintmaker, and so he fashioned a splint out of bits of steel and t2in nails the morning of the operation. It worked perfectly; and early indications are that the graft has made an excellent “take.” — Garry Arthur