Reporter's Diary

Press, 24 February 1978, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Garry Arthur

Aot known IT SEEMS to be open season in the Post Office. Camera Craft Ltd, a city photographic supplies shop where one section of the Post Office gets all its film processing done, has been having trouble getting its monthly account delivered. Mr Terry Baines, the shop’s manager. says he has been sending accounts to the building section of the Pos. Office for years, but the latest one has come back to him marked "Return to sender.” It was clearly addressed to the Chief Postmaster. Chief Post Office, Building Section Christchurch, and even when he put it in the mail a second time, it came right back. “It seems tha’ they can’t find themselves.” said Mr Baines. As it’s a bill, perhaps they don't want to. Parking problem MANY motorists who have been pre-empted by someone else while waiting to back into parking spaces will sympathise with the man whose case came up in the Magistrate’s Court this week. He was so incensed when a woman drove into the space that he bumped her car with his, and was fined for his behaviour. So who has the right to the space in such circumstances? Nobody. said Traffic Superintendent A. Goldsmith when the question was put to him yesterday. There is no law on the matter at all, and common courtesv must be

relied on. In other words, first in gets the space, whether someone else had bagged it not. If you drive past the space preparatory to backing in, you leave yourself open to someone in a smaller car zipping in behind you. Superintendent Goldsmith recommended waiting behind the space instead, providing of course that you are not obstructing other traffic, which is an offence. Them too A TRAVELLER just back from the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon said he learned that plans were going ahead there for an institution to be known as the Philistine Cultural Centre. Self-service “SERVICE above self’ is the precept that Rotarians trv to follow, but that does not stop them enjoying some little personal comforts. Rotary International District 998 is holding its twenty-first annual conference at Timaru this week, and delegates have been issued with the customary name tags and other conference paraphernalia. They have also been given comfortable little cushions decorated with the Rotary emblem on which they are invited to sit during their deliberations. The organisers had considered importing 900 comfortable chairs from Christchurch, but the cost would have been prohibitive, so the comfy cushions have been issued instead. Delegates wil be allowed to take them home.

Bonus PLANTING something to hide an unsightly gap under the house proved to be a good idea for M. Vestey (above) of Mount Pleasant. It was a Supertom tomato plant of the Moneymaker variety, and it bore more fruit (or vegetables, depending on your point of view) than that of anyone else who bought a plant from the same supplier. It won Mrs Vestey and her husband, both schoolteachers, a three-day holiday in the Bay of Islands, courtesy of Gardenways Nurseries. The plant bore 489 tomatoes. 11 fewer than the plant which won last year’s contest. More than 700 plants took part, and every tomato of 2cm dia m e t e r and bigger qualified for the count. Clever ONE of the questions in a

written, “Likes and dislikes” quiz taken by pupils at a Lancashire school was “Name the man or woman with whom you would most like to be stuck in a lift.” One 13-year-old girl wrote: “The lift-man.” /Vo danger WITH a company of Gurkha soldiers due to arrive in Christchurch on Monday. (not yesterday, as predicted earlier) it seemed timely to prepare a warning about one of their more bloodchilling habits. But it was a false alarm. The tradition which has us worried is that when a Gurkha soldier draws his kukri — a wicked-looking leaf-shaped Nepalese knife — he must not return it to its scabbard until it has drawn blood. But Mr George Adamson, a former Gurkha

officer, says the story is just a myth. “If they had to draw blood every time, their parade ground would be awash with the stuff,” he said. “They draw their kukris on parade as part of their drill. They use them for al! sorts of things — even opening bottles.” It is a relief to find that the story is mere legend. Mr Adamson describes the 12in razorsharp kukri as the perfect in-fighting weapon — “an extension of the forearm.” Exclusive “YOU’RE one in a million listening to Radio New Zealand Community Stations,” says a current advertisement. Doesn’t that give them exactly three listeners?