Reporter's Diary

Press, 10 April 1978, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Baby-danglers A FLYING bassinet designed by Mr John Frost Air New Zealand’s technical services engineer has been installed on all of the airline’s DO os. Air New Zealand hopes to sell the novel design to other airlines. Bassinets used to be anchored in the gap between seats in the middle section of seating but once nine-abreast seating was introduced, this gap disappeared. Mr Frost’s design has the bassinet suspended a few centremetres below the coat racks on a rope and pulley which allows it to be swivelled. The mother can pull the bassinet down to her lap for easy access to the baby, and the hostess can swivel it into the aisle, as shown in the drawing. The hanging bassinets are made of polyvinyl; waterproof, one hopes. Gire-auav

THE JIBE was made against environmentalists at a recent seminar on forestry at Taupo that the mainspring of their attitudes to forests was “something that may be diminishing in other sectors of society — a reverence for the aged and the virgin.” The jibe came from . "orest Service officer, betraying his own attitude to his statutory duty to conserve trees — old trees and unmilled forests included. Smokeless zone THE COOK Strait vessel Aratiki has hit on a good way of discouraging tobacco smokers. It throws them into confusion by erecting contradictory signs outside one of its public rooms. “Smoke Room” says the sign above the door. “No Smoking” says the sign on the door. A

Head gardener THE MAN to whom Christchurch owes much of its reputation as the “garden city” will be remembered in a memorial lecture <-t the Canterbury Horticultural Society hall tomorrow evening. Morris John Barnett became director of parks and re- .. .rves in 1928 after studying at the Royal Zotanic Gardens, at Kew, England. His 30 years in the job, left “a heritage of horticultural beauty of which the city will be forever proud,” says the society’s biography of Mr Barnett. Memorial Avenue as his idea, as were the four lime trees planted around the Godley Plot in Cathedral Square. Many parks, including Barrington, Burwood and Victoria, were developed in his time, and it was his action that gave permanent protection to the stand of native plants at Kennedy's Bui’’. This year’s Barnett Memorial Lecture will be by Professor T. W. Walker, of Lincoln College, on the subject of soil science in horticulture. Manxman sought NEW ZEALANDERS who think they are of Manx descent should write to the Government cn the isle of Man. The tiny island in the- Irish Sea has launched “Operation Roots,” to help trace an estimated one million people of Manx descent as a part of celebrations planned to mark )0 years of Tynwald, the world’s oldest continuous Parliament — founded by the Vikings when they ruled the island. “We estimate there are one million people of Manx descent living >n. Australia, New Zealand, Canada. North America, Southern .Africa, the United Kingdom and even on Pitcairn Island, where Manxmen from the

Bounty settled,” said Mr Edgar Cottier, a Government organiser for the millennial celebrations. Mr Cottier is a direct descendant of a Viking king called Earl Otter. “Anyone who thinks he (or she) is of Manx descent should drop us a line. Our surnames are very distinctive so we can tell quickly if they are Manx,” said Mr Cottier. A new guide to Manx ancestry has been published, with hints to help people trace their roots. Manx names mainly begin with the letters C, K, or Q. The highlight of “Millennium 1979” will be be traditional open-air Tynwald ceremony at which new laws are proclaimed to the island’s 60,000 people. Inquiries should be sent to "Operation Roots.” Millennium Office, Government Offices, Buck’s Road, Douglas, Isle of Man. The year-long celebrations will start on January 1 1979. Eye-lyping MOST paralysed people, including those suffering from diseases such as cerebral palsy, retain control over their eye movements, even when they cannot make any other movements. Mr Ken Anderson, a postgraduate student at the University of Toronto engineering department, has “harness,ed” these tiny movements in a device which enables paralytics to type at the rate of one character per second. It tracks the minute movements of the eyes as they focus on a small screen which shows all the letters of the alphabet and some numerals. The screen, optical tracking mechanism and control circuits are all mounted on an ordinary spectacles frame. When the eye rests on a letter for one second, the electronic typewriter taps out that charcter. Arresting IN HIS address to the pharmacy conference in the Town Hall on Saturday, the Associate Minister of Finance (Mr Templeton) began one section with this arresting phrase: “We want to throw up earlier and more emphatically . . His words went down well with the dispensers of potions to sick people, even if he did go on to qualify them by adding “. . . the choices open (0 society.” Manure gone BUYERS of Ronald Etherington’s sljeep and turkey manure seemed just as glad to find his manure heap as he was to find them. He ' d lost his customer list after taking paid orders at the Rangi Ruru school fair, but once they knew \ here to find him, his customers reduced his heap in no time. There was only one bag over on Saturday, and he sold that to one of the half-dozen er.tra people who rang him on the offchance. —Garry Arthur