Reporter’s Diary

Press, 11 April 1978, Page 2

Reporter’s Diary

4 new one NOW Mr K. W. Frampton, S.M., has heard it all. He said in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday that he thought he had heard every possible excuse for possessing cannabis — until Railton Howard Lucking’s case came up. Lucking admitted possessing cannabis leaf but his counsel, Mrs P. Gibson, told the Court that it was not for smoking. Lucking did graphic design work and had obtained the cannabis leaf because a friend had asked him to incorporate one in a design. He was fined $lOO. Incognito CITY COUNCIL officials have their own parking spaces, individually labelled with the user’s title. One senior official had the greatest difficulty using his space recently because a red Fiat was parked there. It stayed there for three days and three nights and, as a check on the car’s ownership produced no recognisable name, the official ordered it to be towed away. That evening, at a meeting of a council committee, an anguished Cr Vicki Buck rushed in to say that her car had disappeared. It seems that although she owned the Fiat the change of ownership had not caught up with the motorregistration records. Christ’s tomb? CHRISTIANS hold that Jesus died on the Cross, then ascended into heaven. Most Muslims believe that He was lifted bodily into heaven by God. But one

Islamic sect holds that both are wrong. The evan* gelical Ahmadiyya Movement believes that Jesus was still alive when he was taken down from the cross, although his breathing had stopped temporarily. He recovered from his wounds, left Judea in search of the lost tribes of Israel, and journeyed to India. The sect says that Jesus lived to a great age and is buried in Kashmir, where his tomb is revered. The Ahmadiyya Movement will hold an international conference on the subject in London early in June. Deserved it

THE pharmacists’ conference in Christchurch brought to the mind of one reader the days when pharmacists used to treat their customers as well as dispense medicines. The story concerned the late Stanley Richards, a well known Christchurch land agent, who went to Barnett’s, the chemists in Cathedral Square, with toothache when he was aged about 17. He had suffered agonies all week-end and Mr Barnett immediately took him into his dispensary, sat him in a chair, and proceeded to tug at the tooth with a pair of forceps. It was a long and bloody battle before the tooth gave way

— and there was no anaesthetic. When the deed was done, the chemist wiped his brow, went to his cupboard, and took out a bottle of whisky. It was a welcome sight to the young patient — but it was not for him. The chemist poured himself a generous shot of whisky, downed it in one gulp, and said, “My God, I earned that.”

Presents THE WIZARD was given a gift-wrapped present by one of his Cathedral Square audience yesterday: a page from J. M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan” in which the agless boy misunderstands Wendy and thinks a “kiss” means a thimble she is wearing on her finger. A thimble accompanied the page, which the Wizard read out to his lunchtime crowd. He was pleased to get such a useful present, he said. It would keep him going for days. He was not nearly so pleased with the last present he was given: a bar of soap.

Transport’s future ELECTRIC-CAR researchers at Canterbury University will be encouraged by a new British report which says that electric forms of transport, probably including the tram, are inevitable as oil begins to run out in‘ the 1980 s. The report, by the transport working group of the Advisory Council on Energy Conservation, examines the “post-oil period” from the late 1980 s on and the “post-fossil-fuel era” from the middle of next century. It concludes that in the post-oil period transport is likely to use syncrude (a petrol substitute from coal) and electric power. Fuel from other sources, such as methanol or hydrogen, would not be practicable. In the longer term, when all fossil fuels run out or are environmentally unacceptable, electric vehicles seem inevitable, savs the report. “The Times” says that Government support for electric-vehicle development will increase sharply because of the report. Sale cancelled OLD hands at jumble sales know better than to

put down any of their own garments, even for a moment. But no-one had warned Anne Jones, of the Elmwood Players, that jumble sellers will virtually sell the clothes off your back if you hold still for a second. She was helping out at the Players’ stall at the Arts Centre fair on Saturday and left her own jersey and raincoat at the back of the stall. In no time, they had found their way on to the mounds of used clothing. Luckily she recognised her own coat and was able to retrieve it but the jersey had gone by the time she realised her plight. Alex Henderson, president of the Player, asked Jill Wilcox, who handles the group’s publicity, to see if there was any way of getting the jersey back. The description of the jersey rang a bell with her. Surely she had seen it somewhere recently? She had: on her own daughter’s back. By a happy coincidence, Christine Wilcox had brought the jersey home from the sale as one of her prize purchases. The owner now has it back but to add insult to injury she found that the shanghaied garment had been priced in the sale at a mere 50c. Chost conductor ONE of the audience at the matinee performance of “The Merry Widow” on Saturday afternoon really got into the swing of things. As Dobbs Franks conducted the Canterbury Orchestra in the orchestra pit at the Theatre Royal, a man stood up in the front row of the audience and did some very vigorous impromptu conducting behind him. The ghost conductor had a marvellous time, much to the amusement of the rest of the audience and even, it seemed, of the upstaged Dobbs Franks himself. — Garry Arthur