Reporter's Diary

Press, 15 April 1978, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

For all eyes MERE males will be allowed to view works of art by three feminist artists at the Canterbury Society of Arts Gallery next week. That is a change from last year, when the same artists took part in an exhibition by women artists associated with the United Women’s Convention. Allie Eagle (the feminist alias of Alison Mitchell) says last year's exhibition was designed to encourage women to foster their creative growth — it was women showing each other their work. Her contribution to this show comprises paintings, drawings and "a rape trial piece” in mixed media. Anna Keir will show some drawings and papier mache bowls, and the third member of the trio, Jane Zusters. will exhibit her photographs.

Rendezvous THE ARMAGH Street bridge over the Avon is not quite so grim as the bridge that leads to the cells in the Doge’s Palace, Venice, but it now shares the famous bridge's dolorous title. When Mr Justice Beattie was here with his Royal Commission on

I the Courts, Christchurch [ magistrates took the opF portunity to show him around their of

rooms and passageways, impressing upon him how cramped and uncomfortable their working conditions were. Things were so bad, he was told, that solicitors had nowhere to take thier clients for a last-minute chat. ‘‘The saying around here,” said one magistrate, “is ‘Meet me on the bridge.’ Half the business of the courts is conducted out on Armagh Street.” Mr Justice Beattie promptly dubbed the spot “The Bridge of Sighs.” Latin tartan A REPORT from Glasgow says that a special new tartan — Macleod of Argentina — has been created for the benefit of the thousands of Scots who are expected to flock to Buenos Aires for the World Cup soccer final. Grateful A WOMAN who works in an Arts Centre office has a high opinion of young people who are on special work after an incident there yesterday. Three young women are engaged there on a special work project, cleaning down a room in the old university clock tower, which will be used as a board room. “It is very hard work,” said the tenant, “so I looked in and them a cup of coffee. They accepted, and

I took them three cups and some biscuits- After lunch, they knocked at my door and brought me two bunches of beautiful carnations.” She thought that was particularly generous, considering the low wages the trio were getting. Fireualker

DO PRIMITIVE magic and modern medicine mix? They do for Dr Enele Karuru, medical superintendent of the Twomey Memorial Hospital for lepers in Suva. Dr Karuru. is a Fijian chieftain from the island of Beqa “benga”J where he is known as Ratutnaitavuki. Beqa is the island where Fijians walk., blithely through beds bf red-hot stones, and emerge appar* ently unsinged on the other side. Dr Karuru has been a firewalker himself, and for all his medical training he has no idea why he did not burn his .feel. He said in ChristChurch' yesterday that

even young boys were able to follow their father’s fiery footsteps across the stones. Rough greeting PRINCE PHILIP, speaking in London recently to the New Zealand Society, referred to his visit to New Zealand with the Queen 25 years ago. “It was in the days before the widespread use of milking machines. By the end of that visit I reckon we had shaken hands with every local government councillor in New Zealand. As most of them appeared to be dairy farmers, I can only say I came away with a profound sympathy for New Zealand cows.” Kaiapoi time FOR THE benefit of visiting bowlers and others who might venture out to Kaiapoi, it should be known that the town is seven minutes behind the rest of* Canterbury. Jim

Thomson organised a tournament which attracted 48 bowlers from Christchurch the other day, and most complained that the Kaiapoi Town Clock on the War Memorial in Charles Street was seven minutes slow. He had to explain that Kaiapoi does not rush into things, and that the clock had been seven minutes, behind the times for months — a quirk which the locals were now well used to. When the town was even more of a sleepy hollow, says Jim Thomson, they used to say, “Once around Kaiapoi, twice around the world,” Should have ducked *T‘VE GOT a cold, and I know where I got it,” grumbled a fellow worker yesterday. “I got it from that darned quack I went to — he was coughing and sneezing all over the surgery.”

_ —Gjury Arthur