Reporter's Diary

Press, 5 August 1978, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Careless

MRS DORIS May is not very impressed with the tact of the Heathcote County Council. Her husband, the historian Phil May, died in June last year. The council knows that, because a month after he died the electricity bill came addressed to “Estate of P. R. May.” But now the council has sent a letter addressed to him giving due notice that his name will be deleted from the county roll of electors. “Should you consider that your name should not be removed from the roll, would you kindly advise us as soon as possible,” the letter concludes. Daylight shading JUST because the sun is shining, it does not mean that it is necessarily daytime, according to the Waimairi County Council. The council’s town planning committee has decreed that, for noise prevention purposes, nighttime henceforth will be between the hours of 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. on any day except Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays—when night-time shall fall between noon and 11.59 p.m. Old friends RESIDENTS of a house at 32 Durham Street received an unusual letter in the mail the other day. It came from a woman in Lancashire, England, who is trying to get in touch with the people who used to live at the Durham Street address many years ago. So the people who received the letter, who have no idea about the earlier occupiers of the property, have brought it into “The Press” in the hope that we might be able to help. The letter is from Mrs Lily Halpin (nee Armstrong) who says she stayed with Mr and Mrs Bambey, in Durham Street, about 50 years ago. She remembers the two children, Colin and Alex, and two sisters, and says she would like to be able to get in touch with them again as she intends to visit New Zealand soon and would like to see them again. Mrs Hal-

pin’s address is 4 Rydal Road, Morecambe, .Lancashire. Male market MARKET research in San Francisco this year has produced evidence of a group of consumers who earn above average incomes and who are generally big spenders—especially on eating and drinking, clothes, home furnishings, and sportsgoods. According to a recent issue of "Out” magazine, which is produced in New Zealand to cater for the equivalent market, the customers in this consumer boom are male homosexuals. In San Francisco—recognised as the “gay” capital of America, and possibly of the world—the market is one that businessmen are gradually realising cannot be ignored. Politicians in the area have adapted their campaigns to the estimates that 28 per cent of the voting population is “gay” oriented, and that they have about a 25 per cent larger income level than male heterosexuals in the same age group. “We don’t have families or school fees,” one of the consumers says. “We spend it all on ourselves.” All rated ‘G’

SINCE the growing criticism about the lack of films suitable for children in Christchurch cinemas, Kerridge Odeon is starting a “Fanta Cinema Saturday Club,” which will screen “G”-rated movies every Saturday, beginning on August 12 at the Avon Theatre. Each programme will comprise a main feature film — such as “Swallows and Amazons,” “Silent Friends”, and “Professor Didlittle and the Secret Formula” — and one or two shorter films. These will be either a brief documentary of special interest to children, a cartoon, or a series of films about a group of children and their pet monkey, called “chipmates”. As well as the films, the Saturday morning film showings will include a special appearance of “Uncle Trevor” — who is none other than the

theatre manager (Mr Trevor King). He will be on stage in front of the silver screen staging quiz shows and talent quests. Male doll

A 33CM MALE doll called “Gay Bob,” who wears an ear-ring and a plaid flannel shirt open to the waist, has "come out of the closet”, according to his manufacturer. He is the world’s first homosexual doll, now being sold to adults in novelty stores in the United States. He is being marketed in his very own "closet” and is selling for $l5. The doll’s creator, Mr Harvey Rosenberg, of Manhatten, admits he designed the doll “to make a lot of money,” but, he says, Gay Bob is really a symbol of male liberation. “Whether you’re straight or gay, everyone needs to come out of the closet to live more openly and freely,” Mr Rosenberg says. Bus-stop bragging A MAN, whose most serious traffic transgression so far has been a parking ticket, was sharing a bus-stop in suburban Christchurch with two young men one afternoon recently. While they were all waiting for the bus to arrive, the two youths struck up a conversation. “You lost your licence, then?” one asked the other. “Yeah,” he replied. “What did they get you for?” the first young man asked. “False number plates, reckless driving, no registration and no warrant,” was the reply. Our informant was duly impressed, but the other young man was not. “Is that all?” he said dismissively. Practical joke SEVERAL scores of students at the University of Canterbury were the subject of a practical joke yesterday. Posters around the university this week have been exhorting students to “come and hear what our dynamic leader has to say” on Friday at noon. But when they turned up to hear Mr Muldoon speak, the student’s found it had all been a hoax and that the Prime Minister was never meant to have been there. —Felicity Price