Reporter's Diary

Press, 19 August 1978, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

R2D2’« cousin POGGLE the robot walks, talks and can even hold a conversation. He is a re-mote-controlled machine, complete with flashing lights, a microphor - (on his nose), a speaker (behind his mouth), and a r a d i o-transmitter that enables his operator to move him around. When people talk to him. the conversation is relayed to his operator by the microphone, and a reply is transmitted back, which is pretty unnerving to the unsuspecting bystander. Poggle is the brainchild of Kadio Avon. He will be at the Industries Fair cnatting to children, helping Bunny Rigold, and generally sticking his microphone into everything Yesterday, Poggle visited children at the Christchurch Public Hospital much to their delight, and then went out to Canterbury Court where he directed final preparations for the fair, which opens today. Radio Avon staff had intended to swathe Poggle in bandages when they took him to the hospital yesterday, but they had to abandon the project. He told them that robots object strongly to any restrictions. Cut-rate S.T.D. A SENIOR journalist at “The Press” who retired recently has had a letter from his son in Perth telling him about the strike by Telecom workers in Australia at the moment. Telecom. Australia’s national postal and telegraph service, is in the midst of a strike by staff who are not repairing the chargemetering equipment on

S.TD. calls. “Everyone is frantically ringing friends and relatives all over Australia at the normal local charge rate of 10c,” the letter says. “My wife rang her parents in New South Wales the other night and talked for an hour and a half, and it cost only 20c for the two calls she made to them. And when we were coming back from Freemantle earlier I noticed all the telephone boxes outside the Post Office were full so this must be costing Telecom a pretty penny,” he says. After the black Budget brought out by their Goveminent this week, Australians no doubt feel they are justified in venting ’heir frustrations on the authorities. Proud papa MR 808 Stewart, head of P.D.L. Industries, Ltd, of Christchurch has become something of an unusual fatherly figure in the community. He believes he must be one of the few dads about who is entitled to receive benefits from the Government at both ends of the scale. Not only does Mr Stewart receive the Government superannuation, but he is entitled to claim family benefit as well as the tax benefits for children under five. He is the proud papa of a three-year-old. R2D2's series? THE FILMING of “Star Wars II” begins in London next February at Elstree Studios, which hopes to finance the work. It should be an excellent investment — the original film has so far grossed more than SIOOM! Planning is under

way on “Star Wars III” and apparently, if the demand continues for these in t e r-galactic conflicts, there might be as many as 10 sequels to the original. Too many O’s A READER has written to tell us of one of the problems of living in Inangahua. A stranger visiting the town recently was asking for a certain O’Regan by the name of Pat, the reader says. Came the all-too-familiar reply in those parts: “Well, my friend, I must know something more definite than that. There are more O’Regans around here than there are opossums.” Eye witness

MR JACK Dymand. who was a tractor driver in the Antarctic during Admiral Byrd’s expedition in 1934, telephoned yesterday to tell us that he watched Dr Louis Potaka perform the appendix operation which was mentioned in the Diary last week. It was the first appendix operation done in the Antarctic, and Mr Dymand says that he and several others on the expedition erected a tent in the snow as a makeshift operating theatre. Dr Potaka was the first Maori to spend a winter in the Antarctic. Mr Dymand says he remembers how Dr Potaka came to be an expedition member. Admiral Byrd's doctor, who had come out with the admiral from the United States, had to return and Admiral Byrd was without a medic for his expedition. Mr Dymand says the admiral was on the brink of calling the whole thing off, but a message arrivd from Dr Potaka in Nelson to sav that he would go with them. After several days waiting in Dunedin, mem-

bers of the expedition were relieved to hear that the doctor had arrived and they could sail. The doctor, it turned out, had travelled down to join them in Dunedin on a Norwegian whaling ship, Kosmos, Mr Dymand says. It was the quickest way he could get there in those days. Fat cat

BLACKIE, Britain’s fattest cat, has been forced out of his $31,000 home. Three years ago, Blackie’s mistress died and left all her possessions, worth $40,000, to the cat. Since then, a housekeeper has popped into Blackie’s Sheffield home, cleaned up, and fed him his daily ration of fresh salmon, liver, cod and rabbit. But now the trustees of the estate have decided that 18-year-old Blackie is living beyond his means, and that he will have to see out his twilight years in the care of a neighbour. When Blackie dies the money from the estate will go to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Final word

A POSTSCRIPT to the items in the Diary in the last week or so about the Maori flax skirt that was presented to the captain of the H.M.S. New Zealand by an unknown Maori chief in 1912. The flax skirt still exists and is now looked after byRuth Halsey, daughter of the late Admiral Sir Lionel Halsey. She says that after her death the skirt will be returned to New Zealand where it will be placed on display in the Auckland War Memorial Museum, alongside other mementoes of the ship.

—Felicity Price