Reporter’s Diary

Press, 23 October 1978, Page 2

Reporter’s Diary

Princely dreams TALK of towing icebergs to the Middle East . has been circulating for some years, but it seems that Australia may play host to the first iceberg, rather than Saudi Arabia — with a Saudi prince doing the shipping. The prince, Mohammed al Faisal al Saoud, established a company called Iceberg Transt Internation in Paris last year. His consultant, Dr Charles Swithinbank, recently confirmed that the company plans to use friendly currents to help tow Antarctic icebergs to Western Australia. A ready market for fresh water exists there, and if that venture works the company plans to start shipping icebergs to Saudi Arabia in the 1980 s. The chosen icebergs — which are compacted snow, not frozen sea water — will weigh about 60M tonnes. Daylight saving DAYLIGHT saving will begin again early next Sunday morning. Mr How-

ard Barnes, an astronomer who lives in Auckland, has written to “The Press” to say that he hopes the terms “Summer Time” and “New Zealand Summer Time” will not be used this year because, he says, they are not correct. “The advanced civil time in New Zealand is officially called New Zealand Daylight Time,” he says, “and this name should be adhered to in all circum - stances dealing with the change-over from New Zealand Standard Time.”

Arab take-over RITONS are learning more every week about the Arab oil barons and what disaster their property deals can mean to the ordinary London flat dweller. Prince Fahd of Saudi Arabia and his friends, who bought the Dorchester Hotel in Park Lane for SIBM because they liked staying there, are splashing out another S6M on improving the air-condi-tioning and soundproofing. Other Middle

East visitors to London are paying $6OOO a week for houses in Mayfair and Belgravia, and $2OOO for flats in Kensington. Twobedroomed luxury flats, which used to cost $l6O a week a year ago, are now bringing $5OO, and longestablished English tenants are having their rents increased by 80 per cent. Letting agents say that young professional couples prepared to pay $4OOO a year from their non-too-ample salaries for flats have no chance against the overseas competition. Summer sun

NEW ZEALAND has the second-highest death rate in the world from skin cancer, according to a report in the October issue of “Roundel,” the ICI New Zealand Group newspaper. According to the report, New Zealand has 6000 ne . cases of skin cancer every year — second only to Australia, which has the highest in the world. One of the reasons for this, the report says, is the high concentration erf. ultra-violet rays within the spectrum of sunlight. The people at greatest risk are those with fair, sensitive skins. The article concludes with some suggestions for sun sense and painless tanning. “Tan between 9 and 11 a.m. and 3 and 5 p.m. when the sun’s rays are not so strong: never wear perfume while tanning because it can cause an allergic flareup by reacting to the sunlight; use a sunblock on the face and a sunscreen on the rest of the body: do not drink alochol while sunbathing as alcoholic drinks will rob you of the B-complex vitamins that you need for good tan-

ning; and always dry yourself after swimming, because water intensifies the effect of ultra-violet rays an the skin.” Political cocktail A NEW cocktail that is reported to have all the bite of a mini-Budget has emerged from New Plymouth’s Westown Hotel, where the barman (Mr Tim Glenholme) has concocted an original drink — the Rob Muldoon cocktail. The recipe, should anyone be game enough to try it, is as follows: a nip of Russian vodka, half a nip of Japanese cherry liqueur, a nip of French du'bonnet, a nip of Dutch cherry advocat, and half a nip of kiwi fruit liqueur poured over ice in a tall glass and topped up with lemonade. Censored A YOUNG woman who runs her own hairdressing

salon in Christchurch noticed an amusing form of censorship the other day. She keeps a supply of women’s magazines in the salon, including a popular Australian magazine that sometimes contains a male centrefold. One of the copies in her salon had a large piece of used chewing gum wedged between the centrefold pages — presumably stuck there by one of her clients so that no-one else would be able to see the picture. Keeping up RICHMOND, Virginia, hardly sees itself as being in the van of the social revolution, but an association which sponsors an annual husband-and-wife tennis tournament there has now opened the competition to couples “who have established a substantial connubial relationship.” —Felicity Price