Reporter's Diary

Press, 4 December 1978, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Happy couple?

A UNION between the Citizens and Labour . factions of the Christchurch City Council may not be as impossible as ' some might think. During an official council visit to pensioner housing in the city one day last week, the Mayor of Christchurch (Mr H. G. Hay) was accompanied byMs Vicki Buck, as well as several other councillors. They all travelled together in the imposing Mayoral limousine to greet the pensioners. But at one council flat, it so happened that Mr Hay and Ms Buck walked up the path together. The elderly woman who lived there welcomed them warmly and complimented Mr Hay on his lovely wife. She said she thought they made “such a lovelycouple.” Both Mr Hay and Ms Buck are reported to have been temporarily overcome with embarrassment. Gift to campus A POND and waterfall will soon grace the Lincoln College campus as a result of a gift from the Bank of New South Wales to mark the college’s centenary. The bank has been associated with the college since 1873 — about five years before the start of building on the college campus. The bank now has a full agency there. Christmas gift THE CAT called Dog, which featured in Friday’s “Diary,” will celebrate his official fifteenth birthday at the Canterbury Tavern, in Lyttelton, this Wednesday. He was ap-

patently bought by Mrs J. F. Fitzgerald, of Lyttelton, the daughter of the tavern’s present proprietor, 15 years ago on December 6. She paid 7s 6d for the cat out of her weekly earnings of £3, which made her very unpopular with her father at first. But because it was so close to Christmas, he soon forgave her for spending so much money on a cat, and today he would never part with it. (The cat’s name, as a matter of interest, was changed to Dog, when it took up residence at the tavern. Before then, he was known as Neville Andrew Herbert.). Dangerous

A READER who returned to Christchurch through the Lewis Pass last week says she saw a sign at the side of the road, between Glynn Wye station and The Poplars, warning motorists of the possibility of finding farm animals on the road. However, the sign had been amended slightly, and now says: “Wandering stock agents.” False claims PAM AYRES, whose witty verses and broad Oxfordshire accent capitivated many New Zealanders recently returned home to more troubled times, which ended only last week. The troubles began when another Oxfordshire poet, Daniel McNabb, claimed that she had taken his ideas and used them as her own. Miss Ayres brought actions for libel against the “Sunday Express,” which printed his claims, as well as the editor and the writer of the . article, Lady Olga Maitland. She also sued

Mr McNabb in a separate action. This week, settlement of the actions was announced, Miss

Ayres receiving undisclosed damages and legal costs. The allegations were withdrawn unreservedly and apologies made. Spectator sport RUGBY pilgrims from Wales, who traditionally fall by the wayside in the nearest bar on their way north to see the Red Dragons play Scotland, are now being offered an alternative. They can get near enough to the football to send a postcard home but still enjoy pub hospitality and even watch the match. An enterprising Scot has booked out a hotel near Glasgow Airport and is offering 400 revellers a view of the match at Murrayfield, 100 km away, on a’ 2.5 m television screen. He will throw in a striptease dancer named Lulu and a, -bawdy comedian in place of the pre-match singing, and offers genuine Murrayfield postcards. AH this, with three nights accommodation, is offered for $lOO a head. Fat in the fire THE FISH-and-chip war in Redcliffs is hotting up, a reader reports. He says that a new fish-and-chip shop has opened there recently, only a few metres away from, and in direct competition with, one that has been there for some time. Since the new one has opened, our informant says, the old, established fish-and-chip shop has put up innumerable signs on the footpath, on the shop walls and windows, insisting that its product is superior. —-Felicity Price