Reporter's Diary

Press, 30 December 1978, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Aerr ball game? A CRITICISM often levelled at New Zealanders is that, generally speaking, they are too preoccupied with sport — and with rugby in particular. It is ineresting to note, therefore, that such a responsible journal as the “Rugby Review,” published in Tauranga, has resisted the temptation to use the obvious illustrations for its 1979 calendar. The publication’s choice is a selection of dainty flowers. delicately anointed with dew — and with a lady in a state of considerable undress cavorting in the background. If this trend spreads, New Zealanders might be side-tracked to a whole new ball game. Plan backfired THE BRITISH Post Office’s plans to please important clients and entice some more express delivery business came undone when about $13,000 worth of pin-up calendars were found to be in “dubious taste.” Embarrassed officials ordered the distribution stopped and the calendars were all burnt. Easy choice AN AGEING alcoholic, who appeared in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday after being found in - state of considerable intoxication at the Christchurch Railway Station,

was told by the Magistrate that he had two choices. “Either you can go with Major Beale up to Rotoroa or you can go to prison,” the Magistrate said (Major Beale, of the Salvation Army welfare division, has been appointed superintendent at the Rotoroa Island home for alcoholics). The defendant needed no time to think about that one. He indicated that he would much rather go north with Major Beale. Looked familiar POLICE records on file in the Government’s computer have been a little unreliable recently, if incidents in the Magistrate’s Court in the last few weeks are anything to go by. Another example occurred yesterday, when a young man appeared on a criminal charge. “The computer printout shows he has not previously appeared before a court,” the prosecuting sergeant said. “But he has.” Voluntary overtime VICTORIA Lake was not drained as usual this year, we hear, because the time such work was to be done happened to clash with the Telethon and one of the fund-raising stunts was on the lake. As a result, it has become clogged with weed, much to the chagrin of members of the model yacht club. Officials of the club managed to get a local author-

ity to cut the weed at the bottom of the lake, and it was then up to the club members to haul it out and carry it away. One keen member found himself with nothing to do on Boxing Day, and so he went to the lake and set about pulling some of the weed out. He was feeling most virtuous, giving up his spare time, and did not appreciate it when a passer-by said disparagingly: “Huh. You’ll be getting paid double time, I suppose.” MT..C. Man for the job WHALE Island was an appropriate venue for a “one-that-got-away” story in the two-day Whakatane deep-sea fishing contest. On Wednesday, the Mayor of Rotorua (Mr T. R. Woolliams) was fishing off the island when it looked as though he had hooked a whale. From about 2 p.m. on, he and his crew member, Neville Podmore, aged 16, fought the fish, which they never saw. At times, they were even towed backwards. Finally, at 5 a.m. on Thursday — 15 hours later — the fish got away from the exhausted fishermen. Mr Woolliams would have been well qualified to catch the fish, in spite of his eventual failure. As well as being Mayor of Rotorua, he is also chairman of the Bay of Plenty Catchment Board. Flying freight ONE OF the most cheering stories this year was told in London this week

by a wildlife writer. He wrote of a bird, a member of a rare species known as the bald buzzard, which found itself jetting to Tunis this week at the expense of the Intervention Fund for Birds of Prey. "On its way from Norway to the Republic of Niger,” he wrote, “the unfortunate creature got in the way of a shot from an over-en-thusiastic French sportsman’s gun. He had fired wide of the bird’s vitals. But even a Frenchman could not entirely miss a target with a 6ft wingspan. The Bird of Prey Lovers’ Association found itself looking after a large, fractious bird with a broken wing. By the time the damage had been repaired, the patient was five weeks late on its migration schedule. Powered flight was the only answer, if the bald buzzard were to catch up with its feathered friends on the same migration course. But it is not known how the bird reacted when, after an airfreighted dash down France and across *he Mediterranean, it was left to continue south on its own.” let age SIR Freddie Laker, of cheap air fares fame, may have given travel language a new expression: “Cosh,” successor to “Posh.” The old sea-travel to India term meant port side out, starboard home (for cooler cabins). Today, in Laker terms, it- is “Cosh” for Concorde out, Skytrain home. —Felicity Price 1