Reporter's Diary

Press, 19 February 1979, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Tricky question A GIRL, aged four, watched a fly buzzing about the room and was prompted to ask her mother, “Why don’t flies ever sit or lie down?” After a moment’s quick thinking, the mother replied, “Er . . . they sort of crouch.” Pedal power WITH THE Kampala air full of rumours and gunfire, there is intense speculation on the Gulf about an advertisement which appeared in two Saudi newspapers earlier this month. Placed, curiously, by Uganda Motors, it in-

vites tenders for 5000 bI a c k-enamelled men’s bicycles. There are 15 specifications, including the size of the saddle and a three-inch bell, suggesting a military mind at work. The Tanzanians will no doubt watch for surprise ' tactics on the border. Summer show INDOOR plants are certainly becoming most popular and, in recognition of this, the Canterbury Horticultural Society will in elude a special display of house plants at its coming summer and dahlia show. The show, to begin on February 28 and run for three days, will also have a sales table where indoor plants may be bought.

In training MR JOHN HILL — a Christchurch drainage contractor, demolition expert, stonemason, and black-belt judo expert — is well into his training programme now for his attempt at the world coal-carrying record of 23 miles. Mr Hill will start his hike at 6 a.m. on February 27 at Hagley High School and will try to carry a hundred-weight of coal round Christchurch until the record is broken. His effort is in aid of the establishment of the Child and Family Study Centre — a project endorsed by the City Council as part of International Year of the Child activities. It will be set up to act as a coordinating centre for organisations already involved in child and family help, although it will not be a controlling body. It will initiate some activities to meet the needs of children and families directed to the centre, and it will build up knowledge in arranging workshops in family life and child care and development, both for families in need and for professional groups. Mr Hill hopes to raise about $5OOO for the centre.

Sensational ALTHOUGH “The Times” is still missing, the number of national daily papers available to the British reader remained at nine when the “Daily Star” began publishing in London last week. It is unlikely to attract many of the regulars of “The Times,” however. Its first national edition carried a full-page colour photograph of a topless model, and the editorial content can best be gauged from such recent headlines as “Daughter took my hubby”, “Blonde in the town hall vanishing act”, “Bishop in sex romps trial”, and “Nurse sex terror probe at mental home.”

Bad vibes? MORE THAN a dozen Leningrad taxi-drivers were sent home on full pay one day last week because their biorhythm charts showed, it was a critical day for them. Belive it or not, biorhythms were introduced in Leningrad’s Transport Department after a computer check showed that two-thirds of the road accidents there occurred, on days when acording to the drivers’ charts, they were most accident prone. The Soviet Union apparently is using biorhythms more often to cut accidents among its workers. The charts have been made out for 5000 cabbies in Leningrad to judge their physical, emotional, and intellectual capabilities during 23, 28, and 33-day cycles. Popular series THE POPULAR British drama, “Edward and Mrs Simpson,” mentioned in the "Dairy” two weeks ago, will probably be shown on New Zealand television later this year. A spokesman for TVI in Wellington said yesterday that the programme would go to ballot next week, to decide which channel would screen it, and that it was likely to be screened this year. Thames television spent more than S2M making the documentary-drama series about Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor (played by Edward Fox and Cynthia Harris, respectively). The series is turning out to be one of television’s all-time best sellers. Forty countries have now bought it, including France — where the Duchess still lives. The Duchess, who is halfparalysed by arterial sclerosis. lives in the chateau by the Bois de Boulogne where the Duke of Windsor died in 1972. Neither Thames Television nor the French network appears to be daunted by the fact that the series could be screened in France during Mrs Simpson’s lifetime — after all, they say, she has seen it all before. —Felicity Price