Reporter's Diary

Press, 28 March 1979, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Torture chamber? THE MULLAH’S men have many ways of condemning supporters of the old regime in Iran. An American woman, married to a rich Iranian, has received a letter warning her against trying to return to the country. It appears that, when the revolutionary mob ransacked her house a fortnight ago, they “discovered” in the basement not only a wine cellar, which is bad enough, but also a “torture room” — a “small, windowless, woodlined room with spartan furniture.” Westerners would call it a sauna, Veteran competitor THE PAINTING which won the still-life section of the Malvern Show art class at Sheffield last week-end was painted by a veteran competitor. Mr’s Marv Chapman, who will be 87 next month, first entered a painting in a countrv show at Oxford in 1912, and she has been a consistent competitor in Canterbury shows ever since. She did not have an entrv -in the Malvern Show last year. But when she heard that entries were down this year, she rounded up four of hers — two still lifes and two

landscapes in oils — as well as five others from friends. And, she says, she intends to compete again at Malvern next year. Her winning painting last week-end was an oil still life of flowers and grapes, dated 1916. But this does not mean that she has given up painting in the interim. “I’ve just taken it up again,” Mrs Chapman says. “I’ve still got one or two unfinished ones.” Tom-toms wanted DOES anyone know where there might ,be a set of tom-toms — or even a recording of .authentic Red Indian drumrning? The Canterbury Children’s Theatre is presenting “Daniel Boone” in the May holidays and needs to hear the sound of tomtoms so that it can be used to create the right atmosphere of an Indian encampment. The first act of the play takes place in such an encampment, after Daniel Boone is captured by the Shawnee Indians, and the tom-toms will be beating while the braves take part in stirring war dances. If anyone has a recording of Indian tomtoms, or knows how to play them in true “Injun" style, would they please telephone 35-567,

Paying with pride THE HALIFAX Building Society’s EISOM tax cheque, mentioned in Monday’s “Diary” as a likely candidate for the “Guinness Book of Records” as the biggest cheque written in Britain, may be bettered. British Petroleum expects to pay more than E2OOM next month in petroleum revenue tax on its North Sea production — and that for a mere six months. “The Halifax is just not in our league,” a BP spokesman said, with undisguised satisfaction. Breaking in A BRITISH tour company has found a way to take the expense out of ski-ing — break your leg before you go on holiday. The company, Blue Sky Holidays, plans to lease the ski slopes in the London suburb of Hillingdon for holiday-makers to have a trial run before they venture out on the “real slopes” of Europe. “We fly more than 6000 people to ski-ing holidays in Europe in a year and we get one or two broken legs every week,” a company spokesman said. The winning formula SUCCESSFUL novelists have evidently found a

fool-proof formula for finding titles for their books to ensure them a place on the best-seller lists. One erudite reader, w|;o found himself with time to spare during his lunch-hour yesterday, was browsing through books at a Christchurch bookstore when he noticed that many of the titles had a familiar ringabout them. There was “The French Connection,” “The Terminal Connection,” “The Salzberg Connection,” “the French Atlantic Affair,” “The Venetian Affair,” “The Matlock Papers,” “The Poellenburg Inheritance,” “The Scarlatti Inheritance,” “The Ipcress File,” “The Osterman Week-end,” and “The Valhalla Exchange,” to name but a few. The latest addition to their ranks also caught his eye — “The Amityville Horror,” “But such titles are by no means new on the literary scene,” he added. “Remember ‘The Pickwick Papers’?” Just like a cat ONE SMALL Christchurch girl, when asked if her visiting grandfather had slept well the night before, said: “Yes, I think so. But granddad purred all night.” —Felicity Price