Reporter's Diary

Press, 2 April 1979, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Cult folloicing A FORMER seafaring man, who lives in Christchurch has received a letter from a colleague with the following description of religion at sea; “There are three types of religion at sea. The first is ‘Booze.’ Followers of this religion worship in special chapels in ships at all hours of the day or night. The second is ‘Money’ — a simple religion, for which a special day is set aside for worship, called the 24-Hour Stoppage. The thirc is ‘Conventional Religion.' This is resorted to by all in times of disaster, such as fire at sea or when the ship is perched on a rock through an error of navigation. There have been many permanent converts to the third religion through an overdose of the first.” Numbers game DEFIANT double-parking and other traffic offences b' - United Nations diplomats remain such a hot issue in New York that the newspapers there are publishing the licenceplate numbers of the worst offenders. The record for a car with the most parking summonses — which diplomats can,

of course, ignore — goes to Zaire, whose envoy has accumulated 513 tickets in the last 11 months. In the same period, the Sovi.et Union delegation, with 132 cars, amassed a grand total of 7422'parking summonses, closely followed by Israel, with 7207, and Nigeria a confident third with 4931. Last is Sierra Leone, which keeps only one car in New York. Down to earth A BRITISH Columbia undertaker is trying to do something about the high cost of dying by offering coffins made of cardboard. To bring prices down further, the undertaker has his wife stitch the linings herself in simulated satin. By doing so, Ken Timlick is able to cut the cost of the average funeral in British Columbia from $lOOO to $l5O. But for those who baulk at the thought of cardboard, Mr Timlick hires out a more dignified-look-ing coffin, for appearances sake, until the burial takes place. “Timber doesn’t last underground for ever, either,” he says. Fighting "flood’ AN OPEN letter has been sent by Neville Rush, of

the Integrity Centre, to the Christchurch City Council, complaining about “another of the filthy students’ magazines being sold in the city streets again.” The letter refers to the Lincoln College capping magazine, “Ram,” which was on sale in Christchurch earlier this month. “Our society has no hope of restoring honesty, purity, and sanity while governing authorities have nothing to say about perverted humour of this kind,” Mr Rush writes. “The flood of this corruptive material can be stopped. Young people can be shown a lifestyle better than something cheap, crude, and superficial. But somebody will have to speak up and do something. And it had better be jolly soon. Yours in determination.” Mr Rush concludes. In a short postscript he says that he hopes the City Council will read the magazine. Inside job THANKS TO a fire which ravaged Chelmsford Prison last year, putting it out of commission for about two years, Ronnie Barker will have an opportunity to do some real “Porridge” when a film based on the BBC television series goes into production there this month. The British Home Office says it is only too pleased to oblige the “Porridge” team, as its

production was “a favourite programme within the Prison Service.” Every “jail,” the Home Office says, “has a Fletcher more than one McKay, and a number of Barracloughs. In fact, the only character who doesn’t ring quite true is the Governor — he’s a bit wet.” Taxing words IN ITS continuing effort to make its tax forms more intelligible, the United States Revenue Service fed some samples into a computer that had been instructed to “red flag” words that would be too difficult for the general public to understand. Among the words and terms that the computer decided would be too difficult for the public to understand were: “spouse,” “Deduction,” “Taxpayer,” “Social Security,” and “Internal Revenue Service.” Smooth talker A PSYCHOLOGIST overheard at a social gathering was talking to another man about arguments on the domestic front. “We often have a difference of opinion,” the psychologist said. “But we get over it very quickly. I never tell her about them.” —Felicity Price