Reporter's Diary

Press, 10 May 1979, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Everybody out

RECENT ITEMS on the Hanmer Springs pools continue to attract comments. An Amberley correspondent recalls the occasion some years ago -— before the days of mixed bathing at Hanmer — when a lot of naked ladies, startled by a piercing scream took to the water en masse. A big rat had scampered into their dressing shed. Safe in the water, they called frantically for the caretaker, who was willing enough to start hunting the rat, having first armed himself with a piece of 4in by 2in. The rat, unwilling to see the thing out to a logical conclusion, shot through the door at such speed that it went straight into the pool, whereupon the naked ladies shrieked again and scrambled out. The caretaker, our correspondent alleges, suffered much consternation. We reckon some people have all the luck. Touch and go IT WAS a hit-and-run accident with a difference. An employee of “The Press” was op a motorcycle, going. south -; on Cranford Street antt ap-

proaching the Edgeware Village. The light was in his favour, a stream of traffic was responding to it. Suddenly a man emerged from a throng of pedestrians, darted this way and that through the cars and trucks, and collided with the unsuspecting motor-cyclist. It turned the machine 90 degrees off course and broke the front traffic indicator. “Sorry, mate” said the pedestrian, before he was lost again in the crowd. Pillow talk

A BRITISH journalist, Colin McGlashan, has failed to re-establish his unconventional marriage. He and his wife, Patricia, were divorced last year after Mr McGlashan, aged 43, broke their pact that they could take other sex partners as long as they were candid about them. Mr McGlashan took a friend of his wife to bed, but first lied about the affair and then when he admitted what had happened, boasted about how good the friend was at sex. Mrs McGlashan, who is 37, got a divorce. Recently three Appeal Court judges threw out

her husband’s objections. Lord Justice Brandon said it was Mr McGlashan’s boasting that upset the marriage, not his adultery. Untapped THOMAS KEVIN Doyle was' evidently one of the more colourful of Australian barristers. “Lawtalk” recalls that Mr Doyle learned that a client had pleaded guilty in Melbourne to 12 counts of burglary. Mr Doyle said his plea would run: “If your Honour pleases, my client has burgled 12 houses, a situation which may lead your Honour to adopt a stern attitude towards him. But I suggest that your Honour should raise your eyes, and look round this vast metropolis, and consider all the houses that he hasn’t burgled.” On another occasion, Mr Doyle invited a jury “to disregard completely the uncorroborated evidence of five policemen.” Any ideas?

CROSSWORD puzzle addicts seldom spare a thought for tfie worries of the compilers. Even the simplest puzzles can present problems, as the compiler of our young readers’ page puzzle found. With/. only one word to go to fill in the grid, all that was needed was a seven-letter word

beginning with A and ending with L, and containing a U that would be understood by children. One did not come readily to mind, and so there was a dictionary search. It yielded one, and only one, word: “Asexual” For children? Well, it was back to the drawing grid. Help! THE CO-ORDINATING Council for the Handicapped and the National Council of Women are still sadly short of the $lO,OOO they hope to raise to alter a Transport Board bus to enable it to carry disabled people from their doors to where they want to go. Donations may be sent to the organiser, Mrs Gwen Samson, care of the Canterbury Savings Bank, 21 Wakefield Street, Sumner. Repercussion A MAN got some rough justice in Wellington on Monday night, says the Press Association. He broke the window of a jeweller’s shop, but the brick he threw bounced back and hit him on the head. The police used a dog to follow a trail of blood, found the man, and took him to hospital. Nothing had been taken from the shop. The police said a man had been arrested and would be charged. .