Reporter's Diary

Press, 21 August 1979, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Tank tactics

PRESIDENT Carter’s recent energy “spectacular” has one omission —■ he forgot the brick, according to a letter in the “Washington Star.” The letter asks anxiously about a means of saving fuel which is becoming fashionable: “Someone has told me that a way to save gas is to put a brick in your tank — that way there is less room for gas and you wouldn’t have to buy so much ..the letter says. But one matter is troubling the corresent. “Could you tejl me how to get the britk in there?. The spout .is too narrow for ordinary bricks. Is it O.K. to break )t up and put in the pieces?” It all sounds deadly serious, in fact. Perhaps, one observer suggested, it was based ;on the venerable notion that you can save <m frc.

tricity bills by putting a brick in your hot-water tank.

Speed reading DESIGNED to appeal, presumably, to busy men and women with little time to spare is the comment on the front cover of the, “Australian Family Physician” magazine of June, this year, a copy of which has reached Christchurch. A small banner in bold type says, “Rapid Reading Time: 33 minutes,” For those who do not wish to reac the entire magazine, from cover to cover, the time would be even less. Full of beans

HIGH-ENERGY sweets, which have no artificial colouring or flavouring, are now being produced in Christchurch specially for hyper-kinetic children. Mr Harry ’.merson and his wife have set up a business called Milford Confectionary and are producing about 200 kg of the high-energy sweets a week. They began- about three weeks ago, making their sweets in a small factory in Shortland Street. They have also been making high-energy confectionary suitable for trampers, climbers and sportsmen and women, but have now decided to specialise in the glucose and honey sweets for hyperkinetic • ildren. Mr Emerson, v'ho was brought out to New Zealand to work for Queen Anne confectionary several years ago, has since worked for two other confectionary firms as well as Eriiest

Adams in Christchurch. He had the idea of making the high-energy sweets when it was discovered that one of his three children was hyper-kinetic and could only tolerate lollies that did not have artificial flavouring or colouring. He started making the sweets at home and his business has developed out of this. The main retail outlet is the Theatre Royal sweet shop. Wet butts

SEVERAL people have been inquiring about the recently published book about giving up smoking, mentioned in “The Press” yesterday. The book, by Dr Jane Chetwynd, of The Princess Margaret Hospital’s department of psychological medicine, is called “You Can Stub it Out” and has been published by the National Heart Foundation. It is available free at the foundation’s office at 76 Hereford Street and may soon become available through general practitioners. One of the aids to giving up smoking mentioned in the book is to fill a jar up with wet cigarette butts and sniff it every time you feel like lighting a cigarette. The stench is supposed to be enough to deter most nicotine addicts.

Collector's items AN ITALIAN collector has paid 20,000 lire for beer bottle labels from the old Ford’s Brewery in f Hokitika, according to the director of the Hokitika Museum (Mr J. R. Eyles). A long delay occurred in the transaction because of a difficulty in transferring the New Zealand equivalent (approxknately a, dol-

lar to a 100 lire) by postal order. Mr Eyles said the collector was also seeking other items such as cigarette wrappers and razor blade covers, which would be more difficult to supply than the local brewery labels. Space-age plants BELIEVE it or not, scientists plan to conduct studies in an orbiting green* house to try to discover ways of increasing the world’s food supply. With their space-age green* house, scientists will have a gravity-free laboratory which will help determine whether weightlessness or reduced oxygen supply might increase the food value of plants by restricting the growth, of woody tissue. Called lignin, this woody tissue has no food value and yet it makes up a substantial proportion of the plant structure. Ground-based research has shown that gravity compensation and reduced oxygen can significantly lower the lignin content So now the scientists are going to take their experiments up in the air with their orbiting greenhouse, designed by Lockheed. Fraudster’s tool BRITAIN’S clearing banks are troubled over news that 1.25 million “wonder pens” are about to be unleashed this month on the British market. The Wonder pens, already selling well in the United States, contain ink which can be rubbed out lire a pencil mark. In short, the wonder pen is to iie fraudster what the jemmy is to the bank robber. .