Reporter's Diary

Press, 9 June 1980, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Bright budget? WHILE New Zealanders wait in fear and trembling fo- Mr Muldoc./s nexl Budget, to be released in the next few weeks, Norwegians expect a much brighter future. Norway’s national budget for 1981, also to be released soon is likely to introduce an extra week’s holiday f“r all v orking Norwegians. The Prime Minister (Mr Odvar Nordli) has suggested that one item in his budget might bring in five week’s statutory holiday for Norwary’s labour force. A lot of blood! FEWER blood donors and a decrease in the number of blood donations received in Canterbury in the last year have not particularly worried the Canterbury Blood Transfusion Service, since it no longer has to send routine supplies of blood to Auckland.' But the service is still looking, for new donors all the time, says the annual report, released yesterday. In the last year,

8243 people have given blood in Canterbury (4192 in Christchurch and the others at the service’s mobile unit), compared with 9326 the vear before. Most of the drop, the report says, has resulted from the reduced number of visits to surburban and rural areas by the mobile unit. Of the 14,059 donations of blood received (compared with 15,048 the year before), 11,902 were used for transfusion in hospitals in Canterbury, Wellington, Dunedin, and Greymouth. Donkey rides

A FEATURE story in “The Press” last week about the sad of donkey rides at many of Britain’s beaches has prompted a Kirkwood Avenue reader to write enclosing a photograph she took, of the donkeys, on the Leach at Weymouth in August last year. The article ■■ said that donkeys were gradually. disappearing from beaches because of rising food

costs and their conditions of service. The price of donkey rides had not kept up with inflation, either. Our reader’s photograph shows the donkey rides costing 3Cj each. She says she can remember having donkey rides on the sands back in 1920 for the equivalent of 3c a ride.

Wait for it! SINCE our appeal for epitaphs for Jill Wilcox to use in her “Collections of a Magpie” for the McDougall Art Gallery’s Outreach programme, which takes her to a variety of old people’s homes and other institutions in Christchurch, a wide range of suitable pieces has been received and become part of her “Collections.” But sometimes the people she visits and presents her “Collections” to, have themselves suitable pieces for her to collect—like the epitaph she picked up from an.elderly man the other day. “The husband of what was, to all intents and purposes, a perfect couple, died,” Mrs Wilcox says the story goes. “In' utter grief, the widow went to the 4

stone mason and asked him to prepare his finest stone, with his most elaborate lettering of ‘Rest in Peace.’ He did as she asked. But she later discovered that her dear departed, who she had thought so perfect, had been playing around on the side. She stormed back to the stone mason, asking him to obliterate the ‘Rest in Peace.’ But she was told it was too late —the words could not be erased. However, he could add something, if she liked. ‘Right,’ ■said the aggrieved woman, ‘add: Until I come’.” Pink elephants MATEUS Rose is now said to be the most popular single wine in the world, selling a million bottles a week. Many attribute its success to its beautiful label and the unusual shape of its bottle. Whatever the reason, guests at a special party to celebrate 30 years of successful exporting, held in London recently, had little chance to form their own opinion. To celebrate its success, Mateus Rose launched a new magnum of its product and chose, of all

places, the elephant house at London Zoo as the venue for the special occasion. Speeches were made against a background of contented groans from the sleeping elephants and rhinoceroses, and guests sampled the wine amid the full-bodied aroma of the animals. Timeless

“NEW ZEALAND has an excellent opportunity to export frozen chickens and ducks to Britain, although exporters would face high freight costs. A quality article arriving at the right time on the British market could be the basis of a sound business. This is the encouraging result of an investigation into prospective outlets for New Zealand poultry, initiated by the Government in March, ’ said the Under-Secretary of Agriculture (Mr Talbot) the other day. But poultrymen should not get too excited. Nothing changes. The report he was quoting from was published in March, 1894.