Reporter's Diary

Press, 11 July 1980, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

One of the Twelve? KAIAPOI High School held its annual quiz evening on Monday, with several teams of school pupils competing for the honours. The questions covered all subjects, and some Were far from easy. For example, one of the questions was, “Name the Apostle who replaced Judas Iscariot?” Not everybody would know the answer off the cuff. The answer is, Matthias — but the answer given by one of the Kaiapoi school teams was "Canon Bob Lowe.” Feathered friends THE FOUR “boys” in the emu enclosure at the Auckland Zoo have laid an egg. For four years, the emu enclosure has been seen as a bachelor pad, but the appearance of a large green egg this week has changed all that. Obviously, one of the emus ; a female. But the zoo keepers are not unduly embarrassed. It is appar-

ently very difficult to detect the sex of the birds without an extensive examination, and they usually take up to five years to mature. Zoo officials now hope for a repeat performance. Emus lay up to a dozen eggs at a time, and the incubation period is 50 to 60 days. But to lay one of the 15 cm-long eggs every few days is a big achievement for any emu, and it is likely to be a few weeks before she has finished her clutch. Once the clutch is laid, the male incubates them himself. Although zoo staff do not want to count their emus before they are hatched, they are already thinking in terms of family accommodation. More than a whiff NOT FAR from Bromley School, in Keighleys Road, is a factory that processes garlic, we are told. Just exactly what the factory does with the garlic remains a mystery, but there is no mystery about the aroma as far as the

staff and pupils of Bromley School are concerned. Apparently the staff room has a “garlic scale,” teachers taking a daily reading of the intensity of the unmistakeable smell. How high up the scale the garlic goes depends on which way the wind is blowing, how warm it is outside, _ and how intense is the production rate at the factory at the time. Pigeon post MENTION in the “Diary” recentlv about a hospital in England which uses pi-' geons to carry samples for urgent analysis, thereby' avoiding traffic congestion on busy roads between the hospital and the laboratory, has reminded a reader of a high-country general practitioner who used to use pigeons to keep him posted. It was many years ago, before there were roads suitable for cars in the high country round Lake Te Anau, arid he used to ride on horseback to some of the stations to visit his patients, she said. After making his house calls, he would leave a carrier pigeon behind, and would tell the patient to wait several days, then send .the pigeon off with an up-

to-date report on the patient’s condition. That way, she said, the G.P. knew if he needed to make the long trip to see the patient again. Smart move? ONE big bull at the Cheviot bull sale yesterday was obviously reluctant to leave home. He was second in the catalogue and was led into the ring for the bidding to begin. But the price had only reached $BOO, which was evidently not to his liking. He turned tail and fled underneath the auctioneer’s rostrum, where he promptly got stuck. There he had to stay for the rest of the sale. By the time he was extricated, all his potential buyers had gone. Bombs away! THOUGHT for the week, printed on' the front page of the latest issue of “Loopie News,” refers to the continuing struggle about education cuts: “It will be a great day,” it says, “when schools get all the money they need and the Air Force has' to run cake stalls to buy a new bomber.”'