Reporter's Diary

Press, 5 August 1980, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Inevitable? FOR several years the pavement in front of the new Post Office building in Hereford Street has been rough and full of pot-holes. While work on the now-completed building progressed, the footpath suffered. Last week new bitumen, was laid and the footpath was finally smooth and unmarked. But this week, a reader observed yesterday, the inevitable has happened: the Municipal Electricity Department has started .to dig holes in the new bitumen. Tax on tax LAST Friday’s item about the woman who had to pay. a large sum of money to Customs to get her Australian-bought earrings into New ' Zealand has : .’struck a familiarchord with another reader. He has sent in a receipt from Customs for a small

pocket tape-recorder he brought into the country on his return from Australia last year. The taperecorder was valued at $lOO, he says, the duty levied by Customs was $5O, and then there was a sales tax of $55.69 on top of that. “The sales tax was not just on the $lOO value of the tape-recorder but also on the , $5O duty, levied ' just two seconds before,” he says. “It just shows who gets the big- : gest bite: the Govern-; ment.” Birdwood. bird THREE Birdwood Avenue mothers and their children spent an entertaining, Friday afternoon trying to catch a cock pheasant that had been dashing about their street. Startled by a passing car, the pheasant eventually ran under a culvert and by using a combination of nappies, nets, and an- empty drum the pursuers captured the distressed bird. One of the

families took their guinea pigs from their run and put the pheasant there, much to the chagrin of the guinea pigs which are now in a much smaller hutch without a run. To relieve the acute accommodation problem, the pheasant, the guinea pigs, and the Birdwood Avenue family that looks after them would like to hear from the pheasant’s owner. If anybody knows anything about the lost bird, would they please telephone Mrs Candy Gibson at 39-536.

Fresh paint KEEN workers have been in action at the Railways’ social hall in Carlyle Street in the last two .weeks, Railways workers have been busy redecorating the hall in their spare time, .mainly at week-ends. . The Railways is supplying the materials. So far the entrance has been completed . and most of the hall’s interior has been painted with an undercoat. The brick hall was built in 1905 as a social centre for Railways workers.

O yea, o yea A WOMAN ” has won the national town criers’ championship in Britain for the first time, accord-, ing to the Press Association. Mrs Henrietta Sargent, the town crier of Cricklade since 1978 and a pensioner, was judged to have the best voice out of 33 taking part in the championship at Hastings, Sussex. She won £75 (about $180) in cash, a trophy and a week’s holiday. Second was Normani Roberts, of Leicester, and third was the reigning world champion, Richard Fox, of Lyme Regis. Oops! ONE step was all it took to sweep him from triumph to disaster. Augustininas Vassiliauskas, a Soviet cellist at the Kuhmo music festival in ■ Finland, stepped on to the podium to receive a third round of applause after his performance. He tripped and. fell on his 300-year-old Ruggieri cello, breaking it beyond repair.