Reporter's Diary

Press, 12 August 1980, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Panorama A LONG, thin, black-and-white sketch of the panoramic view of the Port Hills and the Estuary, as seen from North New Brighton Park, is being sold by the Christchurch City Council. The signed, limited-edition drawing, by John Densem, a draughtsman who works for the council, can be bought- for $2 at either the council’s Manchester Street office or the Robert McDougall Art Gallery. Mail orders will cost $2.50. Proceeds will go .towards the city walks committee’s brochures depicting places of interest to wander in Christchurch. The pocketsized brochures include the Nicholson Park and Scarborough walk, which opened last week-end. Later brochures will include descriptions of Estuary and riverside walks.

Full explanation NEW ZEALAND’S tiny representation at the Moscow Olympic Games was certainly noticed in the Netherlands said Mr Daniel J. Visser yesterday. Mr Visser has just returned from a trip to the Nether-

lands. He was commenting on a report in “The Press” yesterday which quoted members of the New Zealand , team competing at Moscow saying that New Zealand’s virtual boycott of the Olympics went “largely unnoticed” by countries which had teams there. Dutch national television broadcast the opening of the Games to about three million viewers, and made a feature of pointing out New Zealand’s virtual absence from the Games and the background to this ■ absence, Mr Visser said. “The Dutch . announcer also explained that New Zealand’s team members were marching under the Olympic flag at the opening ceremony, and not the New Zealand flag,” he said.

Theatrical reunion CANTERBURY Children’s Theatre is inviting everyone who has taken part in “Listen to the Wind” to a performance of its latest production of the musical in the first week of the August holidays. Each production involved about 100 actors and backstage workers, and there have

been three earlier productions — in 1958, 1963 and 1973. So there could be large audiences on August 25, the special night set aside for the reunion. Former “Listen to the Wind” actors . and backstage helpers who would like to attend, should send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to P. O. Box 258, or should telephone Mrs Peggy Grant, at 370-050. After the performance, there will be a special trip to the Malthouse to see the recent improvements and alterations.

Unsolved mystery CATMINT, kiwifruit vines, and snowball trees would not appear, on the face of it, to have a great deal in common. They all come from different plant families. But the three plants seem to have a mysterious attraction for cats. On Saturday, we mentioned a reader who was plagued with about 10 neighbourhood cats chewing at the exposed roots of her kiwifruit vine, while she was digging it up. In spite of numerous telephone calls to various knowledgeable sources in and round Christchurch, we have been unable to discover the reason for the attraction. One man at the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research

said he had noticed his cat sniffing round his kiwi-> fruit vine every year when he pruned it, and had tried to discover what was the attraction. But apart from learning that cats were attracted to it, and to another similar species of the vine, actinidea polygama, known as the silver vine, he had not been ?.ble to discover what the smell or the taste was that cats enjoyed. “I don’t know what the extract is,” he said. “I doubt if it has been studied.”

For cats only ANY CAT owner who has a clump of catmint in the garden cannot help but notice its attraction for felines. But one reader has discovered that his cat also likes the sap from the snowball tree. . Its Latin name, he says, is viburnum opulus sterile. It is a small tree that has clusters of flowers shaped like snowballs on it. Every year when he prunes it, his cat comes from nowhere and licks up the sap running out of the exposed stems. “I tasted it myself, thinking I might be missing out on something,” he says, “but .it was bitter. I can’t understand what the cat sees in it.”

Jelicity Price