Reporter's Diary

Press, 23 October 1980, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Recreating old times GODLEY House, the beautiful, historic mansion on the hill above Diamond Harbour, is 100 years old this year, and to mark the occasion, the lessee, Mrs Mary Webb and her neighbours will organise an ac-tion-packed week-end on November 1 and 2. The fun will start at 2 p.m. on the ■ Saturday, with a period garden party on the lawn in front of Godley House. All the local people will be dressed in period costume, and the event will be attended by the Caledonian Pipe Band, arriving across the water in the ferry, and the Mayor of Lyttelton (Mr Mel Foster) arriving stagecoach style by road. There will be blade shearing displays and women will spin, the fleeces into yarn, just as they did in the> old davs, says , Mrs Webb, who caters for functions at Godley House. On Saturday evening, there will be a'formal ball, with oldtime dancing, and formal dress, such as bow ties and “penguin suits.” On Sunday, after an mter : denominational ch urch service '.at Godley House in the morning, there will' be a “gentlemanly” cricket, match on the lawn, the players .dressed in blazers ana. boaters. The festivities; will' end on the Sunday evening with a (musical.

soiree, light entertainment to be provided by the Merrymakers, a Diamond Harbour musical group. It> will be a fitting end, Mrs Webb hopes, to a good, old-fashioned festive time. Cuts that hurt STUDENTS and teachers have been loud and long in their protest about education cuts this year. Al-., though the total year’s budget was increased, many complained of unnecessary financial restrictions in a variety of educational areas. But thev should count themselves lucky. If they were in the Netherlands, they would really have something to complain about, reports the University of Canterbury "Chronicle.” The Dutch Government’s 1981 budget has proposed huge spending cuts in ■higher education, ... six of the biggest-spending universities being told to cut expenditure By $2O million bv the end of the year.The Dutch Minister of Education (Dr. Arie Pais) has warned that most of the savings would have to come from the universities’ staff budgets, with salarv cuts and redundancies a probability. Every little cent WAS IT a consumer’s dream come true? An . electricity bill for a ’§1.37 (if

paid by -due date) -or $1.52 (if not) sounded too good to be true for an Avonside Drive reader. Besides, he thought he could remember paying a hefty power bill just recently. Then he read the accompanying note attached to the bill.The Municipal Electricity Department had discovered an error in calculating his last account and the bill for $1.37 was to make up the difference. So he has reported it as “an example of local body ineptitude and extravagance,” he says, “One would expect the trivial amount to be carried forward rather than expending “the clerical time and-the 20c postage.” He has paid up, he says, but only after protest. Just for fun

IF YOUR name is Smith — and there must be thousands of you — Television. New Zealand would likeAo have you in a studio audience. But only 60 of you in- Christchurch, another 60 in Wellington, and another 60 in Auckland. They are fecofd.ing a further “Survival Test” programme, this time about “Love and Marriage,” and need people in the audience to take part in various anonymous opinion surveys. Why Smiths? “No particular reason,” says Miss Brigid Buckenham, the programme researcher. “Just for- fun, really.” So, if your name is Smith, and you are over: 18 and available next Tuesday evening, Miss .Buckenham

(telephone 792-680) would like to hear from you today. Negative example IN THIS first week of unb versity examinations, nervous examination sitters might learn much from an anonymous advice sheet attached to a departmental notice board. It says: “1. Always check your speling carefully. 2. Check to see if you any words out. 3 Always punctuate, appropriately with special care in the use of full stops 4. Avoid using unnecessary and redundant words. 5. Watch for any irregular Verbs that may have crqpe into your writing habits. 6. Learn the correct use of apostrophe’s. 7. There is a distinct risk that, if you let your sentence ramble on through many sub-' clauses and parentheses (as necessary as these may be to qualify what you want to say), you may make your reader forget — in his effort to grasp the drift of the sentences as a whole — what it was that you began your sentence by saying. 8. Never abbrev.” Word of the moment THE importance of today’s. Government caucus meeting has impressed even the least politically minded citizens. One four-year-old announced to her mother yesterday that she was “going out to a caucus meeting.”