Reporter's Diary

Press, 25 February 1981, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Pinned down, finally READERS probably missed the relevance of a heading for an item o cot deaths yesterday. The heading, “Pinning it' Down,” referred to the " logo: being used : o launch a' nations 1 appeal to raise“money for a.. Got, Death Research. Fundi ‘ Somehow the 'logo, went astray and did not appear in the newspaper. W.e.<. .Jinaiiy. ■..- tracked -y.it < down, and here it is.

Hairy four-stroke LAWNMOWER sales dropped substantially last vear, . but a Hamilton mower and cycle dealer thinks he might have come up with a sure-fire seller, reports the latest issue of “Retail News.” A man came in to look at the stock, with a “four stroke trade-in,” ' at the ready. A little taken aback by the model, the dealer examined the trade-in, found it' was a little hairy, and decided that $5O was a good minimum offer. He thinks there might just be a ready market for the trade in — a goat.-, At least the suppliers will not try f to shave the dealer’s margin” nobody'has' heard of retail nrice maintenance in the goat business. Aborted issue? EVEN THE laid, plans can |o. astray, as the New

Zealand Family Planning Association discovered last year. The association’s periodical, the “New Zealand Journal of Family Planning,” is usually a six-monthly affair. But last year, something went wrong with the Family Planning’s planning. “Because of unforseen circumstances,” says a note inside the journal, “only one issue of the journal will appear in 1980,” Rampant costs THE COST of a ramp between the Canterbury Museum and the Robert McDougall Art Gallery caused a few shockwaves to ripple through a recent meeting of the City Council's cultural committee. Sir Te ence McCombs said that the proposed ramp, for the disabled and the public in general, .would cost about $50,000. The whole art gallery had cost only $25,000 to build in 1932. It. was, he said, an example , of rampant inflation. V

W ell-ventilated COMPLAINTS about delays in the building of the ' National Library in Wellington came from the cultural committee at the same meeting. The committee was told that plans for the building had been in the pipeline for about 35 years. The excavation for the foundations had been dug at least six years ago but nothing had happened sir.ee then. Quipped Cr M. J/ Glubb: “It must be an open plan design,” Economy measure THE INCREASE in the price of “The Press” from 15c to 20c a copy has forced changes in the buying habits of a particular section in the Greymouth Post Office. Previously one person bought the newspaper all the time, and the rest of the staff in his section read it. Now the man has stopped buying it. All the staff in his department have had to chip in each day-to buy a copy. -■