Reporter’s dairy

Press, 1 June 1981, Page 2

Reporter’s dairy

Different tack

NONE of you will be surprised to learn that we I are suffering from a global

shortage of horseshoe nails. Not to worry though, because an enterprising company has perceived this sad state of affairs and rushed to fill the gap. The company, in the English Midlands, acquired two discarded nail-making machines from the United States and now produces three tonnes of horseshoe nails a week. It has also ordered six more machines to increase weekly production to 20 tonnes. Sales in Britain are fairly galloping along and the company plans to jump into the lucrative horseshoe nails export game. The company stumbled upon the horseshoe nails quite by accident when looking for ways to diversify from production of high technology items for telephone exchanges. Election parade ELECTION year is upon us, and you only have to look at the latest in a line of books promising to illuminate our political parties and personalities to. get the feel of the coming campaign. Hard, on the heels of “My Way,” by the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon),- we have this month's definitive analysis of “Social Credit s drive for power,” by a former Kiwi journalist.

Spiro Zavos. The book s main title, “Crusade.” . unfurls across the cover on a cheery circus banner, above a photograph of the Social Credit Political League’s leader (Mr Bruce Beetham), wagging his finger assertively at an invisible crowd. The book offers a popular approach to the league’s theories, personalities and public appeal and is generously spiced with the author's views and anecdotes. A good example appears in the book's conclusion: “Social Credit cannot create the Promised Land. At best, it provides a vision of it which seems to disappear the nearer the faithful get to it.” One comment is guaranteed to raise the league's fighting mettle: “So far in its history, Social Credit has done better in the phony,war of the polls than the General Election real thing. The league has been rather like a fighter who has done well in his gym sparring but freezes when the big fight takes place;” Perhaps a more pertinent comment on the whole political circus is the snippet in the pocket biography of the' author, which notes that his next project after “Crusade” is a children's book.

Failed teachers HOW ADEQUATE is out-

education system for judging a pupil's abilities? The latest Post Primary Teachers' Association journal relates the efforts of a Liverpudlian teacher with a boy who had brains and originality but took no interest in his school work and seemed to have no ambitions. The teacher took the boy to task, called him apathetic and shiftless, and blasted him for wasting his “God-given” talents. "When you leave school, Paul, you'll starve,” said the irate man. The lad's name? Paul McCartney. He joins a long list of notable school failures, including Thomas Edison, Abraham Lincoln, Sir Winston ' Churchill and Adolf Hitler. The teacher who contemptuously dismissed his small pupil with “You’ll never amount to much,” must have rued the day he ever failed to teach Albert Einstein. Edible theatre HAVE YOU a suppressed urge or talent for playing a cuckoo, an old bag or half of a potty duo? If so, then the Canterbury Children’s Theatre has just the opportunity vou have been waiting for. The theatre is holding auditions for adult singers and

actors to take parts in the August holiday production of “The Gingerbread Man.” Auditions for the parts of “Salt and Pepper,” the “Old (Tea) Bag,” the “Gingerbread Man,” and “Sleek the Mouse,” will take place at the Malthouse on Thursday, June 4. at 7.30 p.m. The person wanting the part of

“Herr Von Cuckoo,” may have to submit to dietary restrictions unless the cuckoo clock fits. Anyone interested in auditioning could phone Mrs Crossen on 35-102 for details. Caught OH DEAR, Diary has been taken to task for questioning the common usage of the term “jubilee” to mark a yearly anniversary. In an earlier item, we noted that St Mark’s School had announced that its sixtieth jubilee would be celebrated in October. We looked up the word’s historic definition and light-heartedly (perhaps, foolishly) calculated that the school must be getting on for 3000 years old. The school’s headmaster (Mr L. B. Willett) sent us scurrying for the dictionaries. As he correctly pointed out, most authorities these days acknowledge an accepted meaning of "jubilee'’ as "a time of rejoicing.”