Reporter’s diary

Press, 2 September 1981, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Poor teddy A FORLORN, brown teddy bear sits in the box office of the Repertory Theatre waiting to be picked up by his owner. He says that while his owner was absorbed in a recent performance of the “Gingerbread Man,” he left his seat for a breath of fresh air and an ice-cream, but couldn’t find his way back. He is very concerned whether his young owner got home all right without him, and would love to be reunited. He can be picked up from the theatre this week after 6 p.m. Load of rubbish PEOPLE wanting to use the Johns Road tip, which is likely to reopen in the next few months, will need a comprehensive knowledge of the English language to make sure they do not breach the dumping restrictions that will be in force at the tip. A sign to be erected at the dump entrance states: “Materials having a putresible. pollutant, combustible, toxic or otherwise hazardous

component are prohibited.” The Paparua County Council chairman (Mr J. Y. Pethig) has suggested that a dictionary might have to be left at the gate. What the county is attempting to say is that only hardfill will be accepted at the dump. Little tyke A READER from Rangiora tells of the following incident in his local supermarket: a woman came in and bought a carton of cigarettes. She had her small son with her, who was probably aged four or five. When he spotted some tempting lollies he asked if he could have some, but his mother answered that he could not because they would spoil his teeth. The precocious little tyke answered: “Look, I can get new teeth, but you can’t get hew lungs." Toey response A CHRISTCHURCH driver got more than he or she bargained for-after a bit of careless parking last week. An irate St Albans resident found the path to his drive-

way blocked by an apparently hurriedly-parked station waggon. After a period of grace, and after having checked that the occupants of the back flat did not know about the car, our man informed the Ministry of Transport. They arrived smartly, put a ticket On the car for parking over a fire hydrant, then had it towed away. Distant message A STAFF member of “The Press” had' a pleasant surprise last Saturday evening. She says she was sitting talking to her dog, when she got a telephone call from a local ham radio enthusiast. He told her that he had picked up a message via Auckland from her son who had just finished playing the violin in a performance of the Cape Cod Light Opera Company. Her son, a student at Oberlin University, Ohio, had met an American ham radio enthusiast who had helped him call for reception in Christchurch after the show. A listener in. Auckland

picked up the call because there was no response from Christchurch, and passed the message on via radio. The local man passed the message on via telephone, and the woman, thrilled to hear from her very distant son, telephoned to thank the Auckland enthusiast. A clean shave MURRAY Ball’s recent cartoon showing one way of getting the bristles off a porker too big to fit into a vessel of boiling water has a ring of truth. One Christchurch man remembers the same technique being used in April, 1954, on Macquarie Island, between Australia and Antarctica. A scientific party working there decided to make' use of the livestock left to run free on the island, reputedly for shipwrecked sailors, and killed a pig to cook up a treat? Having no idea of how else to get the bristles off, they lathered the dead beast and shaved it with a cut-throat razor.