Reporter’s diary

Press, 17 November 1981, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Never say die

ELEVEN VETERANS of General Allenby’s victorious World War I campaign against the Turks held a unique reunion at, Burnham last week-end. It was the sixty-second successive reunion of Canterbury Mounted Rifles — a record believed to be unique in the Commonwealth. Of those who were able to attend, the youngest was aged 84 and the eldest 98. When the chairman (Lieutenant-Colonel F. Gorton) referred to their diminishing numbers, he asked whether they wanted a sixtythird -reunion in 1982. The reply was unanimous: they would meet every New Zealand Cup Day week-end as long as there were two of them to have a drink together. Hair transplant ' THE MAKERS of traditional French Avignon carpets have pulled their hair out and are replacing it with New Zealand wool. They have not gone crazy; it is just that the price of cow hair has made a transplant necessary. Until recently, they wove their distinctively patterned carpets out of equal parts of cow hair and wool. Because of the scarcity and high price of cow hair, however, the French now use only wool. The switch is good news for farmers, because there is a good chance the French will buy more than the 16.7 million kilograms of wool which they bought last season. .

Three pinned plug -COMING SOON, the tussle of the decade!” proclaimed an advertisement in last Fri-.

day’s “Press.” It promised a three-way tag, winner takesail bout featuring “Rude Rob — the megalomaniac masher,” “Bouncing Billy — he’s a d,emon , when he’s roused,” and “Battling Bruce — handsome hunk of head hewing horror.” Apparently, the bout would end with them rich, us poor, and the same old excuses. Well, that is the sort of ending that would have most wrestling fans leaving satisfied, so what are the where and the when? The advertisement left out the vital information, but we suspect the bout will attract a big national audience by word of mouth. Road to success A NEW ZEALAND tourism travelling roadshow, which finished a six-week tour of 16 North American cities last week, was outstandingly successful. The show was composed of a multi-screen audio-visual production and a Maori cultural group performance. More than 35,000 Canadians and Americans saw the performance, and in some cities extra shows had to be organised. In San Diego a 2200-seat auditorium was sold out, and an extra show staged. The general manager of the Tourist and Publicity Department, Mr . Neil Plimmer, said the show had more impact and would attract more tourists than anything done before. Plans are being made to repeat the show next year. Mailing list THE CHRISTCHURCH Arts Centre is compiling a mailing list for all the arts and crafts organisations in Christchurch. The director of

the centre, Mr Ray Sleeman, said that although many individual organisations had mailing lists, this was the first time an attempt had been made to bring them together as a resource for all of them to use. Once the list has been collated it will be stored in a computer and made available to organisations which contributed. It will be possible for the organisations to send publicity directly to interested people, and they will be able to take advantage of cheap rates for direct mail. Anyone interested should get in touch with Mr Sleeman. Another puff TRUE TO form, the Tobacco Institute Newsletter has published the results of a study which found that an antismoking campaign in Austria made more people smoke. The Minister of Health started the $300,000 campaign last November. Television and radio advertising was used, and “smoker counselling agencies” were set up round the country. A study found that the number of people wanting to give up smoking dropped from 12 to 5 per cent during the campaign, and there was a swing to stronger cigarettes. The longer the campaign went on the greater the number of people firmly resolved to continue smoking. The number of smokers smoking without guilty feelings rose from 45 to 68 per cent. The obvious implication was that people responded badly to being lectured or cajoled into giving up smoking. Who conducted the study? None other than Austria ' Tabakwerke, which. has a government monopoly as a tobacco manufacturer.