Reporter’s diary

Press, 27 November 1982, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Name change THE OBJECTION of 20 Sydenham residents to a new name which the City Council gave to their street has caused the council to go through the long and complicated procedure of changing it again. “The whole thing’s a pain in the butt,” said one man who was at the centre of the kerfuffle. The change was originally made about 18 months ago after the Brougham Street expressway extension cut several streets in two. One of them was Thackeray Street. At the suggestion of the Fire Service, which had been called to a fire in Thackeray Street, had gone to the wrong section of the street and had had to spend some time, getting to the right end, the council decided to change the name of the southern part of the. street to Makepeace Street, after Thackeray’s middle name.. Public notices were placed in the newspapers giving notice of the intended change. Councillors considered the matter at two meet-? ings as required, and the change was formally made. New signs were prepared and the 84 public bodies and : organisations that have to be told about such changes were informed. The residents, however, were not happy.: A; petition was raised. The

Deputy Mayor. Mr Rex Lester, says: “For some reason ' people felt it was an unusual name in that it suggested not warring factions but people who had been at war and had settled their differences. They thought it was open to ridicule.” They were unappeased' by the explanation for the name so the search for another one that fitted the requirements — i.e., was not already in use somewhere in the city, or surrounding area, did not sound like another name already in use, and could be handwritten quickly and still be legible. Eventually Vienna Street was hit upon (Thakeray apparently had connections with the city). New signs were made, and the 84 public bodies and organisations informed again. One, , however, has not yet heard. A resident in what was once Thackeray Street, was briefly Makepeace Street, and is now Vienna Street continues to get bills addressed to Thackeray Street. They are from a department of the City Council. Titles for sale SIX ENGLISH titles of Lord :. of the Manor, which once “■gave the holder the right to -'.appropriate any village maiden- on her wedding ‘night. have been put up for

sale.; The titles, all dating back to Saxon times, are likely to fetch upwards of $4520 each,, according to the agents for the sale. Apart from “droit de seigneur” - the right to village maidens — the titles also gave the holder the right to claim property of people who died without wills or heirs. The agents say that the titles no longer carried such rights. Line-up THIS is for those who object to beauty contests on the ground that, they parade women like cattle in a meat market: a journalist went along to watch the rehearsals of the excruciating “Miss World" contest in London recently. “It won’t look much here"” the organiser said. “You’ll see them lined up just as you would in a supermarket for your groceries.” Dual role AIR New. Zealand will soon take delivery of a “quick change” Boeing 737 aircraft which will carry passengers by. day and cargo by night. The aircraft will be used on the main trunk route between ? Auckland ■ and Dunedin. The airline says that a change from a passenger to a cargo aircraft can I

be made in about an hour. Apart from the huge cargo door just aft of the forward passenger door, there will be little to distinguish it from the airline’s other 7375. The 737 QC (for "quick change”) will load and unload its 120 passenger seats on pallets which clip to the floor. The cargo pallets which replace them use the same fixing points. The airline says the jet’s dual role will give it much more flexibility.

Against the law A LITTLE good news at last. An English group calling itself Lawyers v The Bomb is about to publish a pamphlet in which they declare that nuclear war is illegal. In a press release publicising the pamphlet the lawyers say: “The use of nuclear weapons would be a clear breach of international law. This is the. claim made in an important new pamphlet.” They add. "It (the pamphlet) also shows that' the manufacture and deployment of these weapons may well also be a crime,, punishable in an international court of law." This recalls the occasion during the sixties when the Scottish Board of Education officially declared that in the event of nuclear war all schools would be closed.