Reporter’s diary

Press, 23 September 1983, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Shield fever

IT WOULD be a brave person indeed who would dare to ask “What rugby match?” in Christchurch this week. Ranfurly Shield fever, which hit the city as a relatively mild dose before the Hawke’s Bay match and which spread last week with the help of some Wellingtonians, could reach epidemic proportions this week. Shop owners are showing their support for the red and blacks by window displays which include such characters as the kiwi (pictured). Then there is the assistant in a Papanui dry cleaners, who has painted her fingernails alternately scarlet and black, the official description of the colours of the hooped Canterbury jerseys. Regular 91 ALL you and your car ever wanted to know about Regular 91 petrol is contained in a leaflet published by the Ministry of Energy released this week. It lists vehicles suitable to run on the new grade of petrol. Regular 91 will be 3 cents cheaper a litre than Premium 96 grade. Because less crude oil is needed to produce Regular 91, annual savings of $2 million to S3M are expected once the refinery expansion is completed. The new petrol will be available at most service stations from October when Regular 91 will replace the old Regular 83.

Fair cop LOS ANGELES police are

giving out “turkey tickets.” The tickets are gifts by local businesses and are given to people noticed to be particularly good drivers. The motorists are entitled to a turkey, a free meal at a restaurant, movie tickets, a tour of Universal Studios or a food package.

More than 4000 turkey tickets were handed out last year in a trial run for the “good driver” scheme, and the programme is now permanent. The police do not report the reaction of the drivers pulled over, with lights and sirens, to receive their tickets.

Barbie barb

BLONDE, tanned men with kick-sand-in-your-face physiques gathered in Cornwall recently for another round of the world surfing championships. A large contingent of Australians followed the sun and surf to that venue. A leading London newspaper covered the event, and said that the lads from down-under were not highly respected at home. Surfing drifters in Australia were, it said, termed “doll bludgers.” Shattering A CACOPHONY that woke a colleague in his flat yesterday at 3.45 a.m. left him wishing he had gone out and shooed away the culprits. He had lain awake for some time, deliberating while listening to what he later described as a “band of tom cats playing their bagpipes” in the courtyard of an adjoining flat near his bedroom window. But somebody had already made a decision — his neighbour. Her sliding door was whisked open and into the courtyard was let loose her small but noisy mongrel dog. The noise that followed was brief but incredible. Our shaken colleague was not to experience a return to sleep. Sign of the ... SIGN in a Leeston butcher shop: “Buy our sausages and become an All Black (Al does).” Al is Albert Anderson, one of Canterbury’s latest All Blacks and a farmer at Southbridge, near Leeston.