Reporter’s diary

Press, 10 November 1983, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Inconvenient ONLY authorised vehicles have access to the men’s toilets in Cathedral Square, according to a sign. A City Council spokesman said yesterday that the toilets were below the level of the sewer pipes so waste had to. be pumped from a holding tank into the sewers. Two pumps are used; one is away being repaired and the other has developed a fault which only shows up when the system is heavily loaded. The problem began yesterday morning and the toilets were closed when the system overloaded. The spokesman was at a loss to explain the sign, but suggested that it was the first one at hand when the trouble began. Successful NO AUDITION was necessary to fill one of the title, roles in the Riccartbn Players’ next production, “The Lion, the witch and the,Wardrobe.” On Tuesday the diary reported that the players were looking for a wardrobe but a spokesman for the group* said yesterday that only three- applicants had come* forward and as. one of thbse was offered to the grouß for keeps, it was the obvious choice.

Modern marvel COMMUNICATIONS technology left press representatives unimpressed at the recent Telecom 83 convention organised by the International Telecommunication Union and held in Switzerland. No telephones were provided in the press room and journalists were astonished to find that it was technically impossible to make reverse charge international telephone calls from a Swiss telephone booth. One resourceful fellow elided up telephoning his story from a Geneva railway station. Informatively THERE were fears that the Cecil Parkinson affair might have a sequel in the British Parliament recently. A meeting of the committee considering the bill to give British Telecom to private enterprise was halted by the arrival of a message for Robert Hayward, the new Tory M.P. for Kingswood. “It’s from your secretary and says: ‘Congratulations, it’s a girl!’ “the somewhat embarrassed member was told He was at pains to explain to those who would listen that the child in question beiwiged to a family friend and the message was merely « courtesy call.

Hazard forecasting A NEW weather code has been devised by the meteorological office at Kirkwall, in the Orkney Islands. An Islander aircraft parked at a neighbouring airfield and was damaged by a 44-gallon oil drum blown across the airfield in a Shetland gale, the New Zealand Airline Pilots Association magazine re : , ports. The next morning an anonymous telex was received and this was later traced back to'the Kirkwall met. office. The telex, ad-. dressed to all aviation users, advised of additions to the present weather code. “WOOD intermittent light oil drums; 1010 D continuous light oil drums; 1020 D intermittent moderate oildrums; 104XXOD intermittent heavy oil drums; 105XXOD continuous heavy oil drums; 106TSOD oil drums with thunderstorm; 107GROD oil drums with hail; 108SNOD oil drums with snow, and 109SQOD oil drums with squall Other codes “being considered for various other extreme conditions” include frogs, locusts etc., lions on runway, firemen’s strikes, fuel surcharges, impending airline takeovers, route changes, and ' thoroughly—intoxicated pR-. sengers.