Reporter’s diary

Press, 10 December 1983, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Tit for tat SIR KEITH Holyoake had a reputation among friends and parliamentarians as a practical joker. One of his most celebrated capers occurred in the White House when he first met President Johnson. Johnson, so the story went, offered the New Zealand Prime Minister a cigar, and Sir Keith fumbled in his pockets for a match. The President, in his expansive Texan way, dispatched y an aide who returned with a handsome, gold-plated cigarette lighter inscribed, “From Lyndon Baines Johnson, U.S. President, 1968.” Sir Keith accepted the gift but continued to fumble in his pockets. He eventually produced a Beehive match box. With great care he wrote on it, “From Keith Jacka Holyoake, Prime Minister of New Zealand, 1968,” and presented it to the delighted Johnson.

Computer kid POLITICIANS from Britain’s four major parties have refused to match wits with a five-year-old computer whizz kid at the public launching of a game on how to run the economy. “She is a very clever and bright girl, the daughter of a college lecturer,” said Mike Cowley, who is promoting the new game called Great Britain, Ltd. The battle between the major parties and Janet McKnight was to have opened the 8.8. C. Micro-user Show in Westminster. Now Janet will play the game alone. The game involves making “top-level decisions over a five-year period that will affect the British economy.” Mr Cowley contacted the press offices of the four parties weeks ago but only the Social Democrats’ Lord Perry was willing to parti-

cipate. He pulled out when told the other parties would not play. Be mobile PASSENGERS using the Christchurch Transport Board’s “Be Mobile” service should find access to and from the buses a little easier soon. The Christ; church branch of the National Council of Women has given two wheelchairs to the service to help “obtain total mobility” for the disabled, said the branch president, Mrs M. E. McGiven. The branch was also responsible for raising more than ?10,000 for a wheelchair hoist fitted to the original “Be Mobile” bus in 1981. Sister city THE CANTERBURY Promotion Council is looking

for Christchurch people who have lived or worked in or had other connections with South Australia. The South Australian Department of Tourism is making a series of television films on Adelaide’s links with her sister cities, including Christchurch. The department wants to know what links people had with Adelaide and what they are doing now. The films will be screened in both Adelaide and Christchurch. Computer error? THE NATIONAL Westminister Bank computer has a sense of humour. A customer of the English bank reports that on a statement sent to him — he banks at the Guildhall branch in Guildford — the computer listed a transaction with the taxman for £174 and 85p as “Inland Revenge.”