Reporter’s diary

Press, 13 April 1984, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Three up

THERE WAS no mistaking the identity of the hairy pillion passenger pictured riding up Cashel Street on a motor-cycle the other day. Although Wag’s position seemed safer than balancing on the petrol tank, as motor-cycling dogs sometimes do, scars on his box suggest that he may have come to grief at some stage. “Missing” delegation APPROPRIATELY, as things turned out, the Christchurch Latin America Group chose the film, “Missing,” to raise money for the visit to New Zealand of a communist delegation from Nicaragua. The hot-blooded Latin Americans, led by Commandante Doris Tijerino, decided to rush home from Japan, cancelling their visit to New Zealand. Mr Trevor Jackson, of the Latin America Group, said the delegation had been forced to return to Nicaragua because of the “acute political situation there.” Instead of going towards the missing Marxists’ visit, money from the screening of “Missing,” a film starring Jack Lemmon as a distraught father searching for his missing son in Chile, will be sent to Nicaragua for aid and education. Bad omen? A. COLLEAGUE who recently b*ame a part-owner i of a Nom. Island-based gal-

loper, Pluck, had a less than agreeable day when the horse had its first start at Waveriey last week. He had an accident in his new car while rushing to place a bet at the T.A.8., and then the horse ran second to last He intends to persevere incite of this omiccis standout

could take heed of the experience of another colleague, who was, until recently, a part-owner of Shelley’s Gold. With his two co-owners, this enthusiast had bought eight bottles of fine champagne even before Shelley’s Gold’s first start, to be consumed on the occa-

sion of her first win. Six starts later, by which time Shelley’s Gold had earned the unkind nickname of Fool’s Gold, the three coowners had been forced to find other excuses to drink the champagne. Even so, they still have some left, while Shelly’s Gold has moved on to fresh pastures and another optimistic owner. Old bridge club CROCKFORD’S Bridge Club, Riccarton, the second oldest bridge club in New Zealand, and the oldest in the South Island, will celebrate its fiftieth anniversary in Christchurch this weekend. The highlight will be a banquet at the Students’ Association building on Saturday evening, after a big bridge tournament during the day. The Auckland Bridge Club is the oldest in the country. Last ball CRICKETERS who dropped vital catches last season may take consolation from one of Rory Coonan’s cricket photographs in an exhibition at the Commonwealth Museum. It is a view of St Francis’ Plain on the island of St Helena, where, during a match late last century, a fielder chased a boundary stroke so eagerly that he followed it over a sheer drop of 100 metres. The scoreboard’s tart on the episode: “Retir’S’dead.”