Reporter’s diary

Press, 12 July 1984, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Little big job

IN JULY last year, a colleague took his car radio into a Christchurch electrical firm to be fixed, expecting to have it back in a day or two. The days lengthened into weeks, and he eventually rang to find out what had happened to the radio. No, it was not a big repair job, said the service manager, but there was a small matter of a tiny transistor that would have to be brought from Japan. The owner inquired about progress three times in the ensuing months, and finally gave up. This week, exactly a year after the radio had gone in for repair, the firm telephoned to say that it was ready. They had kindly not charged for storage, and the total bill came to $26.80. The cost of the part from Japan? 80 cents. Salmon leg soup A MAN, who lives not too far from the Rakaia River, has sent us this original recipe for salmon leg soup.— “INGREDIENTS - One river (must be clean, good for fishing, a sanctuary for endangered species of bird life, and have great tourism potential); one National member of Parliament; one large Government subsidy, one bunch of inefficient farmers, one Canterbury

Plains, and one million years. METHOD:. Vote National in order to get the member of Parliament. She will take the river and divert it all over the Canterbury Plains. The bunch of inefficient farmers will then take the large Government subsidy and slice it up amongst themselves. Bake what is left of the river until completely dry. Saute this mixture for a million years, or until evolution has put wings on salmon smolt. Wait another three years, and returning adult salmon will have grown legs to enable them to get from the sea to above the irrigation diversion races. At this point their legs will drop off so they can continue to their spawning grounds by swimming. The delicious legged salmon may be hunted from November to April between the sea and the Gorge Bridge. A new breed of dog, the short-haired salmon pointer, will help to flush your salmon from lupin and gorse bushes. You may then shoot it with a 12-gauge shotgun. Cook all this with a large grain of salt ...” Cold spot

WE WERE mildly surprised to see that the “Washington Post,” bringer-down of Presidents and the watchdog of America, should have chosen to give big coverage, together with a photograph, of the arrival of the Royal

New Zealand Navy’s recently purchased frigate H.M.N.Z.S. Southland on the east coast of the United States during her delivery voyage recently. After all, apart from being New Zealand Navy, there was really nothing special about H.M.N.Z.S. Southland compared with the thousands of vessels coming and going on the United States, coast. Part of the story ran: “You should know that the New Zealand Navy is so small that it has about as many officers as the American Navy has admirals. On the other hand, it is the only navy in the world that still issues its men a daily one-eighth-pint tot of good West Indian rum.” However, the “Post” did stretch things a bit when it remarked that H.M.N.Z.S. Southland’s home port “will be Bluff, near ‘ Invercargill, overlooking Antarctica.” Tit for tat

MR PHILIP BURDON’S snipe at the Labour Party’s choice of an election tune from the film, “An Officer and a Gentleman,” which he thought rather hypocritical since the movie is about nuclear warships of the type Labour pledges to ban from New Zealand ports, has moved a reader to point out similar flaws in the National Party’s choice of music from “Chariots of Fire" as its election theme

tune. For a start, much of the footage in “Chariots of Fire” is in slow motion. In addition, the screenplay was the award-winning work of the hard-line Left-wing socialist writer-actor, Colin (“Z-Cars”) Welland, who once said that any play on the life of the former British Conservative Prime Minister, Mr Edward Heath, could only be done as a musical comedy. Fair warning A PRO FORMA letter from Trusteebank, Canterbury, announcing the closing date for applications for credit card renewals, and requesting new photographs of credit card holders, ended with the somewhat baffling caution: “Any photographs not in our files by the due date will result in a new credit card not being issued » Long day SIMON WALL, rescued by a cargo ship after his ninemetre sloop Rotaract Challenge was holed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, may have been overstretching himself. According to his local newspaper, the “Leicester Mercury,” he was “forced to abandon his attempt to be the youngest person to sail the Atlantic both ways on Monday afternoon.” — Peter Conner