Reporter’s diary

Press, 8 February 1985, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

$30,000 fish EVERY YEAR, for the last 15 years, Mr Charles S. Dell, jun. of Helena, Montana, has been coming to New Zealand to fish the Rangitata River. Mr Dell, a jovial character, aged in his 60s, who carries a card describing himself as a “remittance man, always stays at the Riverside Motels in Ashburton and commutes to the Rangitata. There he has flogged almost every metre of the river for 15 years, invariably without success, until yesterday. To his own amazement, and the delight of his New Zealand friends, Mr Dell finally caught a salmon. It weighed in at a little more than 1.5 kg (about 41b), not a bad size for a trout but very small for a salmon. Nevertheless, it was a salmon. Mr Dell had hooked and lost a bigger one earlier in the day. (That had been his first touch from a fish in 15 years.) According to his friends, Mr Dell keeps making his annual fruitless fishing trip to New Zealand “because he loves the place.” He estimates that the I.skg salmon has cost him roughly ?U530,000. It is a measure of the man that he gave it away. Steaming punks BLIND SLAVERY to fashion could scarcely be more painful than for the poor young punk rockers who were moving listlessly round Christchurch in yesterday’s 33-degree heat wave, clad all in black leather and denim, with heavy socks and boots. Most people know that black is not the best colour for dissipating heat, and that leather is not the coolest of materials, but wearing sunglasses was the only concession which the young people made to the sweltering weather. Huddled, almost steaming, in any available shade round Christchurch Square, they looked for all the world like emanated

blowflies. Still, it showed their commitment to the punk rock fad, long dead in the rest of the world. No room THIS INTERESTING exchange appeared on our Telex machine yesterday addressed to. “The Press:” “Could I have the room rate for your honeymoon suite, please.” “Sorry, dear, I thing you have wrong place. This is a newspaper.” Perhaps it was some sort of code. . . ” Reversed THE WIZARD’S insistence that we are at the top of the world, (“up over,” not “down under”) seems to have made a deep impression on whoever assembles school maps for the Department of Education. The Homebush Primary School, west of Darfield, has just received an upside-down map of New Zealand, with the hangar on the wrong end, as part of a departmental “upgrading of maps.” Teachers and pupils are reluctant to fly in the face of departmental policy, and the upside-down map is now displayed on the classroom wall. Mapkeepers’ circle THE NEW ZEALAND Mapkeepers’ Circle will hold its tenth annual seminar in the Stringleman Room of the Canterbury Public Library from Tuesday, February 12, to Thursday, February 14. The seminar is designed to further an understanding of maps and map-making among those who are professionally involved, as well as those amateurs with a close interest in maps. A display tracing the history of Canterbury through maps, plus some interesting early maps and charts of the Antarctic, is in the visitors’ lounge of the Canterbury and Antarctica, sections of the Canterbury Museum throughout this

month. Also on display will be surveying equipment, draft maps by surveyors of the Provincial Council era, 1853 to 1875, the J. E. Horrell manuscript maps from his land ownership recordings between the Waipara and Waimakariri rivers, and early Lands and Survey archives. One man’s reason SOME SUPPORTERS of the nuclear ships’ ban have simple reasons. A pragmatic colleague, a grizzled veteran of National Service, admitted yesterday: “I am really only a pacifist because I don’t want to get killed.” Quick work A DISTINGUISHED-LOOK-ING, greying gentleman, more than half a century in years, who enjoys a convivial ale at the Bush Inn, astonished his companions by announcing that he was going to compete in the coast-to-coast “iron man” event. One friend offered to buy him a jug if he did go in the event which started on Saturday morning and finished on Sunday. When they assembled as usual in the Bush Inn about 4.30 p.m. on Saturday, there was the “iron man.” Shouldn’t he be thrashing about somewhere in the Southern Alps? they asked. It turned out that he had been in the event for more than six hours until one of his knees “packed up” at Klondike Corner about 2.30 p.m. — a mishap which enabled him to be back at the Bush Inn by 4.30 p.m. He got his jug. Hopeless quest? A SAD FAMILY in the eastern suburbs feels that finding a needle in a haystack may be easier than searching Christchurch for a dog which escaped from their custody after only two days. The dog, a big three-year-old German ShepherdCollie has an unfor-

tunate background. He was found lying in a pool of blood in Lyttelton in January, having been shot in the throat. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals found him a good home with the Wainoni family, but he was accidentally let out of the property by a visitor a week ago, and is still missing. The family have travelled all around Christchurch and advertised extensively. The missing dog is tan, with white markings, and is wearing a light tan collar with a blue Paparua County Council registration tag, No. 5125. The new owners have appealed for anyone who might have seen the missing dog to telephone Gail, at 795-820. Short and Sweet MR PETER BRUINVELS, at sft 3in the second shortest Tory in the British House of Commons, was treated to derisive Labour cheers of “Stand up” when he tried to intervene in a debate the other day, reports the “Daily Telegraph.” Coming to the support of the little man, the Speaker called for order and said: “The honourable member, like me, does not have the advantage of great height which others have. I cannot hear what he is saying.” As a result a letter arrived at the House for Mr Bruinvels. It was addressed to “Mr Bruinvelf.” Taking it easy DRAMATIC NEWS from Japan: the people who accomplished the world’s greatest economic miracle no longer want to work as hard as they used to. The “Harper’s and Queen” magazine cites the fact that Tokyo commuters no longer run out of the underground on the way to work, although you can still see them sprinting the last few yards. — Peter Corner