Reporter’s diary

Press, 1 June 1985, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

This 1904 postcard, which is worth a tidy sum today, was produced on the eve of the first full-scale rugby international played by New Zealand “at home,” against Great Britain at Wellington on August 13, 1904. Readers will note that the creature sporting the silver fern is not a kiwi, but a large, friendly-looking moa. The postcard was the work of an Auckland cartoonist, Trevor Lloyd. The 1904 match was won by New Zealand, 9-3.

On the march TRAFFIC on busy Harper Avenue was halted just before 11 p.m. on Thursday as a veritable army of ducks, hundreds of them, according to a reader, waddled across the road from Little Hagley Park to North Hagley Park. There seemed no obvious answer to why the ducks crossed the road. . ■ , New ambulance THE LYTTELTON St John Ambulance Association’s new ambulance will be ' dedicated at Holy Trinity Church, Lyttelton, tomorrow afternoop,' Fully equipped.-

the machine cost more than $55,000, a vital $40,000 of which was ‘ raised by the people of Lyttelton by dint of long and vigorous fundraising during the last two years. The ambulance will serve Lyttelton and the entire harbour basin, Port Levy, and Pigeon Bay. False start THE SUN was shining and the birds were singing when > the four old stalwarts arrived at the third hole of the Harewood golf course. “Has everyone teed off?” called Bert Yes, everyone had. They strolled off

fairway. Three found their balls without trouble, but the fourth ball was nowhere to be found in spite of a long and thorough search. “Hey, it’s in my pocket!” called the embarrassed player after about 20 minutes. As his colleagues were quick to point out, one of the basic ingredients for successful golf is to remember to hit the ball. Still there ONE OF THOSE “the computer cannot be wrong”, stories: a tenant keeps getting mail from ! the Inland Revenue Department, ad-

dressed to the previous occupant of his flat. The problem is that the previous occupant died 10 months ago. So the present tenant keeps sending the mail back with a polite note to say that the previous occupant is deceased. The computer soon set things right. It now sends mail to the former taxpayer with the- notation “dec’d” After his-name. Gloomy prospect THE DANK, cold, calm, overcast weather that has blanketed Canterbury all week is partly the result of. an intense anti-cyclone off the east coast/of; the South Eland. This has, produced the highest recorded barometric pressures since the weather office?: at Christchurch Airport- was established in 1953, and the second highest,*'recorded in Canterbury. For most of the week, the anticyclone was the most intense round the world, sending Tn sheets of low, dark, .shower-bearing cloud from) tlie sea. On Wednesday,J the airport weather office recorded a barometric pressure of 1043 millibars, ionly slightly below the Record of 1045.9 millibars,/ recorded in Christchurch on October' 20/' 1903. Anti-cyclones are popularly supposed to bring good wehther, but this one has definitely not obliged. Forecasters expect the pre- . sent weather pattern to persist Canterbury people should not expect to see mor&- than a fleeting glimpse of the sun until zdbdut the middle of next z week.:7p ; ' '■<

Peter Comer