Reporter’s diary

Press, 29 June 1985, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Pump safe AN OLD pump that began steering water towards an irrigation project near Cromwell in 1923 was in danger of facing much more water than it could handle. It would have been buried under Lake Dunstan when a new hydro dam is finished. The Ministry of Works and Development is coming to the rescue by wrenching out the equipment and hauling it up from the Kawarau riverbank where the Cromwell Development Company put it as part of a scheme to irrigate 2100 hectares of Cromwell Flats. Looking forward to the project, which ever achieved that scale, farmers planted 36,000 fruit trees. The pump and turbine will be taken to the Goldfields Park Mining Centre at the Kawarau Gorge entrance. Foresight THE PRIVATE secretary to a former managing director of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in Papanui was interested to read about the late Norman Kirk’s prediction that a visiting Polish Cardinal would return to New Zealand as Pope. Her boss, an American named Horace Greeley Miller, who has since died, had told her of his feeling about Mr Kirk, who worked at the factory. In the 19505, while Mr Kirk was still Mayor of Kaiapoi, Mr Miller said that he would be Prime Minister one day. Mr Miller died before his prediction came true. Street-stalker YETIS have been reported by Tibetan mountain people for many years, but the Chinese have been more successful in having apparent encounters with the Abominable Snowmep, of

footprint and legend. Two Istories were recently recounted by ,a Chinese official in Zhangmu, near the border of Tibet and Nepal. In 1979, he and two friends doing mandatory farm work were sleeping in their hillside hut, exhausted after a day of unaccustomed hard labour. In the night, the official felt a furry hand on his face. He awakened the others so that the three of them could wrestle the animal down and tie it up. They were so groggy with sleep that they went straight back to bed without having a closer look. The beast escaped before the morning. The other reported incident was in the 19505. A People’s Liberation Army guard in Zhangmu saw a long-haired, crouching figure walking towards him. He thought it was a Nepalese prostitute sneaking into Tibet, as they sometimes did, and so he grabbed the figure’s fur coat and tried to place the supposed woman under arrest. He dragged his catch to the guard-house, but it broke away down a steep gorge where nothing human could have gone. Nonhuman footprints were found the next day. Chinese officials are keeping an open mind on wild mountain men. Twin brothers IF' A University of New South Wales research team’s findings are correct, twin brothers seem to have a much more ho-hum approach to their special relationship than twin sisters. Led by a psychiatrist, the team has been trying to study stress patterning between twins. Many females have been recruited, but male twins do not seem interested. Asked if he saw his brother, one twin said only during family gather-

ings, or when he needed to borrow his brother’s radial arm Saw. ' Slickers HORRORS, more and more Englishmen and women are taking to that great old American game of baseball. Thank goodness Abner Doubleday based the game on the English game of rounders. At Regent’s Park recently, playing on an unkempt diamond (pitch), a team of young Englishmen tin 1950 s uniforms imported from Italy played ball under the name of City Slick Sidewinders. Their girl friends, also in 1950 s gear, were the cheer leaders. A group of young friends founded the team, which is coached by a Montana businessman. Other teams include the Croydon Borough Pirates, the Southampton Shooters, and the Tonbridge Bobcats. England’s baseball revival began about five years ago. The first British baseball association was formed in 1890, but World War II brought baseball’s fortunes to a halt. About 75 clubs now belong to the British Amateur Baseball and Softball Federation. Naked birds POULTRY researchers in the southern United States are trying to develop a chicken that can handle the summer heat, and a nakedneck mutant variety that has been in existence for 50 years may be the best bet. The variety has ~no neck feathers, and 30 per cent fewer feathers on the, rest of their bodies. Some observers have said they look more like vultures than chickens, but they handle the heat. The Georgia poultry industry lost 270,000 birds during a 1 heat wave this month, and a million birds died in 1980. A totally naked chicken variety is

less subject to heat stroke, and it tastes better than the naked-neck. It has some disadvantages — it is even uglier, and it cannot protect itself in the cold. Call me Rosie GEORGE Clowes, a 68-year-old flower lover, wanted to change his name for years, but he held back to avoid upsetting his father, who died recently. Then he went ahead with his plan and said he did not care if people laughed at the new name. It made him feel special, and that was all that counted. His new legal name is Maurice Twoson Cherryblossom Violet Lavender Lilac Rose. Hitting science SPEAKING OF baseball, it has long been argued that it must be pretty easy to whack that ball round the field — nowhere near as scientific and difficult as placing cricket shots. The “New Scientist” magazine has entered the argument with an assertion that would please those who are always entreating baseball players to “get some wood on that ball.” According to the magazine, hitting a round object squarely with another round object is the most difficult act in sport. Good start A DUNEDIN band, the YFronts, started in a church hall, not a garage. Their original bass player was a curate, who has since moved to another town. The band eventually parted ways with the youth group where members had first met, and it also had to leave the hall. The noise had become too much for the neighbours. That was unfortunate, said one band member. The hall gave their sound a hollow effect. There was lots of echo.