Reporter’s diary

Press, 12 July 1985, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Head-scratcher FOR YEARS, South Islanders coming across a mystery tool have been straining to figure out what use it might have had. They have all been bamboozled. There have been guesses, but no-one has been certain enough to lay claim to an answer. The superior tool has been owned by Mr Bill Miles, publican of the Club Hotel in Blackball, for more than 30 years. He has shown it to everyone he can, and still does not know any more than when he started. He was given the tool by an old blacksmith at Beaumont, Central Otago. The blacksmith had owned it for years himself, and was none the wiser about its use. A friend of Mr Miles has been showing it round in Rangiora. The closest anyone can come is that it might have been a primitive wire strainer — the holes are there for wire to have gone through. It may have been a staple maker, or a device for twisting the sharp pieces on to barbed wire. The sixpointed star has six different settings. The small forked piece turns freely when the bolt is loosened. The tool may have been .manufactured in America, a colleague has sug-

gested that it might have been used by tough early miners as a toothbrush. Late entry A VERY late entry to our “Shield Jackpot” pick-the-score Ranfurly Shield competition arrived at the newspaper this week from MidCanterbury in an envelope postmarked July 9. The entry was for the CanterburyKing Country match, held on June 19. The full-time score of 26-8 in Canterbury’s favour was close to the actual 33-0 score, but the jackpot scrutineers wondered how anyone could get the score wrong after it had been known all that time. The young entrant’s mother provided an explanation. She said the letter had probably been sitting in the letter rack for some time, forgotten. Then someone in the family had seen it and mailed it off on Tuesday, not realising that the entry long past.

Grumbles off ACTORS playing rugby players in “Foreskin’s Lament” at the Court Theatre actually take showers in another part of the building before re-enter-ing the stage locker room dripping wet. They have to stand naked in a wind-tunnel-like corridor while they wait to come on stage and an actor who is already out there says he can hear them muttering in colourful language because of the cold wait. Sweet water ALL THIS talk about artesian water makes you thirsty, even in the middle of winter. A woman rang yesterday to say that her suburban home still has a working artesian well in a corner of the garden. The house had been her family home, and everyone, depended on the city tester

supply for most needs. In the summer, however, her mother used to ask the children to bring up a bucket of well water for jellies and Spanish creams. Jellies set much quicker in the cold water. The well is still used to water the garden in the summer. It has no pressure, but a long hose carries the water to give the ground a good soak. An old story HAVE YOU heard the one about ...? Yesterday’s story about the Catholic priest commenting on the price of a Sea of Galilee cruise seems to be a new version of an old tale. A Christchurch woman was on a sightseeing tour of Dublin five years ago when the courier attributed the remark to Oscar Wilde, who had paid ?10 to go on a Sea of Galilee cruise and said it was no wonder Jesus had walked. The woman said the courier was a non-stop teller of stories. The bus driver had cotton wool in his ears, and said it was . because he had heard the same jokes for six years and could not stand them any longer. It did not matter much, he said, since he would be retiring soon.