Reporter’s diary

Press, 12 August 1985, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Imported water

LOOKING AT the bottle in today’s photograph from a distance, you might think somebody had hit on a new novelty Item idea for tiny home gardens. Either that, or someone’s idea of a joke in a part of the country where outside help might be needed by farm irrigators. It is neither. Bottles of this radiation-sterilised water are imported from Travenol Laboratories in Australia for use in irrigating surgical equipment. A bottle contains 1000 ml of sterile, nonpyrogenic water.

Persistence AFTER 30 months of trying, a New Zealand-made electronic instrument has been sold for use on a North Sea oil rig. The Plantbug vibration monitor will measure movements in Rolls-Royce and Avon gas turbines on a Shell drilling platform. Selling of the instrument, made by Fountain Industrial Electronics in Auckland, was done by Strategic Systems Technology, a consultancy that specialises in market-

ing New Zealand-made products in Europe. The oil rig deal had been negotiated for more than two years. The market is so saturated with good ideas that quality products have to be launched at the right time and place to get a fooothold. Unread piles BOOKS by the tonne — about 10 tonnes in fact — are stacked in an old Martinborough Post Office building, and no-one knows quite what to do with them. They are assets of Alister Taylor, a publisher and writer who was declared bankrupt in April. Among the books are many copies of the “Little Red School Book,” which caused a stir in the 19705, and several hundred copies of the “Patricia Bartlett Cook Book.” Now watch this IT HAS been suggested that some Government workers may be strapped in chairs and told to watch television screens. The feature will be a video of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries’ annual report to staff. Copies of the production, “Video Update,” have been sent throughout the country so the staff can see the report. From now on, the programme will be produced with input from regional offices. Research had shown that people were more comfortable with a television screen than with a regular written newsletter from senior management. Damages THE BALL went where it was supposed to go, but it carried on from there and went too far. Last season at Aorangi Park, Timaru, a batsman got four runs for a ball whacked over the boundary. Then the ball bounced into a moving car. It damaged the windscreen, bumper bar and side mirror. The South Canterbury »4jncket Association

had to pay the $94 claim from the car’s owner, after a ruling from the Small Claims Tribunal on the dispute. The inter-firm cricket series came under the jurisdication of the association, which had insurance cover only against damage .or theft of its own'equipment.

Secession IF THINGS go the way some petitioners want them to, the Mayor of Manukau City may find himself far from home base when he wakes up in the. mornings. Barry Curtis lives at Bucklands Beach, part of the area in sprawling eastern Manukau that is talking about seceding to form a new eastern Auckland city. The move is coming mainly from the Mayor’s community, and the Mayor of Howick, still an independent borough in the midst of secession territory, supports the move. Repiica

AFTER a Catholic church steeple in North-East Valley, Dunedin, blew down in a windstorm about six months ago,'there was some discussion about how to replace it. A replic fibreglass steeple, with replica ornate standards to support it, is being completed to take the steeple’s place. It will be lined with a steel frame and weigh much less than the original. If the wind ever manages to take it again, it will land with less of a thud. Exposed rock RECENT high seas did a lot of damage up and down the South Island’s east coast. At Moeraki, a load of seaweed was dumped in the carpark, and a new footbridge was almost washed away. For sightseers, though, there was one reward amidst the mess. Because the sea chewed away so much sand at their base, a larger area of the famous Moeraki boulders has been exposed to view.