Reporter’s diary

Press, 13 November 1985, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Looking down

AS THE Christchurch building machine rumbles on, new perspectives on the commercial centre’s cluster of buildings are opening all the time. The new B.N.Z. Bank tower, sitting slightly to one side of the building mass, has a distinctive glassed-in stairwell that will tempt building tennants to stop and have a look at the nearby city or Hagley Park and the hills as they go about their business. Until the new Parkroyal Hotel rises to its ultimate height at the north-west corner of Victoria Square, the B.N.Z. building will offer the freshest new outlook on a business district that is changing fast. In the river WHEN burglars are in doubt about their haul, they often just toss it by the wayside. Unfortunately the wayside in the case of an Avonside Drive man who had his family history stolen was the Avon River. The other day, the man received a telephone call from a man who asked him if he had lost things such as a satchel and cuff links. He said he had, and the caller said he had seen them in the river at low tide downstream from the Stanmore Road bridge. He had been working on a sewer repair project, and he and his mates had recovered what they could find, including a cigarette lighter that still works and a calculator that no longer works. The man is anxious to recover a white, alabaster heirloom, a Greek girl sitting on the edge of a bath and stirring with a shell. He and his wife, both potters, have also lost a white porcelain figurine of a monk in a cloak. His wife made that piece. The man is afraid that the family history he had worked at more than 15 years 'to compile was tossed into the river with the rest of the briefcase contents.

perhaps, it may be spotted at low tide. Safe stand DAVID LANGE was talking to the Institute of International Affairs’ local branch yesterday when he was asked how other nations at the recent Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Bermuda had responded to New Zealand’s nuclear-ship policy. “I found that all the land-locked countries liked out nuclear-ship visits policy particularly well,” he 1 said. Rangi SOME livestock thieves are right on the money when they steal valuable goats. Others are way off the mark. One North Island farmer lost a $150,000 herd

of top-class Angoras, and farmers near Raglan have had valuable feral breeding goats disappear from paddocks near the road. Fanners in the Tamahere district, near Hamilton, have been pestered by thieves who seem to be ignorant of the distinction between an Angora and a low-value roadside vegetation muncher. One victim is Rangi, a family pet. The missing 15-month-old goat is a wether. He-is a runt that was picked up cheaply from a breeder. Most of the area’s roadside goats are from the same stock. His owners say he has no respect for fences. If he cannot climb them he climbs over the nearest stile. When he gets out, he hangs about the house looking for something to eat. The Tamahere thieves may have their hands full.

Busy, busy

AND THEY say no-one is indispensable. During the flu season, one of the staff of an Auckland advertising agency was away sick. When the office was called by telephone, an agency employee said, “I’m sorry, he’s not available. Everything is flat stick here. There’s three of us trying to do the work of one.” Announcement THE STORY may have sounded good at the hairdresser’s but it is one of those tales no-one can pin down, mainly because it isn’t true. This version of what is probably a timehonoured story in one form or another is doing the rounds of Christchurch. It tells of a wedding reception at a local function centre. The bridegroom stands up amid the revelry and tells everyone to have a good time, live it up, but take the wedding presents home because the marriage is being annulled immediately after the reception. Everyone gasps. The bridegroom says that his best man, just before the bride walked down the aisle, confessed that he and the young woman had been having a great time, in the worst way, for three days before the wedding. This story can now join our growing lists of urban myths that sound plausible but fail the scrutiny test. Uncle who? TWO North Canterbury boys were delighted that their young aunt had a boy friend. The younger boy told his friends at school that he had a new uncle. The other boy knew there were other arrangements that had to be made, such as marriage, before an uncle was born. He thought things should be put another way. “He’s not your uncle,” he said, “he’s a nothing.” —Stan Darling