Reporter’s diary

Press, 16 December 1985, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Tree ring NEXT DOOR to the old A.N.Z. Bank building in the City Mall, whose portals were featured in “The Press” on Saturday, is the city’s most unusual modern structure: the Canterbury Centre tower. Christmas decorations in its three-storey centre court this year have made good use of the building pillar that extends up a corner of the tower and is central to the glass-topped shopping levels. At first glance, a single,- large Christmas tree seems to have taken the place of the pillar. It rises to the ceiling of the second shopping level. A closer look shows that the pillar has been ringed by trees that are placed close together. Together with the dangling spangle balls, the holiday season decorations make a startling sight against the tower rising above them. Museum beer CROMWELL Borough councillors are considering a novel suggestion that could make viewing of their new museum’s exhibits a bit livelier. A councillor has proposed a working, oldfashioned bar room for part of the museum. A section of the building could be leased to someone who would serve alcohol with old-time equipment Visitors could sip their beer or whatever while viewing the exhibits.

Little stars IN NEW YORK City, a 13-month-old boy has already appeared with Woody Allen and drowned in a soap opera, both for good money. Two women who run the Li’l Stars Talent and Modelling Agency are making good money from their work with children from the ages of several weeks to 14 years. Among the stars is a two-year-old girl who was a wow in two nappy commercials but could not make the grade in the yoghurt addition. She could not get too excited about yoghurt The daughter of a New York City bus driver is three months old and has been in bed with Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep as their child in the film of Nora Ephron’s “Heartburn.” Not only the cute kids get jobs in this line of work: some-

times the call goes out for rotund, bad-tempered and toothless stars. Able seaman THE COMMANDER of Wellington’s western coastal police division will retire soon. lan Croxford, the chief inspector at Porirua, might do a little fishing later on but in the meantime he has chosen an unusual way to start his retirement years. He will go into crew quarters on a freighter bound for Brisbane, then stay on to work his way by freighter to Jakarta, France, and Britain. He will do everything a normal crewman does. He could find himself commanding a few potatoes that have to be peeled. The undesirable HEINRICH BOLL, the German writer, said there was only one thing wrong with the way Gunther Wallraff worked to expose wrongdoing. Sooner or later, the investigative journalist was going to become too well known, and his effectiveness would be reduced. The county needed five, six, or a dozen of him to keep things honest. Wallraff has been called “The Undesirable Journalist” because of his working methods. He infiltrates organisations and businesses, pretending to be what he is not. He records what he sees and hears, then puts it into books after breaking his cover. The people he stings go wild, of course. If they cannot dispute his facts, they complain - about his methods. One book was about the inside workings of the “Bild Zeitung,” a mass-circulation daily newspaper. He showed how things get distorted between fact and print. His latest campaign lasted more than two years. Donning a wig and contact lenses that made his eyes darker, he pretended to be a Turkish “guest worker” in West Germany, one of 1.5 million who live in the country. He worked at odd jobs, always at a wage lower than he would have got as a German. Even though his study showed horrifying examples of the way Turkish workers are treated by “dealers in men,” who take part of their wages, and by the general it does

not show that things are any worse than in other European countries with foreign workers. Dam site THE. CLYDE dam project has been a tourist attraction since excavation work started, but there is no Chance for the public to get close to the work this summer until late February. There will be no public access to the site, which will close from December 20 to January 13. A viewing point is still available at the look-out on the top of Clyde Hill, and drivers can go along Fruitgrowers Road for a different perspective on the work. A site open day will be held on February 23. In the meantime, the project’s visifor information centre in the Cromwell Mall will remain open during the summer. Super Ted ONE SIDE, Cabbage Patch Doll, Teddy Ruxpin is in town. You heard right, the name is Ruxpin, and this high-tech teddy bear is selling so fast in America that its makers say that even six more factories could not meet the demand. Teddy Ruxpin is animated. He also tells stories. His eyes, nose and mouth move. They are synchronised with his voice through programme audio cassettes. The bears work through a technology application similar to the concept that is used on a larger scale at Disneyland for animated attractions such as the Haunted House and Pirates of the Caribbean. Barking back A LECTURER at the University of Canterbury took his Old English sheepdog, Tom, for a regular walk through the neighbourhood. As the years wore on, old Tom got deafer and deafer. Finally, he could no longer hear the dogs that regularly barked when he padded along the street. Since he could not hear them, he did not respond. His master decided to bark back, instead, to keep their side up. Tom died, but the barking continues. When he goes out on walks these days, the man still barks back. —Stan Darling