Reporter’s diary

Press, 10 January 1986, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Lil’s lilies A LINWOOD woman was impressed by the flowers at a lily show a few years ago and took home seeds to plant along her back and side fences. Lillian Gaines had no idea what she was getting started. The first year, they grew a little, and the second year, they grew a little more. The third year, she knew, she could expect to have lillies about a metre high, but they have done much better. The fences proovide a lot of shelter and warmth, and the yellow lilly in the corner has up to 100 buds. On other lillies, there could be up to 50 blooms on two stems from one bulb. A neighbour commented that her triffids are coming up over the fence. As for next year? Mrs Gaines is looking to dig a bit more garden to spread out her lilly family. She leaves the blooms where they are. They are too beautiful to cut. Kaiapoi ring IN EARLY December, a simple silver ring with a light blue opal stone was found in the yard of a Kaiapoi house with a swimming pool. The homeowners have checked with their friends but have not found anyone who may have lost it. The ring was found by a girl who has turned it in to the Kaiapoi Police Station. She took it to the police after having it valued and finding that it was reasonably expensive. Unhappy find

PERCY, the magpie, is dead. Her owners found her

yesterday, covered by leaves under the walnut tree in the back yard. They think their pet of seven years must have climbed up the tree and dropped dead there. She had been troubled by the week-end heat. They had looked in that part of the yard for the missing bird, but had not seen her. A grandson made the sad discovery. A Hoon Hay woman thought she may have spotted the bird on Wednesday because she went out when she heard a dog barking (she has a cat) and found a magpie instead. Southern bird A UNIVERSITY of Canterbury man hope someone aboard the Greenpeace flagship in Antarctica knows which hemisphere the ship is in. Dr Peter Harper, chairman of the New Zealand branch of the International Survey of Antarctic Seabids, notices in a Press Association story on Monday that the ship’s navigator was quoted as saying that birds seen by the ship’s crew had included Arctic petrels. He must have meant Antarctic petrels. There is no such species in the Arctic. The Greenpeace has been skirting the pack ice, waiting for an opening into the Ross Sea. During the wait, a party landed at Scott Island, where many birds were seen. Dr Harper visited a tiny island, a volcanic plug, in 1982 with one of the first scientific parties to land on the low (no more

than 43 metres high) land. Six bird species have been reported on the island. Only the Snow petrel and the Wilson’s storm petrel managed to breed there regularly. The rest, including the Antarctic petrel, roost there and probably breed when summer conditions are good. The isaldn is so low that high seas can break over it, cleansing it of all life. Speedster A CHRISTCHURCH woman who observed the Coast-to-Coast endurance race last year and wrote about it for “The Press” decided that brand of lunacy was the thing for her. This summer, she will be part of a team. She will take on the rocks and roots of the mountain section of the journey, they cycle the section from the Waimakariri River Gorge to Sumner. Around her office, she has taken on the name of Speedy, since her colleagues spot her one minute but not the next. Either she is in training or taking long tea breaks. She told friends the other day that she has new running shoes, and her disappearances are not an illusion. She has become so fast she appears not to be anywhere at all. Storyteller A COMPUTER has taken the place of all those monkeys at typewriters who would eventually come up with the works of Shake-

speare. Two New Yorkers, one a published writer, came up with a computer programme (Racter, forraconteur), that has written a short story, some verse and some ramblings, and had the lot published. “The Policeman’s Beard Is Half Constructed” has even been well received by human literacy critics. The computer used 64,000 units of Random Access Memory and is totally responsible for its work. Since some rampant sexism appears in the short story, it can be assumed that the computer is masculine. Some of the meaning in the story is odd, but the grammar is faultless. The computer/writer does a lot of sleeping and dreaming (“...I seek sleep and need respose, but miss the quiet movement of my dreams.”). Its favourite food is a combination of lamb and lettuce, and the short story revolves around a dinner at which only one lamb chop is present for several guests, including a psychiatrist and a logician. That lack of food makes for dramatic conflict. At the end of the story, the computer says that its dissertation could be intractable and endless: “(after all, I’m a computer), but you’re doubtless as exhausted and tired as I am — so I’ll leave this loony story to yor own notions and dreams.” Sweet dreams, Mr Racter. _____—Stan Darling