Reporter’s diary

Press, 12 February 1986, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

High and hot KRISTIN BEGGS and Mark Sweeney, two Americans living in Taiwan, came to New Zealand last week and made their way to the West Coast, intent on getting married in glacier country. It was cloudy at Franz Josef Glacier, but they managed to escape from the fickle weather by taking their wedding partly high up on the glacier in two Mount Cook ski-planes. There, under a blue sky and in hot weather, they were married with their best man Bob Birck (another American living in Taiwan, and travelling with them) at their side. Mount Cook had decorated the inside of the wedding plane with ribbons. Two hitch-hikers travelling with the couple also had roles in the wedding: the woman hitch-hiker, who had picked wildflowers from the roadside on her way to the plane, was the maid of honour, and the man gave the bride away. A Franz Josef farmer and Justice of the Peace, Steve Nolan, conducted the ceremony. Dorothy Fletcher, of Franz Josef, baked the cake. The couple who were told that they were the first people to be married on the glacier, stood on a sheepskin rug as they exchanged vows. Popular comic JAPANESE films shown by Japan’s Consular Office in Christchurch this month will give viewers the chance to see Japan’s most popular comic hero in action. Tora-san stars in films on February 20 and 22. Tora-san plays an itinerant merchant who wanders through the countryside. The Consular Office says that his free spirit and love of others appeals to modern Japanese audiences who live in a highly controlled and bureaucratic society. The third feature film, “Jongara,” Msl be screened on Februaiy’2l. It is set in a Northern Honsu fishing

village, and has a folk music soundtrack. Cultural films will also be shown at each session in the Canterbury Museum Lecture Theatre. The one on February 22 is a documentary about the .1975 Japanese tour by the Queen. Admission is free to the film sessions, which start at 7 p.m. Wriggler HEARTLESS villians used to tie heroines to the railway lines and wait with glee until a train came along. In Oamaru last week, someone with a heart of stone tied a white kitten in a sack and dumped it in the middle of the Main South line. The wriggling sack was seen by schoolboys, who investigated the cause of all the movement and rescued the kitten, which has been dubbed Snowy by the North Otago branch of the S.P.C.A. Possum-mobile VISITORS to Arrowtown

are used to seeing old things that have been smartly done up, but the appearance of an old red bus in the Central Otago town is something new. The 1946 Dodge used to be a school bus in Wellington, and was later a vegetable van in Christchurch. It was then turned into a mobile home, and is now a shop, Possum Parlour, that sells clothing made from opossum skins from local trappers. The bus has been changed into a shop by Pamela Tyler, also known as Possum Pam, after months of work. Emergency memo SOME recipients of an “Emergency Notification Memo” from the American Astrological Association in Ohio are complaining about a new type of direct mail soliciting. They have, according to the association, already sent in their exact time and place of birth to see where that puts them in

the astrological stakes. The memo is accompanied by a Lucky Number Horoscope that has half the page torn off. “I had prepared your horoscope for internal use only,” says the letter. “But after reading your horoscope, I was forced to halt my research project and send you this emergency notification.” Why? Well, the letter says that the recipient has a horoscope that shows opportunities for “extraordinary luck, love, wealth and happiness” in the weeks ahead. To take advantage of those opportunities however, the recipient must also know the exact minute when his or her time periods begin. Send us some money, the association says, and you can have the missing part of your horoscope. Reappearance WHEN a Christchurch man strolled through Whitcoulls on Monday morning, accompanied by his small son in a pushchair and the boy’s grandmother, he saw a small book about "Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends.” The boy has a passion for trains, and the man decided to splurge on the $2.50 book, the only copy on the shelf. The boy unwrapped it immediately and took it on his way with Granny to the Ballantyne’s sale, while the man went to work. When the man phoned later in the day to see how the boy was getting on, he asked Granny to make sure the book came home with him. She hesitated suspiciously, passing on quickly to something else. Yesterday the man had another look on the children’s book shelves, and there was the same book. Knowing it was far too soon for the store to have ordered another copy, he realised the boy must have dropped it in his travels. It had been found by staff and and returned to the’, shelf. The man bought- it again. •— Stan Darling