Reporter’s diary

Press, 18 June 1986, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Quick work BECAUSE CARS were parked in a loading zone in the Cathedral Square a tradesman who had to offload some linoleum at “The Press” was forced to park on yellow lines. He dashed into the building with his roll, - and out again — but not quick enough to beat a traffic officer. In just 60 seconds the officer wrote out the ticket for a $2O parking fine. An ill wind MAKING THE MOST of a bad experience, Kevin Hermening is giving speeches about his time as one of the 52 American hostages held in Iran from 1979 to 1981. Since his release he has given 750 talks. Mr Hermening, a marketing consultant, is planning to run for Con- ■ gress. Taking part in public debate should be no problem for him. Milking society LACK OF EXPERIENCE seems to be more than compensated for by the sheer speed of some young thieves seen taking milk money in the Ham district recently. Two lots of boys aged between 10 and 12 years have been caught in the act, and once chased but not caught. The procedure is simple. One boy goes ahead to spy out the land and sight the pickings. The second follows, pluckI ing money out of bottles ■ in a trice. The milkman in j the area knows the prob-

lem, and claims the boys stole $6B in just one night. Signed photograph THE SNOWFALL in Canterbury brought out the kids, the playful adults and photographers. “The Press" photographer, David Alexander, was so keen to get to the cold, white, fluffy stuff that he left home without a pen. The full import of this only. occurred to him when he wanted to record the name of Miss Sarah Craze, whom he had just photographed. With commendable initiative, he solved the problem by getting his subject to write her name in the snow and then rephotographed her. No knighthood TELEVISING PARLIAMENT is not expected to lead to a knighthood for the Speaker, writes our Parlimentary reporter, Oliver Riddell. According to Oliver, the Prime Min-

ister said long ago that the Speaker could never be knighted because of his name. He would have to be known as “Sir Gerry Wall,” and sounding like "surgery wall,” would be to demean the position. Burning calories A BOILER, fed on a diet of McDonald's leftovers, is saving a hospital in Chorley, Lancashire, about $NZ25,000 a year in central heating bills. The “Financial Times” reports the chief engineer, Mr Chris Lowe, as saying that the system burns about 60 bags of the local McDonald’s hamburger bar leftovers a week. “McDonald’s classic boxes give a high calorific value,” he says. “When they go in the boiler, the temperature gauge shoots up.” Bumper sticker NOBLE TO THE LAST, the badly-dented back bumper of a Mercedes parked in Cashmere bore this sticker: “Be it ever so crumpled there’s no plate like chrome.” — Jenny Clark