Reporter’s diary

Press, 9 July 1986, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Neddy needed RICHARD 111 is reputed to have wanted a horse so badly he would have swapped his kingdom for it. The Christchurch Operatic Society also needs a horse, but, lacking a little in kingdom, they are offering two tickets to their production of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” to anyone who can lend them an adult-size

rocking horse, or a merry-go-round horse. Anyone who can help should contact R. Naysmith, telephone 61-298. Nuclear-free roast LEADING LIGHTS in British politics are striking a blow against postChemobyl hysteria. The “Daily Telegraph” columnist reported that during one week-end, the Prime

Minister, Mrs Thatcher, and her press secretary, Bernard Ingham, chose lamb for their Sunday roasts. Mrs Thatcher lunched on Welsh lamb during the Conservative Party’s gathering at Porthcawl. The Minister of Agriculture, Mr Michael Jopling, who banned the movement of lamb in Wales and Cumbria, also had lamb that week-end, and Mr Ingham risked cutting a cutlet during a visit to caesiumaffected Cumbria. The columnist played safe. “My own Sunday joint was also lamb, from nuclear-free New Zealand.” Handiwork

FIVES MAY HAVE been tough on the hands, but not tough enough , to stop Sir Archibald Mclndoe from repairing the broken faces and lives of hundreds of wounded servicemen in World War 11. The boy who became a worldfamous plastic surgeon played fives with a reader on the courts at Otago Boys’ High School in 1911. He treated his hands slightly more kindly when playing piano duets with that same boy. Perhaps there is a connection with the sport and delicate surgery; Sir Archibald Mclndoe’s forerunner in that field was Sir Harold Gillies, himself a keen sportsman. His son, John Gillies, was the New Zea-

land squash champion three years running, from 1951 to 1953.

Nickname READING “THE PRESS” feature on Hagley Hall this week, a Christ’s College old boy recognised the Hon. John Lyttelton, son of Viscount Cobham, and owner-farmer of Hagley Hall, Worcestershire, as the same John Lyttelton who went to Christ’s College here, from 1957 to 1960. His schoolmates, aware that their nickname came from an oldfashioned type of sweet; and that the Hon. John had attended Eton before coming to New Zealand, christened the unsuspecting boy “Half-Eton Blackball." Clearing the air OLD-FASHIONED fog can still stop aircraft from landing or taking off. Five international aircraft with more than 1040 passengers were redirected to Christchurch Airport last Saturday after fog closed Auckland Airport. However, we may not have to cope with such problems much longer. A fog dispersal system is being tested and developed in the United States. Most of the funds needed for the SUS4BO,OOO project have been committed by Federal Express and by the United States Air Force, witl/ the balance to be

provided by the Los Angeles Department of Airports and aviation-re-lated firms. The Gourdine EGD fog dispersal system will be tested at Elmira airport, during August, weather and progress permitting. Seeing ourselves LIVING WITH an uncommon name leads to some quirklsh moments. A Christchurch man, whose surname is the only such one in the Christchurch directory (even Auckland can boast only two the same), has never had the problem of “meeting himself’ that the Smiths, and (dare I say it?) Clarks of this world contend with. Mr Pape was thus quite bowled when, visiting a friend’s house recently, he idly plucked a book from the shelf, opened it at random and saw his name in print. Even more unnerving, the title of the book was “Mysteries of the Unexplained.”

Ignorance is bliss SOMETIMES IT is better not to know. What sounded an intriguing bottle of Chinese hooch in a Canton supermarket lost a lot of appeal when the Western buyer read the obligatory export translation on the back of the bottle: “Deer’s bladder tonic.” re. —Jenny Clark.