Reporter’s diary

Press, 15 July 1986, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Archaeological find CHINA’S “BURIED army” is on the march. Some of the life-sized terracotta figures will be brought to Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch as “The Buried Army of Qin Shihuang Exhibition,” from August to February. It will be the most costly overseas exhibition mounted in New Zealand, with a total staging cost of $1.2 million. The figures, unearthed from the site near Xian in 1974, were arranged in battle formation to guard the nearby tomb of China’s first emperor, Qin Shihuang (259210 8.C.). They were discovered 2000 years later. The exhibition will be at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery from October 25 to December 7. Fare comment OVERHEAD ON the bus into work: "Why is it that the only people who know how to run the country are either cutting hair or driving taxis?” Country pride AFTER A wave of patriotism hit parts of commercial Australia, the problems of promoting the country began to appear. An employee in an exclusive leather bag and lug-

gage shop in Sydney was keen to obtain “Made in Australia” stickers for her products. Both the Australian Design Council and the Australian Chamber of Manufacturers referred her to a supplier of paper products, who confessed that the type of sticker she wanted was made in the Middle East.

( Do as I say, not as I do’

STIRRING national pride is a tricky business, it seems. When the Swiss Government decided that too many of its -people were hopping the border to do their shopping, it started its “I live in Switzerland, I buy in Switzerland” campaign. The Swiss were less than impressed when news leaked out that the campaign’s promotional stickers were made in France. Stork exchange BE BLOWED TO science — in Akaroa they still say the stork brings babies. So it does, in a sense. A young, but appealing tradition in the district is

that whenever a new baby arrives, the stork is secretly hoisted into place outside the owners’ home. There it stays until the next new arrival, and so the stork trots round the area. A Peninsula resident photographed a recent nesting place in Selwyn Avenue, owned by Denise and Danny Langrope. The stork was made about three years and a half ago by Philip Price, to surprise his sister and her husband. Conservation THE "SYDNEY Morning Herald” reported this sign on the rear window of a car parked at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo: “Save a tree — eat a koala.” —Jenny Clark