Reporter’s diary

Press, 25 August 1986, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Cracking hearty

EVEN in these hand-to-mouth days, most farmers have been able to retain a restic sense of humour. We hear of one who asked his son to go over to Farmer Brown’s to ask for a loan of his chainsaw knowing that Farmer Brown would ask what the saw was needed for, he told the boy to say that it was required to cut up a fodderbeet so that it could be lifted on to the truck. Farmer Brown heard out the story of the turnips, the told the boy that his father could not have the saw because it was stuck in a potato. Harsh ...

TAXPAYERS should have been enjoying a wild celebration last week. On average, they had toiled for 142.55 days to pay their annual amount before starting to make money for themselves. Counting from the start of this financial yeear, the 142 days finished last Wednesday. Most poor workers were probably unaware that the milestone had been reached, but the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce was to celebrate with an economist, Mr Rufus Dawe, and the Opposition spokesman on finance, Mr Michael Cox, joining members for “special cocktails, satire, sandwiches, and Government burgers to mark this anniversary of freedom.”

... but gentle THE PHILOSOPHY of taxation has not changed much down the years. This description of it is as relevant now as it ever was: “The gentle art of taxation consists in so

plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest amount of hissing.” It was said by Jean Baptiste Colbert, who was finance minister to Louis XIV in 1665 — well before Mr Douglas or GST had been invented. Toad-kissing TOAD-KISSING can be hazardous to your health. This is the sort of handy information one can find in one of the best-read forums for medical trivia and debat — the letters section of the “New England Journal of Medicine.” Over the years readers have learned of video game palsy, space invaders wrist, goggle migraine, lawnmower arm, flautist’s neuropathy, unicyclist’s sciatica, and slot machine tendonitis. Toad kissing is another serious but off-beat peril. Dr Michael Hitt, of the University of Arizona, wrote a case report about a five-year-old boy who suffered an epileptic seizure after putting a toad in his mouth. The creature turned out to be a Colorado River toad, or Bufo alvarius, the most toxic toad in North America. “Perhaps other cases of idiopathic (unexplained) childhood seizures may also be due to toad-kiss-ing,” wrote Dr Hitt. “If it is true that one must kiss many toads to find one’s prince, we recommend that they not be Bufos.” Name change

WHILE THE Invercargill City Council goes about trying to decide what to call what was once known as Lower Esk Street, cynics have already come up with a name for the city’s

latest asset, with the Department of Social Welfare a dominant neighbour in the new cobblestoned area, what more appropriate than Beneficiaries’ Square? A returned serviceman has also suggested naming the development after New Zealand’s famous double Victoria Cross winner. He wants to call it “Upham Mall.” Pipped JOCKEY Tony Charlton flew home by a nose in a race in Britain recently. Unfortunately, the horse he pipped at the post was his own mount, which had swerved violently a length from the line, hurling Mr Charlton forward. To make it worse, his horse had been 20 lengths clear and heading for an easy win. The befuddled stewards eventually gave the race to the second-placed horse.

—Peter Comer