Reporter’s diary

Press, 13 January 1987, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

A suggestion for peace THERE IS a special magic about teddy bears which turns normally aggressive, beefy males into a benign pulp. During the Summer Times Teddy Bears’ Picnic in Hagley Park on Sunday there were many such macho males — who would normally swagger and strut — pottering about happily with bears of all sizes and colours in top pockets, under their arms, or on their shoulders. Who could possibly be aggressive, with a soft toy poking out' from under their shirt? Cat-call A HIGH-FLYING colleague is puzzled by a message glimpsed from the air while flying near Coalgate and Hororata last week. There, thousands of feet below, in what appeared to be a field of grain, were spelt out the words: “Touch My Cat and Die.” The letters must have been 20 feet long — but who were they intended for? Cat-hunting helicopters? Cat-bombing keas? Or is the intention simply to bewilder' passing, nosey tourists? Highflyer asks for information to help get his braiiMdown to earth. y

Warning signals

PRESIDENT Reagan’s visits to. his California ranch are such closely guarded secrets that not even his neighbours are usually aware of his arrival. Except for one of his latest trips, when a security device within his ranch had the unforeseen effect of interfering with the radio signals by which motorists in the area activate their automatic garage doors. So instead of being greeted by flagwaving children, the President was hailed by obeisant garage doors opening and shutting for absent cars. More about calendars A READER asserts that although it does not qualify as the most supremely boring calendar of 1987, the A.M.P. work of calendrical art must get points for having a tacky colour scheme. With a bright pink map of New Zealand by a sea of Karitane yellow, it is rather too visually nasty to be considered boring. Code calls

AMATEUR RADIO operators have a language all of their own. A booklet produced by the New Zea-

land Amateur Radio Transmitters Association picked up at the Scout Jamboree at Rangiora had a small section explaining some of the abbreviations used on radio. Although some are selfexplanatory (O.M. old man; YL young lady; XYL wife) we are still wondering why 73 stands for "good wishes,” 88 stands for “love and kisses,” and why 33 ■ should be a woman’s version of “good wishes.” Like ‘Blue’ said... MEAT WORKERS will miss Mr A. J. Kennedy as the secretary of their union. His inimitable way with words was a hallmark of his nine-year reign. For example, in the meat. workers’ magazine, December, 1980, he wrote: "Economic convulsions not-with-standing, it is imperative that we preserve clear and lucid thinking, along with our essential unity, and resist any vibration that would jam the waves of sober calculation.” Will the meat workers ever again hear about the “perfidious ’ indifference of the A.F.F.CO.” or the “menopausal grasping for personal gain?” Will they

care?i —j/enny Feltham.