Reporter’s diary

Press, 4 February 1987, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Sexy pears THE FRESH Fruit and Vegetable Information Bureau, of London, is congratulating itself on the success of a press release about the alleged aphrodisiac properties of pears. The item was widely carried by Britain’s newspapers and radio stations and was even picked up by the 8.8. C. World Service. The result was huge sales of the humble fruit. Now if New Zealand House can just start a small rumour about New Zealand lamb ... On the Ball ... RECENT rugby union history has been liberally sprinkled with moneymaking scandals such as “boot money,” the surreptitious sale of players’ test match tickets, and unauthorised tours. But our rugby league reporter, John Coffey, uncovered a truly curious custom while researching and writing the soon-to-be-published history of the code in Canterbury. A Queensland newspaper, the “Toowoomba Chronicle,” reported that, after the 1919 New Zealand rugby league side to as the “All Blacks”) beat Toowoomba, 42-12, “at the close of the game there was a chase for the ball among many of the New

Zealanders. Tancred got it, and it becomes his possession, this being the practice right throughout the tour.” A cynic might wonder whether the said ball was later raffled in aid of the tour fund. Horrorscope WHAT vast cosmic design, what subtle alignment of the heavens last Monday, February 2, 1987, decreed that one-twelfth of a southern newspaper’s readers, those bom between April 21 and May 20, should “avoid driving in a car with a faulty gearbox”? Why only Taureans? Why only then? Such imponderables leave us mere mortals gaping in awe at those so gifted as to write the daily horoscopes. Lindon MRS JUDY WILKIE (nee Buckingham), of 27 Carlyle Street, Seventeen Mile Rocks, Queensland 4073, Australia, wants to compile a family tree and seeks the descendants of Isaac Avery Lindon (formerly spelled Lyndon). He was the son of Daniel Lyndon and his wife Charlotte (nee Allington) who were both bom in Warwickshire, England. Isaac Lindon married Agnes Quinlan in Rangiora on August 3, *rr

1905. He had a brother Jack, who lived for many years in Rangiora. Short Story IT was March 31, 1987. A late-summer cicada sang in the still, hot evening. Suddenly, entries closed in the 1987 American Express Short Story Competition. The preliminary judge, writer Michael King, cleared his desk. It was time to go to work. Late into April he toiled as the leaves coloured and fell in autumn flurries. From hundreds of entries he chose the best, and passed them on to his trusted colleague, Fiona Kidman. It would be her job, as May brought the first harsh blasts of winter, to choose the final winners. The task would be arduous, but the rewards great: $5OOO for first place-getter, and $2OOO for second. Send entries to American Express, P.O. Box 4005, Auckland. Impeccable logic AN 8-year-old, overheard while walking home after the first day of the new school yean “My teacher’s so dumb, she can’t even write! She makes us write our own names on the board before we go to the loo!” Nigel Malthus