Reporter’s diary

Press, 9 March 1987, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Faction guide

CONFUSION about who is fighting whom in Lebanon these days was sorted out by a Beirut newspaper which felt obliged to explain matters: “The Shi’ites are fighting against the Druze, the Druze and the Sunnis against the Shi’ites, comprising Amal and Hezbollah. The prophets are battling against Karl Marx, the Communists against the Americans, and the fundamentalists against the entire West.” Now we know. Parental guidance A BUMPER sticker seen round town: “Avenge yourself — grow old and become a problem to your children.” Toad trouble THAT DELIGHTFUL source of earthy stories, the West Australian “Farmer’s Weekly,” has come up with yet another tale in the raunchy-but-true category. The magazine reports that cane toads in Queensland have

been jumping into goldfish ponds and raping the inhabitants. A zoologist at James Cook University, Dr Ross Alford, said that at this time of year the toads were sex-crazed. The male toads gather at ponds and wait for females, which turn up only after rain. “I have even had one try to mount my boot and they aren’t the sort of beast you want to have mating your boot,” Dr Alford said. Bang on target “BAMBI” HAS gone back to the taxidermist for the bullet holes to be repaired. Our Washington correspondent . reports that a game warden in rural Virginia put the stuffed deer beside a road to lure hunters into breaking a law which says you may not shoot deer from a vehicle or within 100 yards of a public road. The decoy worked, with 27 hunters arrested and 23 convicted, landing fines up to SUS2SO. One thing the game warden learned about illegal shooter: most of them are fairly good shots.

Get it right THERE WAS no doubt that the young woman with the beetroot-coloured face was the mother of the little girl skipping ahead of her in Cathedral Square last week. Blissfully unaware that she was mangling the Eurythmics’ lyrics, "I was bom of original sinr” the cherub was serenading pedestrians with “I was born on a ridge of skin.” The mortified mother is reported to be trying to convince daughter that singing — until she learns the words — is a private matter. ‘And foul is fairPROVOKED BY the potential of the Fair Trading Act, a correspondent offered his thoughts in doggerel: “False or misleading claims in trading/ Are now illegal — and degrading;/But you can practice just those knavish tricks/And honourably thrive — in politics.”

—Jenny Feltham.