Reporter’s diary

Press, 2 October 1987, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Very strong boxes COMMERCIAL vaults which are movable and expandable are being produced in New Zealand by Chubb New Zealand, Ltd. Because many businesses are in high-rise buildings, there is a need for a modular security vault — one that is light but still secure. The commercial vault can be dismantled and moved; it can be enlarged by additional panels, and a 10cm casing of material made to a secret formula is fastened to steel linings. “The vault,” proudly puffs the publicity blurb “is designed to resist all known forms of attack." For a modular vault in the twentieth century, perhaps that even includes nuclear attack? Tombstone territory ANCESTORS are a grave concern for members of the New Zealand Family History Society. So much so that the society will meet on Saturday at the Barbadoes Street Cemetery at 2 p.m. to indulge in a spot of what is quaintly known as “raising the dead.” More innocuous than it sounds,

raising the dead means first finding the graves of certain well-known incumbents of the cemetery, then learning a little of their history. Committee members have swotted up the fascinating facts of about 12 identities and will talk about them briefly. Insulting art A federal judge in Denver has dismissed a stlit for at

least SUSI2 million, ruling that “mere name-calling is not actionable as a matter of law.” “Time” magazine reports that a sports agent filed the suit against a football coach, Darrel (“Mouse”) Davis, and two newspapers for calling him a “sleaze bag” who “slimed up from the bayou.” Not only was the coach free to express his opinion, but the judge suggested that name-calling could be refreshing.

“Creativity in the art of abusive epithet has all but disappeared,” he said. “It is all too rare today to hear the clear, clean ring of a really original insult”

Told you so WRITTEN 150 years ago, by John Dunmore Lang, on the probability of an Australian republic: “It is a singular fact in the history of nations that Great Britain, with an essentially monarchical Government has for a long time past been laying the foundations of future republics in all parts of the globe and will doubtless be left at last like the unfortunate hen that has hatched ducks* eggs, to behold her numerous brood successively taking to the water.” Signature tunes HAND-writing experts have been probing the signature of Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka. They say “he likes to have things under control, resents interference, has a submerged bad humour, an individualistic approach to problem-solving, and can enlarge a small matter out of proportion.”

Jenny Feltham