Reporter’s diary

Press, 26 November 1987, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Throat note MANY people think the human voice can be switched on like a light, used like a mega-mega-watt stereo loudspeaker for days at a stretch and suffer no ill effects. Singers, actors and announcers are among those who are wiser and know the limits of such a valuable instrument. So Yvonne Martin, as Aladdin in the forthcoming production of the pantomime of the same name, was surprised when her interview by Radio Avon was changed from face-to-face to a telephone interview at radio’s suggestion. Interviewer Peter Sinclair had a throat infection, they said, and considering the long season ahead, they would not like to pass on an infection to the leading lady. Didn’t want to bring a lamp to her throat, probably. Birth insurance TWO friends were talking

birth dates. When one noted that the other was born on November 1, she asked: “Isn’t that All Saints’ day?” .He nodded. “I look on it as a kind of comprehensive life cover.” Footnote: The saints were with him earlier than he thought. Had he been born on the expected date — the anni-* versary of the Battle of Trafalgar — he would have been called Horatio. Hang on a minute A VISITOR to a club in Britain was amused to see a notice announcing a talk entitled: "Teen-agers’ hang-ups.” Someone had added underneath: “Anything but their clothes.” Never the twain... ASYMPTOTE — as a name for an escort agency in Christchurch — was an unusual choice. The owner of the service looked for a word that began with A (putting it

high on the “personals” list); had a nice ring to it; and which sounded vaguely intellectual. It is merely a coincidence that Asymptote is defined in the Concise Oxford Dictionary as, “A line which continually approaches a given curve but which does not meet it within a finite distance.” ... shall meet PURSUING this exciting new word — asymptote — a colleague stumbled across a fascinating world of subatomic intrigue, in that normally sober authority, “Encyclopaedia Britannica.” Under the riveting subject of quarks, he read that there is such a thing as asymptotic freedom, which is a sort of Clayton’s freedom. The binding forces carried by the gluons (massless particles — not aliens) tend to be weak, when the quarks are close together, says the encyclopaedia. “At a distance of approxi-

mateiy 10 to the power of minus 13cm quarks behave as though they were free. When one begins to draw the quarks apart however, as if attempting to knock them out of a proton, the force grows stronger.” The plot then becomes positively risque: “Gluons have the ability to create other gluons as they move between quarks." It is almost enough to make you want to be a nuclear physicist. Coming, coming GEORGE Exton, of Cardiff, bought a dog after he was burgled. Soon after the dog arrived, his mail failed to arrive. Curious, he collared the postie one day to ask why. “Sorry. We’ve stopped delivery because of the fierce dog,” said the postie. George demanded to know why he had not been told. But he had been, said the postie. “There’s a letter in the post” —Jenny Feltham