Reporter’s diary

Press, 22 July 1988, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Book marks... LIBRARIANS at Canterbury Public Library can tell a lot about book borrowers from the items left between the pages of the returns: common items are letters and cards, shopping lists and photographs. Less common are pressed flowers and leaves (including marijuana), combs, pay slips, cheque books, money and food — in various stages of decay and digestion.

... and books marked BORROWERS often leave evidence of the places they’ve chosen for a quiet read: large quantities of sand from the beach, or wrinkled pages from a quick dip in the bath.

Once, a librarian found the cardboard tube from a toilet roll — in a copy of A. A. Milne’s “The House at Pooh Corner.” Just off... sir A District Court Judge received a quick history lesson from the dock recently after he asked a defendant from Ajax Street, Christchurch, where that was. The man apparently misheard and began to explain, “You know, the Battle of the River Plate. There was the Ajax and the Achilles and the Exeter...” Gone and

forgotten A West German husband has written to the Hamburg police telling them

his wife is missing, but not to hurry finding her. “To conform with the law, I would like to inform you that my wife has not been seen for several weeks. Personally, I do not miss her. Please do take your time in this matter,” he wrote. A police spokesman has declined to identify the happy husbpnd, but says that in spite of his plea they will start looking immediately. Bird in the hand A Christchurch mother recently had the awful experience of finding an empty cage, a few feathers on the floor, an apparently satisfied cat, and no sign of the rare white budgie which only a few days before had been the treasured birthday gift

to her young daughter. Deception seemed the only answer, and she successfully found a substitute in a race against time, before picking the girl up from school. But — you guessed it — no sooner had budgie two passed the test of scrutiny by the youngster, Mum found budgie one strutting about on the bedroom floor. Twink and Blink now share the cage, and the girl, no doubt, has learnt a lesson in adult behaviour. Women's work FROM the minutes of a certain sports club on the West Coast: “Some of the mothers or ladies are at present cleaning up the club rooms.;