Reporter’s diary

Press, 27 September 1988, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

“Do as I say.. RODNEY decided it was time his wayward sevenmonth Dalmatian puppy went to obedience school. So together they fronted up in the company of seemingly hundreds of other wayward pups and ditto owners. As he went to register, Rodney was startled by a dog (“... with lots of teeth”) which rushed out from behind a van to which it was tied. The Dalmatian scarpered smartly, and Rodney was the closest chewable object to take the full force of the fangs. It drew blood and “ruined a perfectly good pair of 12-year-old trousers.” But Rodney is made of . stern stuff, and he carried on with the afternoon’s lesson. As he was leaving, the dog leapt out again, hoping for a pudding course of leg of chap. This time,, the owner appeared. “Is this your dog that bit me before?" accused the wounded Rodney, then stopped. The owner was one of the obedience school instructors. Book ends THE Theatre Royal Book Fair “search and rescue” scheme for sought-after books attracted requests from as far as Tauranga

and Auckland, as well as surrounding districts and Blenheim. The 104 letters represented between 300 and 350 titles, of which 97 books were found and 32 booklovers’ requests satisfied — at least in part. Book sorters were amazed at the range of books they were asked to look out for —- everything from puppetry to psychic phenomena, and out-of-print fiction to Biggies. Taking a stand LOOKS like there are going to be some more cost-cutting measures at TVNZ. In the executive car park below its new site in Worcester Street, a bicycle stand has been installed where the cars should be. Search for light SOMEBODY, somewhere, must have a spare lighthouse light that they’re not using. The director of the Hokitika Museum would quite like a new light for the historic lighthouse which the West Coast regional committee of the Historic Places Trust hopes to rebuild. The lighthouse, which stands on Seaview Hill in Hokitika, was built in 1879 and used’ until 1924. The rebuilding project needs a

replacement light with these specifications: a fifth-order diotropic lens, 375 mm diameter, with an (effective) height of 378 mm, and 11 refracting rings. A sixth-order light would also be acceptable. If anyone happens to have one cluttering up a cupboard somewhere, please contact Beverley McCulloch, liaison officer at Canterbury Museum. Unmuzzled ACCORDING to a joke that is breezing through the Soviet Union at the moment, a visiting dog asks a Soviet dog what has changed under perestroika. “Well, it’s like this,” says the Soviet dog. “First, they gave me a longer chain; but then they shifted my bowl out of reach. The main difference is that now I can bark about it as loud as I like.” Other half ON Saturday, we sent greetings to Mr Admiraal, who is operations planner for the Christchurch Transport Board bus fleet. Silly us, we forgot to include his wife, who also works at the C.T.8., doing passenger surveys. Hello, to Mrs Ria Admiraal. —Jenny Setchell