Reporter’s diary

Press, 12 October 1988, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Coals to Newcastle WHO would have thought that the United States Antarctic Programme would have to go to such trouble to keep something cold at the South Pole? The Americans plan to ship no less than 12,000 litres of liquid helium through Christchurch to the Ice this season. The supercold liquid will be used to refrigerate a device measuring cosmic background radiation, looking for tiny temperature differences in the cosmos that could have resulted from the “Big Bang.” The detectors have to be cold to detect differences of the order of a few millionths of a degree Celsius. Obvious, really. But then, a senior National Science Foundation man, who had better remain nameless, insists that they really only want the helium to inhale, “So they can talk like ducks at their parties.” Tall tales...

WHAT does this fine, large, old house, at the corner of Hereford Street and Rolleston Avenue, have in common with the British Army? Answer: a former owner of the house, Mr Henry Herbert Pitman, had as a son-in-law a certain Colonel Hay, “a nervous, serious, unsmiling, matter-of-fact man,” whose claim to fame was that he was the tallest man in the British Army.

... and true THAT titbit has been uncovered by Mr Jonathan Maze, one of the present (and final) tenants of the house, who is trying to collate a history of the building before it is demolished in about three weeks time. The house was built by Mr William

Lake, an estate agent, about 1900. It changed hands over the years and was converted to flats about 1929. Originally 104 Antigua Street, it became 18 Rolleston Avenue when the street was renamed about 1914. Anyone with anecdotes and information to flesh out the details is asked to contact Mr Maze at the address, or phone 798-698 (quickly, before he has to move out). The house is now owned by the Y.M.C.A., which plans to build a new hostel on the site. Baby contest CALLING all bonny babies — Riccarton Mall and the Christchurch Central Lioness Club are seeking entries for a baby photo contest, raising funds for an electric breast-pump for the Christchurch Women’s Hospital Neo-natal Unit. Entries, in four age groups up to 24 months, close on October 22. The

public can vote for their favourites — one cent a vote and all proceeds to the cause — from October 25 to 29. The winners will be announced on November 5. Crawlpost WHEN British Post Office mail-sorting rooms were stilled by a recent strike, they were probably not entirely silent. A gentle rustling may have been audible from the piles of banked-up mail, the cause of which hardly bears thinking about. One Cardiff pet-shop owner reckoned he had 36 tarantula spiders and 2000 crickets and locusts packaged up and caught in the strike. Another dispatcher of crickets by post estimated that there would have been about 100,000 caught in transit. Not that the insects would have minded the delay, had they known their destination. Most of the traffic consists of mail-order live

pet food, for finicky eaters such as lizards. Diffidence SCRAWLED on the back wall of the Lyttelton bus shelter: .. has rather nice blue eyes.” Graffiti artists are not usually so timid, and serious suitors never should be. Faint heart ne’er won fair lady, lad. Hidden agenda GOOD morning to the Malvern County Councillor (no names, but there is only one woman on the council) whose choice of phrase neatly broke the tension during a meeting on Friday, when her male colleagues were being maddeningly coy about whether they would be available for the local government-reorganisa-tion transition committee. Would those who intended to stand, she demanded, “please expose yourselves!” —Nigel Malthus