Reporter’s diary

Press, 8 December 1988, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Trying ..

DON’T look now, but it’s the “Messiah” season sneaking up again. This year it is the turn of the Christchurch Harmonic Society to perform Handel’s oratorio in Christchurch, which will be one of hundreds, yea, probably thousands, performed world-wide. Not all renditions are solemn, po-faced occasions. A reader recalls one she attended in the north of England where the tenor soloist, although a passable singer, was afflicted with a speech impediment which prevented him articulating the letter c.

... Shame IT is the tenor who sings first in the “Messiah,” in the recitative, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.” In the next air, he carries on about the crooked being made straight. The solution, for the unfortunate C-less tenor, was to substitute a

T for the hard C. The resulting “Tumfort ye” and "trooked straight” had a magical effect on the audience, who coped by stuffing hankies in their mouths as the tears poured down their faces. Mercifully, their powers of interpretation were not put to the test in “The Trumpet Shall Sound” — it’s sung by the bass. Tusk force

THE Melbourne Cricket Ground has refused permission for a $9 million production of the Verdi opera “Aida” to be staged there in February. Groundsmen fear that the three elephants in the cast would damage the pitch. But it’d be all right for the Indian spinners, wouldn’t it?

Pull the other one AT physiotherapy clinics they’ve heard all the excuses from unwilling patients who don’t want to turn up. Or they thought they had. Yesterday the

repertoire was enlarged by a woman who rang to say she couldn’t come because of the power cuts. Oh, really? purred the sceptical receptionist. Ooh yes, the security gates at the end of her drive were securely and immovably locked until power was restored, making the trip to physiotherapy, or anywhere for that matter, impossible. Nine out of 10 for plausibility. Practical

application HUMBLE bumper stickers (called that because they are usually stuck on the rear window) are now helping police in New York fight car thefts. Any car found being driven between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. (when most vehicles are stolen) will be stopped if it displays a Combat Auto Theft sticker. Of the 20,000 cars that have joined the scheme since the beginning of the year, only 19 were stolen, in a city with an annual 65,000

car thefts. The scheme has proved so successful that it is being adopted in Los Angeles next month.

Aged People’s

Welfare Centre SPECIAL Christmas menus will be offered at the . Canterbury Aged People’s Welfare Council Centre between December 12 and 21 for people over 60. Carol sing-alongs, also at the centre, will add to the Yuletide flavour on Friday, December 9 and 16 for an hour from 12.30 p.m. The centre will’ be closed from 1 p.m., Wednesday, December 21 and will reopen on Wednesday, January 11, 1989. Ho no!

OH, all right,. here’s just one joke for Christmas, courtesy of the “New Truth”: What do you call Santa’s little helpers? Subordinate clauses...

—Jenny Setchell