ITEMS OF INTEREST

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 58, Issue 4105, 25 February 1949, Page 8

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Powefui Stuff Home brewed ginger beer, prepared by a small boy in Paeroa and left in a sealed stone jar in his father’s workshop on Saturday afternoon, could easily have been the cause of a serious accident. While the lad was at the swimming carnival and, fortunately, his father was watching the Court Cup cricket match on the Paeroa domain, the jar exploded and ginger beer and stone hurtled in all directions. One piece of the stone jar passed right through a piece of •boxwood, three-quarters of an inch thick. Lengthy Canoe Trip After spending 14 days in his canoe, Mr Athol Brietier, a linesman from Arapuni, together with his Alsatian dog, arrived in Auckland last week. He had paddled from Matamata down the Waihou river to the Firth of Thames, up the Coromandel Peninsula to Oamaru Bay and across the Hauraki Gulf to Cowes Bay, Waiheke. The journey across the gulf, a distance of 18 miles, was made in six hour’s. This is the third long distance canoe trip made by Mr Brietier. Quite Beside the Point When Mr W. C. Kennedy remarked at the February meeting of the Thames Hospital Board that he and the new member, Mrs L. Drinkwater, had met many years ago, the chairman, Mr J. W. Danby, told a rather amusing little anecdote. A past minister of one of the Thames churches, who was a very eminent lecturer, was chosen to make a tour of the Dominion delivering his famous addresses. Among his widely varied list was one entitled “ Men I have met and wish I hadn’t.” Mr Danby added that he did not know whether that had anything to do with Mrs Drinkwater’s having met Mr Kennedy. Parent-Teachers Meet

The February meeting of the Paeroa Parent-Teachers’ Association was held in the primary school on February 9, Mr E. Meyer presiding over Mesdames A. Rogers, I. Denton, G. Parsons, G. Speechley, J. F. Donald, R. Fromm, H. Saunders, L. Wrigley, B. Roberts, N. Watson, Misses G. Gwilliam and Q. A. Gernhoefer and Mr R. Greenslade. Apologies were received from Mrs S. Wheeler and Mrs C. Gleadow. It was decided to hold a garden party at the high school on a Tuesday during March. Very Satisfactory Job A complimentary report regarding the manner in which a culvert had been installed in a drain in front of the sub-station at Kerepehi was given by the foreman, Mr W. Johnson to the February meeting of the Hauraki United Drainage Board. The levels had been taken from one side of the pipes to the other, stated the foreman, and the pipes had been concreted in at each join. It was a very satisfactory job. Can-Can Stop Thief

If you are not a farmer it should be explained that after having collected cream at the farm gate, the factory lorry returns the empty cans for next day’s supply. At a certain Manawatu farm the other day the lorry left the empties as usual. They stayed on the stand for a while and then to the amazement of the farmer, another lorry drove up and took away the cans. The farmer was too late with his “ Stop thief! ” so the police were informed. What followed had all the elements of comedy, for it was discovered that the wrong cans had been left, that the second lorry had every right to them and finally that the farmer that morning had forgotten to put out his cream for collection. It still reposed in his milking shed. The farmer’s excuse for his forgetfulness is that he rose extra early that morning and routine got out of step. What morning was it? The Hydrofin An Englishman has invented a boat which travels half in and half out of the water. It is called a hydrofin, and has a pusher type of airscrew which is attached to the tail. When the airscrew moves the boat, the hull is lifted out of the water and two arms, which extend from the side and reach forward ahead of the boat and then bend back under water, have horizontal plates which adjust themselves to the waves at a correct angle. It is claimed that in this way pitching and rolling are largely eliminated and the boat can travel at a speed of fifty miles an hour. Children’s Trick Motorists travelling past Mr Harvey Evans’ sawmill on the Thames road on Sunday were tempted to draw to a standstill at the sight of a ladies’ red handbag lying in the middle of the road. However, the bag did not remain there long enough for them to pick it up as some small children had evidently attached it to a piece of string with which they jerked the bag out of sight of the bewildered motorists.