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Otaki Mail, 25 January 1943, Page 2

"I can assure you that this board does not stand In awe of any department or Its procedure,” said the chairman of the Wellington Manpower Appeal Board, Mr. J. J. Scott, at a sitting in Wellington. This remark was prompted when a representative of the railway workshops at Woburn said that If a certain action was enforced by the committee’s decision it would be contrary to departmental procedure. The appeal which was disallowed had been lodged by H. Costley against his transfer from the position of acting shop draftsman In the technical costing office to that of fitter in the machine shop.

An amazing sidelight on the watch for booby traps in the Western Desert after the £1 Alamein action is recounted by Lieutenant-Colonel J. A. Brether-ton,-o£ Christchurch. Because of the danger' of booby traps, everyone was looking warily at tempting things lying on the.ground, he wrote. An officer in a field Yegiment who possessed a beautiful blade razor placed it on the ground where it could not fail to be seen and watched with much amusement many people who walked past it with velvet tread, fearing that it might be a trap. .Along came one soldier, however, who said: “Booby trap, huhT, ’’ took out his Tevolver tyid landed a shot right in the middle of the razor.

The New Zealand forces in the Pacific area .are to have their own newspaper which'will contain New Zealand and local news, war news and educational items. -The paper, which will probably be called “The Kiwi' 1 and will be published in Noumea, is being established by the National Patriotic Fund Board in conjunction with the Army Education and Welfare Service. An officer of the latter service (Captain A. H. Thom) J will be in charge and the staff has been selected. This is the second forces newspaper to be established, the Patriotic Fund Board having also financed the start of the N.Z.E.P. Times in the Middlo East.

For what is probably the first time , in a New Zealand court a witness has appeared with two initials as his first ‘ ‘ name.’ ’ A member of the United States Marine Corps about to give evidence in the Wellington Magistrate’s Court was asked his full name. He replied “J W Bussey.” Senior-Sergeant T. Campagnolo asked what the initials stood for and the marine said the letters “JW” were by themselves his first name. His signature on a file was “J” “ W ” Bussey.

A statement of receipts and payments of the Auckland Metropolitan Emergency Precautions Service for the threeyear period from October 1, 1939, to September 30, 1942, has been sent by the treasurer, Mr. T. W. M. Ashby, to the contributing local bodies. Expenditure amounted to £204,663, the largest items being £201,274 for public shelters, including trenches, tunnels and shelters in buildings, £25,303 for the fire unit, and £7359 for the medical unit. Levies on local bodies totalled £118,624, of which £44,698 was outstanding on September 30 last. Of this sum, £35,220 had since been paid. Government subsidies outstanding amounted to £121,-

Mr. N. C. Tritton, 8.8. C. official, concluding his New Zealand visit, said he found the Dominion people preferred rugged voices rather than polished, and liked their news straight—not wrapped up with explanations and excuses. He was agreeably surprised, he said, at the amount of direct shortwave listening. He thought the towns were well served by radio and could pick up more programmes than the people of Britain. Mr. Tritton received hundreds of letters which he has not yet analysed, but the Joke was against : him when one family switched him off because they could not bear to hear an Englishman Imitating New Zealanders. But he is an Australian. Mr. Tritton is returning in April for at least a month to complete his investigations into Dominion listening, and hopes "to do something scientific regarding tastes and habits of the listening public."