Reporter's Diary

Press, 16 April 1979, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

A'pw liqueur? A RECENT news item that dentists are campaigning to have children brush their teeth after

taking cough medicine, because of its sticky syrup which is bad for teeth, brought to one reader’s mind a story about cough syrup that he heard some time ago. A doctor friend of his had guests for dinner. They had all been plied with cocktails, copious quantities of wine, and some liqueurs to follow. As the evening wore on their sobriety dimini s h e d considerably. Finally, the liqueurs ran out but the guests were showing no sign of going. So, in desperation, the doctor raided his medicine cupboard, discovered some cough syrup, and served it up as a liqueur. His guests, fortunately, were in no condition to be any the wiser.

Setting an example CHRISTCHURCH is not the only city in the world having trouble finding funds to provide a body scanner for its public hospital. In London, a private donor provided the necessary £330,000 to install a body scanner in Charing Cross Hospital after the National Health Service had refused to foot the bill but that sum did not meet the machine’s running costs. So, in the last few months 550 girls from St Paul’s Girls' School, in Hammersmith, took part in a sponsored swim. One girl managed 133 lengths in an hour, while 26 girls from one class swam 75 lengths each. The result provided $7760 towards the scanner’s running costs. Plans for the installation in Christchurch of a body scanner, the most advanced tool for detecting internal injuries and tumors, have been deferred by the North Canterbury Hospital

Board because of lack of finance and Government approval. The Auckland Hospital Board has the only body scanner in New Zealand. It cost $840,000. Minimap

READERS may remember an item last month about the popularity of the Christchurch City Council’s large, three-dimen-sional wall map of the central city area. The ax-onometric-perspective map was prepared by Mr John Densem. of the council’s town-planning division, and is on sale for $3. Now the council has produced a miniature version of the three-dimensional map in a small brochure called “Welcome to Christchurch.” It will be on sale soon, at 20c a copy, at hotels, tourist bureaux, the Automobile Association’s offices, and the City Council chambers. In addition to the attractive map, the brochure contains information on buses, taxis, trains, airlines, and banks as well as highlighting points of interest round the city. Monster hunt BRITISH quarantine laws may be relaxed to allow two dolphins to take part in a search for the Loch Ness monster. A Boston group known as the Academy of Sciences plans to conduct the search. Dog advice PERSONS thinking of buying a dog, be it a pedigree or a “bitser,” will soon be able to use the service of a new voluntary organisation to be set up in Christchurch. A group of persons . with doggy interests have volunteered to take telephone calls from members of the public who want to know about the sort of dog they are planning to buy: how

big it will grow, what sort of care it will need, and how much it will need to be fed every day. The organisation is the brainchild of Mr Richard Barker, a dog breeder and member of the Canterbury Afghan Hound Club committee. “There are a lot of dogs roaming the streets and no-one seems to care about them,” he said. “A lot of people seem to be buying a puppy for a new toy and when it grows up in to a great big dog they don’t know what to do with it, so they let it roam the streets and don’t care about it any more.” Mr Barker believes that jf persons could talk with someone knowledgeable in the doggy world before they bought their puppy they would know what to expect and might care for it more. The list of persons to contact for advice will be advertised shortly. Long bus ride MOTORISTS driving through the Lewis Pass on May 6 may be in for a surprise. After all, it is not every day that you see a London double-decker bus in the middle of nowhere. The bus will be travelling through the Lewis Pass and over the Shenandoah Range to Nelson, from Christchurch, as part of a promotion for the Farmers' Richmond Mall store in Nelson. Same old tune THIS item, from a report of a council meeting in Essex, England. seems slightly undiplomatic: “The chairman said they were glad to welcome back Mr . . . after his long absence due to illness. Council meetings had not been the same without him and he was happy to say that his doctor had now pronounced him fit for a fiddle.” ~ —Felicity Price