Reporter's Diary

Press, 23 April 1979, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Man versus machine AN UNUSUAL wager was made recently after a discussion among friends who took part in a girl guide trek to the top of Mount Somers. Mr Jeff Kidd, a shepherd at Mount Somers station, challenged a trail bike rider to beat him to the top of the mountain on his motorcycle while he ran up on foot. Mr Kidd managed to cover the estimated threekilometre course up to a height of about 1500 metres in Ihr 28min. Mr Errol Syme, who had previously ridden a trail bike to the summit, covered the course in 45 minutes. In spite of this proof of' the superior speed of the machine, Mr Kidd declined a ride back to Mount Somers station. He chose to run. Facelift CHRISTCHURCH’S fleet of “big reds” may have been looking a shade or two dirtier than usual lately, but the Transport Board assures us the former familiar bright red will soon return to the cheeks of its fleet of buses. The board has had some problems replacing an old bus-washing machine with a new, automatic 535,000 “super-washer.” Produced by the Auckland

firm famous for such scrubbers as “Rub-A-Dub” and “Tom Thumb,” the new machine will not only scrub the sides of buses, like its predecessor, but it will clean the front, back and roof — automatically. Changes in Drainage Board regulations have caused some delay in installing the new machine. Since Christmas, the buses have been scrubbed “as clean as possible” by hand, but the board’s general manager (Mr M. G. Taylor) promises that within three weeks, the “super-washer” will be shining up the exteriors of the city’s buses and the fleet “will start looking as if somebody cares for it.” Holiday job KIWIS abroad sometimes find themselves in unusual jobs earning enough money to make ends meet or to earn their fare home. Two Christchurch men, Alistair McNaughton and Alan Campbell, never thought when they left New Zealand on a trip round the world that they would spend three months in Aberdeen making just on a million and a half beefburgers at an abattoir. The two found work at the Banchory abattoir just before Christmas, according to a report in an Aberdeen newspaper, and

became very popular with their fellow workers. They entered into the full social life of the place, and their wives, who were with them, also found work at Banchory. The two couples are now on their way home, via Australia. Eager to help LAST MONTH, readers may remember, there was a plea in the “Diary” for recordings of American Indian drum music to help the producers of the forthcoming play of “Daniel Boone.” The Canterbury Children’s Theatre received several offers of records and tapes, but one woman who called never got round to offering music, records, tapes, tomtoms, or anything. One evening last week, the production secretary’s telephone rang. She was out at rehearsal, and so her husband answered the call. The woman at the other end of the line asked excitedly about the search for tom-tom music. She had been reading her copy of “The Press” while in the bath and had been so intrigued with the “Diary” item that she had leapt from the water, draped herself in a towel, and rushed to the telephone. The secretary’s husband explained that his wife was out but that he would be pleased to help. About this time, it seems, the conversation was abruptly terminated at the other end of the line, and

so the Children’s Theatre people still don’t know what the woman was able to offer. W histlestop tour “CHASE around Britain for two frantic weeks,” says the advertisement in the London "Observer” newspaper. “Maggie, Jim and David also going.” The advertisement, placed by a London travel agent, is for a special election tour on which members of the public are able to go on the campaign trail, in the footsteps of the campaigners themselves. “The first 30 people to book will be rushed off their feet, to follow the candidates on the campaign trail. Starts April 21 and ends May 3 at the victory dinner in London — to which you’re invited.” It doesn’t sound like much of a holiday. IT ent too far ALMOST any clothing, or lack of it, passe c unnoticed in London streets these days, but a 16-year-old girl wearing a seethrough jersey in London’s West End on Easter Day was apparently a little much for a passing bobby. She was arrested, arid charged with behaviour likely to provoke a breach of the peace. She said that her boyfriend had worn the mesh jersey in public and she thought she could, too. —Felicity Price