Reporter’s diary

Press, 1 March 1982, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

THIS should increase (he (blood) .circulation of any thieves lurking around this honesty box outside the Housing Corporation building in the Square. The newly formed detection squad from “The Press” distribution department has made its first appearance. Operations are expanding to select targets in Manchester Street, and beyond! Body count HOW many people are there in China? Reference books give figures from “about 700 million” to “more than 1000 million.” The Chinese are proposing to find out by holding a census on July 1. No census has been held since 1964. For the first time in China, the census will seek information on trade and

occupations, and on population control and infant mortality. Two experimental censuses have been carried out, one dealing with a sample of 2.3 million people in 28 districts. The census takers are proposing to count all Chinese nationals living in the People’s Republic, Chinese working or studying abroad, but not foreigners living in China. Residents of Taiwan and other islands which make up Nationalist China will also be counted “according to figures collected by the Taiwan authorities.” ‘Chopper’ shocks YOU’VE heard of the tooth fairy. Now we have the dentist’s ghost — and what’s more, a Bavarian dentist’s ghost. “Chopper’’ croaks out

of plugholes and toilets and is driving the dentist, Kurt Bachseitz, crazy. Police experts and a parapsychologist have been stumped by the mystery voice which sends patients screaming from the dentist’s chair. West German television viewers saw film of the spook talking to the dentist’s secretary from a washbasin plughole and croaking “I love you,” over the telephone. “We are taking this case absolutely seriously,” said a police spokesman. Dr Bachseitz is takingit so seriously that he has instituted legal proceedings against the ghost. “Chopper” doesn’t seem to have any scruples about where it vocalises. One patient was sitting on the dentist’s lavatory when a voice from underneath shouted: “Move your backside, I can’t see a thing.” Papal bull EXCITEMENT over the Pope’s forthcoming visit to Britain has produced some memorable exhibitions of foot-in-mouth. One — undoubtedly the work of printing gremlins — was performed by Dublin’s “Sunday World” weekly, which proclaims “Nobody does it better” atop each front page. Immediately below it, in one recent issue, the headline blared: “Storms over British Pope’s visit.” One wonders what the Rev. lan Paisley thought of it all.

Maxi ONE of those unfortunate signs, this time on a large board outside Wolseley Lodge on Papanui Road: “Large Private Guests’ Car Park.” What, wonders our informer, do they do with the skinny ones?