Reporter’s diary

Press, 3 February 1986, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

A symbol A CHRISTCHURCH woman who recently received a letter from a friend in the Antarctic thinks there may be some cause now for changing the Scott Base official envelope. Even if the huskies there are not killed before their time, and a new diet is found that can keep the healthy dogs going, the husky issue is likely to remain a sore point, both for those who want to see them remain and those who think the remaining 16 dogs should go as quickly as possible. Here they come CANADIAN members of

the MacLeod clan, one of the world’s many extended families, are coming to New Zealand soon. They will be in Christchurch during the first four day sin March, after starting their tour at Waipu, the Northland community where MacLeod descendants landed in New Zealand from 1854 to 1860. Three years ago, New Zealand members of the MacLeod clan had a similar pilgrimage to Canada. This time, 32 Canadians will start from Nova Scotia and travel as far as Te Anau. MacLeods and others left Nova Scotia in the 1800 s in ships they had built themselves. Some went to Australia. Five Northland farms

were set up, the younger settlers going into seafaring and bush work. A dairying industry was gradually built, together with wheatgrowing and shipbuilding. Icy eating AUSTRALIAN crew members aboard a ship in Antarctic waters on Australia Day did the best they could to have a typical summer barbecue. They used a cut-down 44gallon drum for the fire, with a hotplate over the top. Steaks and sausages were produced from the ship’s freezer, and plastic utensils (which became brittle and broke in the cold), paper plates, and tomato sauce were on hand. They had to eat the steaks fast before the tomato sauce froze on top. Snowflakes and meat sizzled on the hotplates. Someone even had eucalyptus tablets to toss onthe flames and produce an authentic whiff of home. Garden mansion A KUROW woman, Grace Campbell, has a miniature mansion in her garden. Sitting under a cabbage tree, it is surrounded by flowers. The construction, of concrete blocks and gravel, took two years to make, and is a model of the Campbell Park homestead at Otekaieke, about 13km from Kurow. The woman is a great admirer of one of New Zealand’s best-known mansions. She

worked at the Campbell Park School for seven years. Space dome FASTEN your seat belts, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, you will soon be able to go through outer space in Sydney without leaving the ground. A space theatre inside a domed building will be built as part of the city’s Power House Museum. Mr Neville Wran, the New South Wales Premier, has seen one of the theatres overseas. He went along for the ride after strapping himself in an aircraft seat, and says that , the 270-seat Sydney theatre — offering 40-minute rides — should be a great success. Space journeys will be projected on to the inside of the theatre’s dome. Mr Wran has high hopes for the $ll million project, but some prospective travellers may think twice about the trip if they take heed of everything he says about the experience. He was somewhat sick when he had his first ride. Conversion A LONDON architect says he is tired of his profession’s being branded as a group which tears down comfortable old buildings and replaces them with uncomfortable (at least to look at) new ones. He has bought disused Victorian public conveniences in Fultiani'i/and will convert

them into an office building. Phone melodies JAPANESE companies ( that have learned the trick of putting their tele- • phone customers on hold ti to recorded music usually do it with the anonymous melodies now common around the world. But a bank, Citibank Japan, decided to lift the standard ; by letting callers hear : Chopin and other music by the masters. Someone in the bank’s Manila office decided to change the tune recently, plugging the disco music of i Donna Summer into the • system. That was changed , back suddenly after a senior executive from Tokyo rang the switch- - board and was put on hold. Pink sky HALLEY’S Comet can, I and probably will, be • blamed for many things, [ but the small heavenly ( visitor has nothing to do ( with the way our sky ’ looks. A Darfield man has i asked why the sky is so* pink in the evening and I early mornings, and won-; ders if the comet’s coming 3 ; has something to do with ( it. No; but sunlight and J the way it reacts with the n atmosphere has a lot to.' do with it. Pinks skies are t common in the summer. 5 They used to say thatskies were pink in the, early morning when the/ circus came to town. —Stan Darling;