Salient Notes

Listen, please don't tell everybody, but there's something very odd going on up here. I mean, don't think me paranoid, when Simon Wilson rode into the office this morning on a white horse I would probably never have noticed if it hadn't relieved itself on Rire Scotney's typewriter a few moments later. Even then Chris Norman, who was reading it's contents at the time, didn't notice, and neither did many of the others although Lamorna Rogers expressed some surprise that the article should come in for such heavy criticism before it was even finished. But no, quite apart from that unsavoury little incident, other rather disturbing things have been happening;

Gyles Beckford hasn't said a word all day. Someone's filled the sink in the darkroom with dirt and planted zucchinis and both David Murray and Stephen Ben-brook deny all knowledge. I heard the sound of a whip cracking in Doug Thompson's office this morning, and another sound that could have been Marie Rogers giggling. As if all these little things aren't disturbing enough in themselves, there's something else too.

Someone has put a fully equipped Viking Warship in the middle of the office and everyone's pretending it's not there. There goes Peter Erlich, walkine carefully around it to the copy table, looking at the ground. He Knows it's there. So does Lorraine Robinson, whistling away there, looking out the window. There goes John Bailey walking into the office without batting an eyelid. And even this I could handle if the bloody thing wasn't full of Vikings.

I mean I've done Medieval History, and those guys rape and pillage like it's going out of fashion. At the moment they all seem to be content to just sit there — probably waiting for SASRAC at four o'clock. But what of the future? Anything could happen. Oh no . . . look there goes the first one, Debbie Finberg over one shoulder, Cathy Randall over the other, back into the ship. They're all singing songs now. Jesus how horrifying. And there goes Jonathan Scott, walking past as if nothing's happened. The bastard. Holy mother of Bjelke-Peterson, now it's Margot MacGillivray and Caroline Stephens! And Kevin Young, why those warped arseholes! I'm leaving, I don't have to stay here and watch this!

Next Day: That was pretty nasty yesterday for a while. The boat's gone now which makes it a hell of a lot easier to move around in here. But now there's a WW II zeppelin tied up outside the ramp window. And all the students are just walking past it as if it's not there. I can make out David-Beresford and Andrew Delahunty in the cockpit. And of course there's Peter Beach typing away next to me pretending it's not there. And there's David Beach over there glancing anxiously across at me as he talks on the phone. And here I am being carried away by two men in white coats. Bloody typical. Pretending they don't see the Jumbo Jet moored outside Hunter.

Salient is edited by Simon Wilson and publish by the Victoria University of Wellington Students' Association, Private Bag, Wellington. It is printed by Wanganui Newspapers, Drews Avenue, Wanganui.