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Salient. Official Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 41 No. 10. May 15 1978

Salient Notes

Salient Notes

Have you ever wondered just what Salient staff do in the holidays? Well I wondered what Salient staff did in the holidays, and not being one to let the grass grow under my feet I determined to find out. It was not easy let me assure you.

Now take Simon Wilson, he's got this fetish about locking things up. He locks up his office, my friends offices, he locks cars, buses, even prams. Unfortunately on Friday he locked up his keys in the petty cash safe. Unconcerned he rushed home for a spare set, but found they were locked inside his flat. A man of action Simon grabbed a brick from a nearby pile to hurl through the window. Unaccountably he selected a brick from the bottom of the pile, which when removed caused the whole heap to slide down the hill into a neighbour's living room. "C'est la vie" he was heard to mutter, and he propelled the missile through the window, through the antique bottles on the window sill, through the television screen and finally into the full length dressing mirror.

Once inside the house (ignoring the devastation he had wrought), he collected the keys and was setting off again when nature called. Nonchalantly tossing the keys in the air he was distressed to miss a catch and watch the keys disappear down the toilet bowl. When last I saw him he was sitting, depressed, beside the said fixture, debating whether or not to take the dirty plunge to reclaim his keys.

Lorraine Robinson told me that she was disappointed in her holidays. "I wanted a good old Kiwi suntan to show off to all my friends back home," she cried. "But for some reason this Wellington sun doesn't give you a tan". When I asked her if this might have been because there had been no sun she pointed to the rain dribbling down the windows and declared, "Where I come from this is sun." What can I say?

Doug Thompson on the other hand had a most profitable holiday trying to learn "New Zealand Driving". Lately from Canada, Doug has had difficulty in coming to grips with some of our local customs. "In Canada, when there's an accident the driver hit doesn't take the hitter to the pub and buy him a drink because "You hit me this time mate, good driving, but next time I see you I'll drive you off the road." He's also boning up on abuse to hurl out of windows. He was learning the "You have the right of way, you stupid old cow, but my car's bigger than yours so you'd better move over" line when I left him. I declined the offer of a lift in his armour plated VW.

Murray? I spied him in a local pub doing his famous impersonation of a Scotsman. He had his audience completely captive until he came to the joke about "what does a Scotsman wear under his kilt?" Alas when he came to the punch line the audience didn't believe him, so he proved it. Unfortunately there was an officer of the law present, and David is at present being charged under the Odious Sights Act.

At a preliminary hearing the judge told him he "was a silly little cock" and David hasn't been quite the same since.

I then tried to track down Peter Beach. I finally found him sifting through the waste paper baskets of Banana's hair salon looking for his lost glory. He had got most of it back and was trying to stick it together with Bull-gum to make a wig.

He told me it wasn't very easy. At least that's what I thought he said, for his voice was rather muffled by the balaclava and turban he had wrapped around his cranium.

Lamorna Rogers spent the holidays on the telephone. She sat on the telephone, walked on the telephone, slept on the telephone. I asked her if she thought this was a natural activity, "Oh I'm expecting a phone call" she explained. "Aren't we all?" I replied. "Yes, but this one's from Lindy Cassidy." "But you flat with Lindy." "That's why it's so important that I don't miss it," and she hopped off on her telephone.

When next I saw Rire Scotney I asked her how long Lamorna had been like this. "Like what?" "All peculiar.""Oh I don't think Lamorna was at all peculiar. She's always seemed such an honest, straight-forward stable sort of person to me. Quiet and restrained, a model citizen." Actually she said a good deal more, but I found that the only way I could get face to face with Rire was to stand on my hands and hop around the room after her, and this made me very dizzy.

Thank goodness they weren't all like that. Margot MacGillivray was a tonic for me. She had spent her holidays counting the grains of sand in Lyall Bay as part of a research project in Mathematics. She told me that she thought it was a little bit silly, but she didn't question the decisions of adults.

Virginia Adams is a relative newcomer to Salient staff, for this year anyway. Her job as a steam calliop salesperson takes her out of town frequently, and as she has to sell 20 steam organs before she can have a holiday she tends to be working most of the time. But not last week. When she came into Salient to say hello and tell us about her job we all went wild. Simon bought three, the rest of us being more restrained bought two each, this filled her quota and she spent the week trying to brush up on her sales pitch.

I didn't actually see Stephen Benbrook although Marie Rodgers told me he had spent the holidays trying to photograph his camera. His method was to focus the camera on a table, click the shutter, rush the camera to the table, so that the light would hit it, and then tear back and put the camera back on the tripod to record the light on the film. To date he has not been successful in capturing the image of the camera on the film but has many interesting shots of hands on lenses. So much for him.

Of course I mustn't forget to mention John Dailey who spent the vacation examining time travel. Reasoning that if it took one hour to stroll to Salient, but½ hour if he walked briskly, it would take no time at all if he were to run there. Logically then sprinting to the office would put him there before he left. In fact John went overboard and took a car to the office. This saved him so much time that it will be about 6 months before time can catch up with him and he will be able to leave.

If he can get his keys back Simon Wilson will edit Salient, now that Lindy is off the phone whe will probably direct VUWSA to Publish it, and the man who never takes holidays at Wanganui Newspapers. Drews Avenue, Wanganui will print it. Thanks men.