ROUND ABOUT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 204, 26 August 1940, Page 5

ROUND ABOUT

(By Aitchel) 1

Many patriotic efforts go unrecorded. One -is that of the elderly resident of'the borough who regularly leaves 5/- at the BEACON office >vith the express wish that it be used o buy tobacco for the 'boys' over-< >eas. This is a wonderful gesture— nore so, perhaps, because it is unac:ompanied by a fanfare of trumpets, m m 'm. m . If decorations are splashed about after the war—for N.Z« generally and the Whakatane County in particular—will Mr F. Mahy, Snr., of Ohope, be in the running for the Order of the Bath? * m m • It will be remembered that a week >r two back 1 extolled the virtues >f one, Ajax, a cat of some renown n the hunting world.' It" had been mticipated thai he would come in m the side of law and ordier, or, to )e precise, on the side of the Don't kVants where rats are concerned.Particularly was he wanted in a cer:ain Strand building where live a colony of rats, which, in size, compare with those at the rubbish dump is Gulliver compared with the Lilliputians. Was it not a correspondent ;o this paper who advised that he iad seen rodents the size of cats disjorting themselves at our notorious Rubbish Tip? But we are getting away from Vjaw Alas, 'tis sad news I bring. Ajax s dead and because, as far as we enow;, he leaves no stalwart son ta jarry on the name and the famity's glorious traditions, w r e can not. add 'Long Live Ajax!" Vale, Ajax. May something of four spirit, your indomitable course, pass to those of your race who iarry on ..... . ■» * • » Sticking to the subject of 'Rats/ ! wonder whether the correspondent •eferred to above really was exaggerating?- After all, he saw them. . , . . and what about the one that , lot away? And,, referring to the concluding sentence of our all too brief obituary m Ajax, does the town possess suf-' Icient cats;? Or will the municipal controllers be forced to invoke the aid of a piper or two? What do you think of the suggestion that the next time the Whakatane Pipe Band marches uiJ the Strand (in a westerly direction), it should, like the . famed Johnnie Walker, keep .on going? There are manjr, of course, who will agree readily, without consideration of the rat question. « » • • Hitler's failure to turn up in London on August 15th has given us a - further grievance against him. In addition to being an unspeakable So-and-So, he does not keep his appointments. m m mm. The Hon. H. T. Armstrong's warning that there might be a second budget this year has been officially contradicted. It appears that among those suffering from the "Nash Jitters" are his Ministerial colleagues. «t" IB * « The Greek ciu.iser minelayer Helle has been torpedoed by an unidentified submarine. It is not surprising that the first Greek reaction was, approximately: "What the Helle?" «•* * » The prize for the model must assuredly go to one of the 'just marrieds' in-Whakatane. At dinner one night last w r eek his wife said': "Don't you think I have put too much salt in the soup, dear?" Hubby, the essence of tact, replied thus: "Not at all, darling. There is perhaps not quite enough soup for the salt, that's all." » 9 m m In the old-type 'copy-books' beloved of schoolmasters a decade or so ago were various assertions such as "All is not gold that glitters," "Hitler is a naughty man," "Some day Ave will have capital rating in the Whakatane Borough," and so, on.. The general idea was to develop artistic handwriting, but at the same time, killing two birds with one stone, apparently, the mind was supposed to be broadened by such lofty repetitions. One I have in mind, was something to do with .punctuality. 'It seems; very much as though this particular copy-book never penetrated the hinterland of Avhich Whakatane is the, centre because punctuality, at any rate among the farmers is unknown in these parts. In the local body realm the Bor-v ough Council sets a good lead, but! an example, alas, that goes for nought. The Opouriao Dairy Company's annual meeting was scheduled for 11 a.m. on Thursday. The meeting, was opened at 11.35 a.m.