ITEMS OF INTEREST

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 52, 29 February 1944, Page 3

ITEMS OF INTEREST

I —. — • Invitation Card An interesting card was received a short time ago by Mrs Reed-Wad-dell, of. King Street, from her husband signed by Prince Peter and Irene, Princess Peter oC Greece. The card was an invitation to a party held at Cairo' for inmates of military hospitals which was given by the Prince and Princess. Tantalising ! ""Tantalising, 'isn't it?" remarked a woman standing before a display of such unprocurables as tinned salmon and pineapple (juice safely behind the plateglass of. a Wellington cafe front. Other remarks from persons attracted by the. sight were ■on similar lines. Any ideas they might have had of wheedling a tin g or two from the proprietor were dispelled by a notice in modernistic Style stating, "Display only. Thing? to come —after the war." White Butterflies Experts at the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, as well as the Department of Agriculture, say that the white butterfly is only moderately prevalent this year. "It is unlikely that the white butterfly will become a serious menace to extensive fodder crops this year," sa'id a representative. "It will be necessary, however, for market gardeners to take precautions as regards spraying their crops of cabbages and other vegetables liable to be affected." Outsize in Sunflowers , An account was given in the Herald a short time ago, of a giant sunflower grown in a Manurewa garden. The stalk, which was. seven feet high, had a circumference of s%ins while the bloom was 23ins, in circumference.. But from Ohopc we have an account of a sunflower which beats even this: specimen. Grown by Mr H. R. Giles this one lias attained enormous dimensions, lift 4ins in height, the stalk has. a circumference of 7ins. The diameter of the largest bloom is 2'oins while the circumference is 4ft 9ins. A proper giant this one. Surrender in Truck-loads Amusing incidents of. the surrender of Italians alter the first Aveek ' following the break-through at El Alamein were told by members of the second furlough party. Italian transport drivers with 10-ton trucks and similar capacity trailers would drive up loaded, with men for surrender, unload them and return for another lot. It was like a non-stop passenger service. The only time the Jjtalians seemed to fight well was when they had their backs to the wall at Takrouna —the wall was the Germans behind and the Allies were in front.

Schoolbags Affect the/ Spine At a recent meeting of the Wellington branch-of the. Physical Edu-» cation Society of New Zealand attention was drawn to the fact that the posture of many schoolgirls was being affected by carrying schoolhags always on one side of the body, either by hand or slung over the shoulder. sft. was felt by members that the. best bag far .school use was M a rucksack of the type that hangs from a central point on the upper back, and they are so anx'.ous that oil hazards be removed that they arc negotiating »with bag manufacturers to put on the market a rucksack of this type. Logicality of Esperanto "Although many expressions in the English' language are concise and convey much in a few words, we find as we progress in the study of Esperanto that some English idioms can be translated by very iew and ot'ten only one Esperanto word and still preserve the spirit of the original," said Mr E. G. Bernfeld, at the reopening of the , Karori Esperanto Societl last week, when explaining a scries of idioanatic phrases or "Anglasisms" which had been chosen for translation exorcise. When translating English expressions members would generally ask themselves, "What meaning do I wish to convey?" and it Avas a fact that, because of the logicality of Esperanto, the ultimate translation be understood by Eseprant'ists of any nationality.