RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 85, 4 January 1935, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current

Events

(By Kickshaws.)

At a “blue banquet” In England guests ate blue lobster and blue ice creams. This insured a blue morning next day.

We understand that De Valera has written to a gentleman called Popkess hoping for a cordial Anglo-Irish understanding. What we want to know, however, is whether a pop kiss is calculated to break the iee.

What is needed for complete recovery, it is stated, is an international currency. Most of us could recover completely with New Zealand currency, if only we could get enough of it.

■ “With reference to your paragraph recently dealing with warm places of the world,” says “Curious,” “can you give some details of tlie warmth of some of the better known deserts, particularly Death Valley iij the U.S A. Are these deserts particularly hot, or Is it shortage of water which makes them so bad to live in?” [During the summer the temperature in Death Valley very rarely falls below 70 degrees Fahrenheit The record is 134 degrees. For days on end the temperature stays at over 120 degrees. Claims have wrongly been made that this desert is the hottest place on earth. In fact the Sahara is as hot as Death Valley. Temperatures of 122 degrees have been recorded for a month on end, and in- most hot seasons there are at least 30 days above this temperature, although not always continuous from day to day. The record is 134 degrees. The temperature of the soil incidentally has been known to reach 175 degrees'.]

According to weather experts no day has been wholly dull in December. This may be correct, but one wonders how weather experts manage to include such a statement in their statistical reports. Certainly no day has been dull during the Christmas holidays. First there is the excitement of shopping. One gets too tired to feel dull. Then there is the thrill of receiving calendars almost identical with those one has sent to the senders. Problems of reciprocity make it impossible for a dull moment to arrive. After Christmas there is little opportunity for a dull day because one is too busy sending - New Year greetings to all those people to whom one forgot _to send Christmas greetings. The New Year, of course, was designed to serve that purpose. The New Year itself is not dull because we are too busy wishing everyone a prosperous one, to find time to analyse what happened after we had said exactly the same a year ago. But the Christmas holidays are not the whole of December. Those 21 days before Christmas—how do the weather experts know that not one of them has been wholly dull?

If December has not been wholly dull, the fact remains that the -weather reports themselves are very dull. They are just the same every day only different. By all means let the weather experts intrigue us with their forecasts and the like. It requires a publicity expert to break the news to the public. The weather people for example say “an extensive depression now covers New Zealand.” That sad news might surely be put more tactfully. The politicians never said an extensive economic blizzard now covers the Dominion. They talked about the former boom, thereby letting us into the secret that there had been one. They also talked about corners. Now the weather people might well talk about corners. “Round the corner of an extensive depression is observed an antl-cyclone bringing fine weather to New Zealand. Winds for the moment will be west in the East, north in the South, south in the North, but they will shortly change to variable zephyrs and halcyon days. Wellington harbour will be as reflective as Wellington residents. Hats may be safely worn in the city streets not excluding boaters.” Speaking of boaters it might be officially added for boaters / that “seas will be calm in New Zealand waters, but water will be short in New Zealand.” Well what about it. you weather experts? c ♦ *

The latest project to inaugurate an aeroplane race round the world may serve some useful purpose. At any rate it does raise the question as to when an individual may truthfully be considered to have flown round the world. It is a very different matter flying round tho world at the Equator than it is at, say, the South Pole. The distance round the world at the Equator is every bit of 25,000 miles, the distance round the world at the pole is a few inches or the minimum turning circle of the aeroplane. Byrd has flown round the world at the Pole in a few seconds. Nobody has flown round the world at the Equator. The world has been flown round in Northern latitudes in a few days but the distance was very much less than it is round the Equator. Some standard should be instituted for round-the-world flights because at present they are very misleading. Kingsford Smith seems to be the only living pilot who can claim to have flown round the world along a route whose total distance is comparable with the distance round the Equatoi. The distance from England to Australia is some 12,000 miles-and the distance to England via the Pacific is much the same. s

While ou the subject of round-the-world flights it is perhaps splitting hairs to point out that a trip round the world via the Poles is three or four hundred miles shorter than a trip via the Equator. This is due to the famous bulge of the world with which we are. acquainted at an early age in the schoolroom. It may seem unimportaut, this three hundred miles or so. But to New Zealanders it may yet rise to its full significance. The truth is that the shortest route to England from New Zealand lies over the North Pole. Obviously ships take the shortest ocean route' via Pana na because Polar navigation is a thrill to which passengers have yet to beconie inured. AA lien aeroplanes really have learned to fly long distances without fuss or publicity the North Pole route no doubt will come into its own. It seems a curious route ouly because our geography lessons. for some reason, agree to say very little about the merits ot t he North Pole and a great deal about the rest of the world. Nevertheless the North Pole may vet beepme the air route Of the world. It is not only the shortest way from New Zealand to England but the shortest way from England to nearly every other place. f

Regarding prophecies “Observer” wr ites •—“I find that airships are mentioned in Isaiah 60:8. There is also a reference to aeroplanes being used in warfare in Rev. 16:17. The picture palaces are mentioned in Isaiah 2:lb. In the same verse we read of the ships of Tarshlsh, which is always taken to mean the ships of Britain and mentioned many times in Scripture. China i« supposed to be referred to in Isaiah 49:12, the Land of Sinim. Japan is referred to iu Rev. 16:12.