POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 83, 4 October 1940, Page 6

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGE

News note: "Mussolini does not take cold showers." But the British Navy gives him the cold shivers. * * * Ernest: A sadly Vitiated war! Thi3 | remark Petains to Vichy. Very Vishy indeed. It gets our Gaulle. Irish Judge: I haven't had a hard life —j Us t sitting on the Bench being educated by high-priced lawyers. * * ■ * Naivete in high places: In the House yesterday the Hon. Adam .Hamilton asked if "bacterium" was the plural of I "bacteria"! *' # * Notice in a Chelsea restaurant: "Owing to Summer Time making it late too early, this establishment will close at 1 a.m. instead of remaining open all day." * * * HEARD THIS ONE? An elderly physician, beaten by holdup men on a street in Berlin one night, yelled: "Help! Murder!" Dashing up, a policeman quietened the victim: "Sh! You must not discuss politics so loudly!" . * « » BRAIN-TEASER. Last Saturday's solutions:— No. 1, 9ft. No. 2, Astray, stray, tray, cay, ay. Correct answers from "Overtoun," C. Lorking, L.J., Interested, Jamie, Nice Work, and Mug (Palmerston North). Tomorrow another pair of problems —including a final decapitation plot. It might be somewhat. more baffling than the "astray", business. * * . .*. CONCHIES. Erasmus writes to say that as compulsory national military service has now been instituted, he proposes applying for a job as chaplain to a battalion of conscientious objectors. His texts for "sermons" will be taken from "select" passages from the Book of Sergeant-Majors, an unpublished (and unpublishable) volume compiled in various places since 1914-18. * # * THUNDER-GLASS! Hitler's mountain eyrie, the Berghof, contains one state room in which an. immense window affords views across the Alps. The glass has been guaranteed proof against a direct hit from anything but a high explosive shell. It has been rendered harder than steel, so we are assured. But I wonder (writes H. Drayton) whether Hitler knows one fact about his armour-plata window. A thick sheet of it would, it is true, support a full-grown elephant, bending slightly under the enormous weight. Yet, owing to its peculiar construction, at a scratch of a diamond the whole sheet would immediately collapse into millions of smooth, pealike pebbles! P.S.—lf one of our very clever boys should scoff heavily at such a phenomenon —well, I'll radio and ask Adolf for confirmation. *. * * MICE AND MEN. Dear Percy Flage,—Glad to hear that the Hon. R. Semple does not contemplate making mice traps in Australia for us. In any case import restrictions would probably be against it. Also pleased to hear that at least one of our Cabinet Ministers has a mortgage on his home. Legislation is sure to be favourable for us mortgagors. Now don't be a-spoil sport and suggest that some of our Ministers , may be mortgagees. For so long we have felt like mice in a trap. Remember the piece of cheese in the 1935 elections: Reduced Taxation, and the piece of bacon in the 1938 elections: Social Security. Swallow the bait whole don't we? Do you think it will be a worm for the poor fish next time? Perhaps we should warn the anglers that worm* do turn. I am, etc., CHEERED UP. ■ « ♦ » . SONG OF THE N.Z.A.M.C. (Tune: "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, th« Boys are Marching.") "Every other arm of the Servica seems to have a war song but th« N.Z.A.M.C." We're the kill or cure brigade, We're the corps that renders aid, When the "Digger" gets a pain beneata the beltBeneath the belt! In our care he's sure to go, Up above or down below, We've a cure for any pain that's evef felt! Chorus: We are the men who mend the Army— And we'd have you understand —undo standl Though we haven't guns or tanks, We're respected in the ranks, From the private to the highest u& command. And we call a spade—a spade! When we take the sick parade— We like the lad that likes a day in bed— A day in bed! . For we can tell when "Diggers swing When he's only sick of drill— For we can tell when "Diggers swing the lead! Chorus. We're all ready for the show, Now the boys have met the foe— You'll find us 'mid the roar of bomb and shellBomb and shell! Bet your life we're on the spot, If the "Diggers" cop it hot, . To patch them up and tend them iM they're well. Ch°rUS- H. GALLAGHER. Wellington. * » * POTTED PSYCHOLOGY. Shyness is merely another form o| conceit. Well isn't it? If you wer« not worrying as to what people think of you, you would not be shy. Watch a shy person come (I should like to say slink, but it's not very polite) into a room, elbows close to sides. They look as if they intended to get there without notice. They sometimes achieve it'and feel worse than ever as no one notices them and they stand miserably waiting for their hostess's attention. -Even a person not usually shy, only needs an old frock, not suitable for the occasion, to enable her to beat the shy sister hands down. Not used to slinking in—l beg her pardon—coming in without, being noticed, she seems to loom so large. A doctor told me it was agony for him to walk into a drawing-room alone, he was so shy. In desperation he went through a course of psychoanalysis and found the reason was due not to having such a small opinion oJ himself as he thought, but because he had such a good opinion of himseU that he could not bear not to have others share it Things are not always what thej seem. MARION E. McKENZIB.