POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 84, 5 October 1940, Page 10

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGE

A bore is someone who, when you ask him how lie is, tells you. * * * Dizzy: It is love that makes the world go round, and round, and round. * * * Nice Work! Then there was the chap who, unable to find a job for himself, was engaged by the Government to find jobs for others. Selahl * # # Bx-itish Air-League Secretary (a pre- . war statement): "It has repeatedly been officially denied that bombing breeds resentment." Love and kisses from the air? l . * • * * Money lost is nothing lost. Honour lost is much lost. Courage lost is everything lost. . - .' : AN OLD TOMMY. > * * * HEIL AND FAREWELL. Report of the meeting at the Bre'a> ncr Pass (by grape-vine telegraph): • Hitler: What's wrong with your navy? . , Mussolini: What's wrong with your ' air force? < The meeting then adjourned. ■ # ■ # * INSULT. Dear Flage,—Colonel Knox considers . that the American navy is th,e mosi ; powerful and efficient in the world. What confounded impudence! Hasn't he heard of the glorious Italian navy! But, of course, 'he may only have heard a running commentary. HATAITAI * # * * BRAIN-TEASERS. No. 1: A man with a bicycle wanted to catch a train which, departed in an hour and a half from a station twelve miles away.. He said, "There are,four , miles up hill which I must walk, at four miles an hour. There.are four miles downhill which I can coast at twelve miles an hour. And there are four miles of level ground which I can. cycle at eight miles an hour. This is • an average of eight miles an hour, and . 1 shall just catch the train/ Did he make it? Decapitations, word of seven letters: (1) Notable clergyman, (2) story-teller 3 , do this, (3) bucked.up, (4) you can't be first if you are this, and. (5) we all did this today several times. PICK-ME-UP. ' ' Dear Flage,—The O.G. cakes (2/10/40) reminds me of a yarn told by an acquaintance who, during the last war, was in the Medical Corps. In the dispensary, he said, was a. large flagon, into which was poured, the remaining doses of abandoned, bottles of tonic that had been issued to convalescent soldiers. The concoction was known, as G.O.K. mixtureGod only knows —but proved an infallible pick-me-up to men feeling out of sorts. Its only drawback was its disconcerting habit of changing colour and flavour as time passed. Explanation called for inventive genius on the part of the dispenser if, as sometimes happened, a > second bottle was required. ( ■"■■'"■ ■■■-■' Kindest regards/" "• ~' r>:o A ■ GEMINI." * * * SCHOOL'S IN. Do you know that— (1) The history of the walking-stick, or cane, reaches back to Biblical times, ■when Hebrews carried long crutched sticks similar to those 'of the shepherds? (2) ' During 1935 nearly 3,000,000 people were caught travelling by rail in India without having. paid , their fares? - . . (3) Compulsory. inoculation of English and Japanese dogs has rendered them immune to rabies, and extern minated the disease in those countries? (.4) Pebbles marked like dice have been used for centuries by African... savages to foretell the result of a ' forthcoming battle? (5) Blood corpuscles of the human, body' normally die at the astonishing rate of twenty million a second? (6) When one of the first bathrooms came into use about 1850 in Cincinnati Ohio, certain clergymen preached that degeneracy would result from such, luxury? (7) It has been proved that 90 per cent of the furs marketed in tha United' States are not sold under their true names? (How many in New Zealand!) (8) A weather curiosity in London is that no rain has fallen oni the morning of March 16 in the past 50 years? (9) Although women, have smaller mouths than men, women's mouths axe ft really, larger in relation to their body height? (10) An old negro of Knoxville, Tennessee, walks about the streets and sniffs the air to detect leaking gas, the gas company paying him for each leak he discovers? _ * * w- ■■ ESPALIERS. An old brick wall Mellowed, yellowed, Coloured rust, Holding an English garden In its sun-warmed clasp. Against the wall A sentry-line Of pear-trees. . Flattened and tight-adhering, Joined to the soft brick By unseen tentacles. The pearl-like pears The colour of Chartreuse With faintest stain of red, Translucent, Soaked with sun— A bas-relief of fruit, A vine-like applique. Old wall.. Warm fruit, Corner of ancient garden— You are all I want Of England. You are all I want Of any thing Today! MARY A. TAYLOR. ■ * * * . TONGUE-TWISTERS. Dear Flage,—We are all very grateful to the U.S.A. for the many things * which they are making available to Britain for the prosecution of the war. How many of your eighth columnists know that amongst items prohibited for expert under the U.S.A. Neutrality Act are the following:— DICHLORDIVINYLCHLORARSINE MONOCHLORMETHYLCHLORFORMATE . HEXANITRODIPHENYLAMINE PENTAERYTHRITETETRANITRATE • TRIMETHYLENETRINITRAMINE ! The first three are apparently some jtype of gas, and the last two high explosives. Here's hoping you pan get your tongue around them, and best wishes for Column B.—Yours sincerely, G.H.