FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 884, 30 January 1930, Page 10

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By

“THE LOOK-OUT MAN

MORE CARGOES Dotted -with sails, the Waitemata yesterday presented an animated sight. In more sombre contrast were the smoke stacks of the steam craft and the drab-coloured canvas of scows going down the harbour on their regular occupations.—News item. Keeler of the A Class from Motuihi, Beating to the flagship'by the Navy pier, With a cargo of clubmen, And ropes and spare sheets, Sandwiches, glassware and good brown beer. Speedy motor cruiser roaring up the tidePassing all the rest along the foamflecked miles, With a cargo of flappers, Gramophones, cameras, Lido suits, and parasols, and wide hat styles. Dirty littie steamer with a •'Refuse,” Nosing down the harbour in the noondas' heat, With a. cargo of ship-slops, Peeling's, stale bread, and fly-blown meat. "NEEDS MUST . . There are touches of comedy in the darkest of situations, and tile serious disturbance at Cessnock, where Australian miners are defying the police, is no exception. The Sydney “Guardian’s” representative produces the story of an incident during a recent police baton charge. One miner, having been taught “He who fights and runs away,” fled so rapidly that he found himself in another miner’s house, the correspondent writes. Without asking permission, he stripped and jumped into bed. The woman of the house understood. “Stop there quietly, and if they come they will think that you are my husband,” she whispered. “My husband will understand.” The man remained in bed until the police had passed on. And when the husband came home later, he understood. QUEER RECORDS He whose mental make-up knows not. the craving for publicity or even notoriety will find it difficult to appreciate the urge that sets men pianoplaying for days at a stretch, or proceeding on all fours across a continent, for the sake of breaking some futile and valueless record. By the same token, he would he unable to sympathise with the young nmn who, at Inina Park last week, dropped unconscious after over four days of continuous dancing. This terpsichorean enthusiast collapsed within an hour of the world’s record of 108 J hours. Five or six years ago, one Monticelli made a not-unprofitable tour Of New Zealand as a marathon piano-player, but he is not credited officially with beating the record of Professor Kemp, a New Zealander, who played in London for 110 consecutive hours. CHANCES FOR TRIERS On the occasion of one of, Monticelli’s attempts, the L.O.M. acted as official starter, and heard the opening chords of “Yes, We Have No Bananas” crash out as he shouted “Go!” In view of this valuable experience, he is willing to lend assistance to any seekers after fame. Here are a few ways of becoming listed in the “Sporting Annual”: —Swing a club for more than 80 hours (Tom Bur- . rows set the world’s record at Invercargill in 1912); lift an 8111 b dumbbell 17 times with the right hand; skate for 15 hours 1 minute; skip for 13,196 turns of the rope; walk 1,327 miles in 26 days; or lift a yacht containing 12 men and a boy. If you are a woman, go one better than the Italian female who tore in halves a pack of 110 playing cards. Finally, the world is waiting for one who can put to shame the Bluff trencherman who devoured 27 dozen oysters at a single sitting. WHALE STORIES A fish story is a fish story whether its subject be a glossy trout idling in some deep pool, a leaping swordfish plucking a shrill song from the spinning reel, or a playful whale being taliped on the snout by Rear-Admiral Byrd’s ski stick. Therefore, Mr. Russell Owen, Little America’s industrious reporter, cannot complain if some people snort delicately, and hard-headed cable editors pen sarcastic captions. Of course the Antarctic story may be perfectly true, just as it is perfectly true that, on one occasion, the L.O.M. and his companion, a prominent Labour Party official, could have stepped with ease on to the broad back of a friendly whale that was nosing alongside their vessel, a meandering timber schooner. However, some tales are too good to be told, at least without a few photographic prints for production when the argument grows heated. Mr. Owen’s veracity will be tested when the party returns, for a Paramount film mail is one of its members, and no cameraman would miss the chance of shooting “two or three whales rearing ten feet above the water, so that we had to look up at them.” If the picture fails to appear, the story may take a whale of a lot of explaining.