From the Watch tower

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 947, 14 April 1930, Page 8

From the Watch tower

UP-TO-THE-MINUTE An explorer is planning an expedition to the South Pole by motorcycle. The world is a mass of explorers That make the Antarctic their goal ; I«P. really beginning to bore us, The thousands that stream to the Pole. They walk to the Pole, and they stalk to the Pole, And they go there in ships and balloons; They speed to the Pole, and proceed to the Pole, In armies, brigades and platoons. They fly to the Pole, and they hie to the Pole, Through the frozen Antarctic domains ; They trail to the Pole, and they sail to the Pole, And they buzz there in airships and planes.

They roll to the Pole, and they stroll to the Pole, And they get there by weary footsloggin’; They tramp to the Pole, and decamp to the Pole, And they ride there by sledge and toboggan ; But the latest original way to the Pole Should make it the goal of the million, For the broadsiding expert who pays it a call Can carry his girl on the pillion. PAKITI. PARROT FEVER On this subject, a wit remarks that 1£ only goldfish, too, would be smitten by some fatal disease, there would be signs that the millenium really is at hand. THE FACE Signs of winter: A golfer wishing that he had cleaned his irons when he put them away last spring; a traffic policeman carrying his white helmet away in a gauze cover on Saturday morning. DRY DISTRICT Rangitoto is a dry place. An excursionist who went there yesterday mentions that so little rain has fallen lately that water for the prison camp has to be pumped from the ferry boats into a tank on the wharf, and wheeled round to the camp on trolley. It is fortunate that tht prisoners on Rangitoto are not the ill-behaved kind who have to be kept on bread and water, or there might have to he two tanks. OFF THE MARK Certain crimes should be excluded from the calendar of the punctilious malefactor. Thefts from churches are naturally first among the delinquencies thus ruled out. Accordingly there will be general applause for the resolution of Mount Eden Inmates who have protested against the recent theft of communion vessels from a church in Dunedin, and appealed to the thief to restore them. Possibly the offender would be glad to do so if he could be sure that he would not be detected in the act. However, the point of this paragraph is to chide Mr. Calder for a slip which may cause his views on crime in general to be misinterpreted. The resolution he framed for the prisoners at Mount Eden was to the effect that thefts from churches are “not cricket.” Anything else goes. THE CHALLENGE “Oxford spurted at the brewery.” The whole tragedy of ajost boat race Is written into that sentence. The huge brick brewery that rises on the bank of the Thames* has been given a strategic importance quite apart from any historical assertions that oarsmen are fond of beer. There is a brewery at the end of a rowing course on the Wanganui River, but it could never turn a losing crew into a winning one. The wise stroke in looking over the course of a race beforehand invariably selects a point a£ which, if necessary, he may put in his challenge. At one of the courses in Wellington the strategic point is the Taranaki Street Wharf. At Picton it is the baths. The Oxford crew spurted at the brewery because it was the tactical place for a challenge. But bibulous folk the world over will agree that they spurted because of soms subtle magic in the atmosphere at that point. It is a beautiful delusion. AEROBATICS To ensure complete success for air pageants, something will have to be done about the wind. Another point that might be considered is some arrangement whereby spectators should look away from the sun, and not into the very eye of it. Nevertheless, it was very interesting at Mangere on Saturday. Let pilots race, bomb the baby, circle over ammunition dumps while synthetic explosions go on beneath, but it is still to the beautifully executed rolls, spins, banks, and loops of skilled pilots like Cowper, McGregor and Allan that the uninitiated will turn for entertainment. Then a good announcer can contribute a lot to the success of the afternoon. There was a humorist oh the job on Saturday. It is a pity perhaps that Captain Buckley could not have performed his forced landing and brilliant take-off from in front of the hangar instead of an island out in the Manukau. As a piece of airmanship, it was probably the finest thing of the day.