FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1016, 5 July 1930, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN.” ”A IjTj IN" RA CING Taking part in an historic horse race at Siena, Italy, were jockeys wearing mediaeval costumes and steel helmet* They carried heavy riding crops and as the race proceeded, taunts and blows were freely exchanged. . Cable item. Here is racing that is racing. Of a real, exciting kind; Not a simple form of chasing With a modest whip behind. But a fracas, and the rattle Of a heavy riding crop. Till the wielder wins the battlo And the others reel and drop. There’s u helmet for each jockey— Quite a necessary evil— While, to soften every knock, he Pads his doublet mediaeval. And no wonder, for the shindy Plus the spate of rude retorts Would make anybody "windy” In this ancient King of Sports! —M.B. AN APPLE A DAY Nothing is more annoying to a man who keeps the doctor away by following each morning the advice of the old jingle than to find a ‘‘brown tunnel” in his apple. When he is accustomed to two apples instead of one and finds a tunnel in each, he has greater reason for indignation. And when he is no less a personage than the GovernorGeneral, apple growers must set about mending their ways immediately. Lord Bledisloe, in an exercise of the friendly candour that, already, has won for him the admiration of New Zealand, has remarked frankly that he eats two apples each morning, but has difficulty in finding fruit that is not decayed in the centre. Moreover, he has expressed the hope that the apples secured for his table are not samples of those exported from New Zealand. His Excellency’s plaint will be echoed by many lesser men whose fruit-knives have disclosed the pre»ence of unpleasant nothingness. This ‘‘sell-the-big-’uns-and-feed-the-little-’uns -to-the-family” business can be carried too far. "WA IK ATO PRO VINCE” “Nuku’: The chairman of the Auckland Electric-Power Board, Mr. W. J. Hoklsworth, found reason, while telling officialdom in Wellington all about Arapuni (and Mr. Holdsworth is proficient at that!), to realise that there is a certain ignorance in the South concerning things Auckland. Did not the Prime Minister ask Mr. Holdsworth guilelessly how much power the Government is still giving our self-suporting power board? And now, a well-informed Wellington newspaper is talking about electricity in the provinces of Waikato and Auckland. ‘‘Waikato Province” is rather intriguing. Auckland needs to distribute reliable propaganda in the South. Southerners should appreciate the truth of this alphabetical rhyme which appeared somewhere or other not so long ago: “A” is for Auckland the city ascendant, which New Zealand adjoins as a sort of dependent. A BONNIE JOURNEY With tears of pride in his eyes and a tremble of home-sick longing in his voice, a Scotsman who is following the present ‘‘Come-to-Scotland” movement entered the Watch tower with this pen-picture of a Caledonian journey:—‘‘The Scott Country, its abbey ruins, and the road following the River Tweed from Kelso to Biggar, and continuing by way of Lanark along the banks of the Clyde to Hamilton —the City of Edinburgh and the Forth Bridge—the Avenue of Beeches near Blairgowrie and the ‘‘royal” route to Braemar, and along the Dee to Aberdeen—the mountain pass from Balmoral over Cock Bridge to Tomin-toul-—from Beauly along beautifully wooded Strath Glass and Glen Affric —Loch Leven from Ballachulisli Ferry and the Pass of Glencoe, continuing to Tyndrum over Rannoch Moor —Ben Nevis from Banavie —sunset over the Western Isles, seen from Oban, and the winding road from Oban to Lochgilphead—and, lastly, from the head of Loch Awe by Dalmally and Glen Avay to Inveraray and toward Glasgow over Rest and Be Thankful, passing Loch Fyne, Loch Long and Loch Lonlond.” TIIE C HA LLENG E The contributor of the foregoing paragraph has a challenge to make. Where else but in Scotland, he asks, could one make a journey demanding so rich and euphonious a description? Is there a road in New Zealand that passes places so gorgeously named and in such profusion? If there be such a one he has yet to hear of it. Perhaps there is a reader who has sufficient faith in the names of New Zealand’s beauty spots and places to accept this gauntlet. x\t first sight it seems easy, this being God’s Own Country, but after a trial, good Sassenach or New Zealander though one may he, one pauses dismayed. The men who sprinkled names over this land were not all poets, and the good names are woefully far apart.