From the watch tower

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1062, 28 August 1930, Page 10

From the watch tower

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

THE SAFER HO BUY Marshal Chang Hsueh-Liang, the. War Lord of Manchuria, is reported to have two hobbies—golf and flying in a private airplane, a similar machine to the fleet of six which he uses for military purposes. Whenever the Marshal goes out fur a llight, as relief from his labours, A most disagreeable doubt Afflicts his unfortunate neighbours— Now is it a joy-riding “flip,” Untainted by warfare and pillage, Or is he intending to tip A few dozen bombs on their village? They don't like the look of that plane, its purpose is painfully double; They very much wish he'd refrain From trips that too often mean trouble. They'd much rather see him depart With driver and cleek at his •shoulder— Equipped for that innocent art. Their spirits revive and grow bolder. They thank their more fortunate stars it is mood cannot now be aggressive; Tiie imminent menace of Mars Becomes for a time less oppressive. The people all shout out "Hooray! We're safe from that blood-craving drunkard! There won’t be a war on today— The General, thank Heaven, is bunkered!” —Lucio, in the "Manchester Guardian.” SHARPS AM) FLATS Mr. Wilhelm Backhaus, whose notes charm the multitude at his pianoforte recitals, has had three notes of an altogether different brand charmed away from him at Rotorua. This perhaps explains why the gifted pianist, at his concert in Auckland tonight, has selected as 'one of his numbers Beethoven’s “Rondo a Capriccio, Opus 129 in G Major” ("The Rage Over the Lost Penny.”) THE WRONG TOXGUE A delegate to the recent International Trade Unions Conference at Stockholm discovered how misleading can be the foreign word which seems the same as English, but means something very different. He was dreadfully puzzled the morning after his arrival to see on a sign opposite his hotel window the inscription, “Dam Bad Rum.” “That's queer,” he thought. “Publicans of all folk do no cry down their own wares. Can it be prohibitionist propaganda, or what?” He was quite relieved to discover that it merely indicated the location of a women’s bathroom. CHRISTOPHER SMITH An empty street, a tram, and the strange destinies which rule the lives of men have inflicted on Auckland a loss which many years may not repair. Hundreds of those who for years have regularly attended the concerts given by the Municipal Band did not know Mr. Christopher Smith personally, but were drawn to him by the expression of his brilliant talents in the selections played by the band. Many were the anonymous, scribbled tributes he received after band concerts. Sometimes after concerts in Albert Park they came from poor, grateful fellows without a penny in their pockets or the definite knowledge of where their next meal was coming from. It is just part of the irony of circumstance that a tram, of all things, should have deprived Auckland of one of its most valuable citizens. MYSTERY AT TOLAGA Anywhere along the East Coast between Plawke Bay and East Cape an airplane compelled to make a forced landing would either have to land on the beach, or face the difficulty of finding one of the rare patches of fiat land. Perhaps that is why reports that a machine had been seen in distress over Tolaga Bay occasioned anxiety. But planes are not yet so common on the East Coast that those in the vicinity cannot be easily accounted for, and at the moment the complete lack of confirmation, coupled with the interesting information that a motor-lorry engine was backfiring in the vicinity, suggests that the author of the report was the victim of one of those curious hallucinations which, during the war, gave rise at different times to reports of hostile aircraft, blue lights, zeppelins, and so on, anywhere from North Cape to the Bluff. SPECTRAL PLANE Not so long ago there was a report from Lottin Point, another spot on the long and lonely East Coast, that a vessel in distress had been seen off shore. This, too, remained unconfirmed. Evidently the Coast has a weakness for producing reports ot' this character. There was, however, a plane in the vicinity, even if it could not be linked up with the one supposed to have been seen wobbling its way distressfully among the clouds. Thus Mr. Hamish Armstrong, the Hawke’s Bay farmer, who a few months ago found a niche in the news because he had bought a Moth at Home, and spent a holiday touring Europe in it, again enters print. Mr. Armstrong will probably be the first to deny that his machine was wobbling or in distress. Possibly the apparition seen by the observer at Tolaga was just a flight of gulls. Or possibly the spectre will revive the Hood and Moncrieff mystery. It is a good enough excuse.