“WHILE SHAVING”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 April 1939, Page 4

“WHILE SHAVING”

(To the Editor.) Sir,—Thanks to the “poetical” intermediaties of your bush bard, “Jim Foghorn” (I have so many of my own to keep track of, “Jim” will forgive me if his real “pen-name” is not quite correctly given) Easter seems quite enjoyable, now that the “Too Old at Sixty” campaign no longer rages 7 in your columns! Robbed of such disturbing element, I almost feel I am home again in the little old Taranaki township where the cows grazed all day in its main thoroughfare—nibbling the succulent grass of its foothpaths before settling down in real earnest to “chew the cud” against milking time of an evening—and keeping a wary eye on the “Town Clock,” in the window of the little jeweller’s shop across the way, in case they got “scolded” for being a little late for “bailing-up” .at the proper hour, which (thanks to such vigilance) was seldom the case!

Long ago ceasing all close affiliation with that grand “brotherhood of printers” not averse (by any means) to robbing a poor bookie of his gold watch and chain and paying income tax on his banking account, most of my Easter Saturday leisure this year was spent indoors, listening to “over the air” accounts of the “speed” .or “want of speed” of many horses with high-sounding names doing their best to strike “an even balance” between the printer, the bookie, and the owner —and the rest of the racing public (not punters, bookies, or owners) as well! ! Starting by laying myself the odds I couldn’t pick a winner now if I tried. I found I was right, and more satisfied than ever that I was home, “high and dry” reading a book called “About Nothing Whatever,” written by “Almost Anybody”—a rather saucy kind of autobiography of a man about town, recommended for adults only, as the movie picture advts. say! Never being of opinion that overseas publishers of new books immediately got in touch with one local library to see if there was room for a few extra worth reading books beyond the usual plethora of “also rans,” I was not surprised to see it had taken three years 4 for this “miles ahead” book to reach our library shelves! However, if it doesn’t get “the axe” in its steadily increasing old age, by reason of its extraordinary daring assumption that even a Mastertonian might be prone to live such a life as it describes (even without writing about it) this particular book should be a long while finding itself consigned to the “dust to dust” section of the “also rans,” the cause of all the pother of other years as far as local bookselecting goes, for most of the ancients since consigned to the dump and elsewhere (ironically) might well be said to have been written “By Anybody” and ‘“About Nothing Whatever!” Ahead of this one, so named!

As no “While Shaving” readers ever tells his good wife of an evening that he is sorry to leave his fireside, but must really “see a man down town about a dog," he need have no fear of this book falling into wifely hands; but, by way of extra precaution, he had better begin by reading it first himself, and not telling her what it is about!

"Oh yes, my dear, its “About Nothing Whatever” that you’d care to read about, I’m sure! (sort of taradiddle, like the old story of the man and the dog!) and she won’t worry you any more (perhaps!) Let’s hear from you," if it works!

It’s a rotten season for gardening, but as I neither garden, or chop wood, or anything useful about the house, who cares! I’m rather like Sir Alfred Tennyson, in that respect, who when interrupted (in the midst of writing one of his masterpieces) by an excited maid who came to tell him the house was on fire, calmly remarked: “Please tell Lady Tennyson I never interfere with domestic affairs,” and went on completing the good work in hand! Rather a pity, in a way, Queen Victoria’s famous Poet Laureate wore a beard; otherwise your “While Shaving” readers might have been more interested in this tale! —I am, etc. “LAUGH & GROW FAT!” Masterton, April 8