THINGS TO COME A Run Through The Programmes

New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 4, 21 July 1939, Page 6

THINGS TO COME

A Run

Through The Programmes

HERE is no rule by which men achieve fame. When a young clergyman, with the aid of a cheap telescope, observed the transit of Venus three hundred years ago, he did not know that he would be remembered for all time by his extraordinary feat. Neither did William Murdoch know that his successful lighting experiments with coal-gas were to make him famous, These are only two of the men in the " Anniversary" feature, "Five Men Find Fame." If you want to hear more about them — and also about the man who wouldn’t take his hat off indoors, the missionary who was massacred and eaten, and the man who was nearly 70 when he made his name as an author-tune in to 2YA on Sunday, July 30, at 3 p.m. Don’t Turn Out the Lights When you hear "The Shadow of Fu Manchu" over the ZB stations you will realise that a new and totally different type of mystery thriller has found its way through your loudspeaker. The cold horror of Fu Manchu himself is such that you will have no desire to listen-in to the session unless the lights are on and all the windows are locked! Such realism has been achieved that this feature will be remembered as one of the most attention-compelling sessions ever brought to the microphone. The story will hold you spellbound as this human monster sets out to violate every decent code of society. Fu Manchu is heard from 1ZB at 8.45 p.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays; from 2ZB, 3ZB and 4ZB on Tuesday and Thursday at 8 p.m. Arise and Shine Now that you have survived the first series of the early morning physical exercise broadcasts, prepare for the second. Series 2 will be heard at crack of dawn from the main stations from July 23 to August 5. Please note that those knotty muscles you have developed during the first series are all wrong; you should be supple, agile, and slim. The exercises are designed to this end. It is certain that the experts of the Physical Welfare Branch would be most disappointed if

they produced a nation of muscular giants. They assume that 7 a.m. finds you preparing for a sedentary day. So be careful about your posture, make your movements freely, without strain, and keep to the rhythm of the music, which has been carefully related to the exercises to avoid any suggestion of jerk or jarring. From Caves to Aspidistras Who was the first architect? Probably the man who advised the tribe about the best caves to choose in the hillside. Then no doubt he designed huts of wattle and other light material, and so on, right up to the aspidistral drawing-room of the Victorian age. A Wellington architect is going to talk about the evolution of the art in two interview talks at 2YA on Monday, July 31, in the Winter Course

series set down for 7.30 p.m. in repiy to the person who asks, "What do you want an architect for? You get a good practical man-he’s the man you need." For France’s Freedom Friday, July 14, is a date of more than usual significance to French people, for it was on that date in 1789 that the Bastille fell into the hands of the people. No doubt the actual storming of the fortress has been exaggerated as a military achievement. But its importance as the symbol of the overthrow of oppression still stands. Through the streets ran the angry people of Paris. For yéars they had been taxed and crushed while the nobles made merry. Now they ran toward the prison which stood for their suffering. That was the beginning of the French Republic. Listeners to 4YA Dunedin

on Thursday, July 27, will hear a historical survey, "The French Revolution," in the "Man Through The Ages" series. "That's What Women Are!" It is difficult to give an exact English rendering of "Cosi Fan Tutte," the title of one of Mozurt’s operas, but it has been suggested that " That’s What Women Are!" might do. Whatever we call it, the theme of the opera is the frailty of women, and frailty their name proves to be. But this is also, of course, a comedy of manners, unfolded in Mozart’s lovely melody. Tune in to 1YA, Auckland, on Sunday, July 23, and you will not be disappointed unless you refuse to surrender to the magic of another age. Toot Toot Toot ! Nowadays everyone is used to the brays, toots, and insolent blatancies of the modern motor horn; but there must be some old folk who sigh for the days of the coach, and the crisp notes of the coachman’s posthorn. The playing of the posthorn is no easy matter. It is five feet long, sometimes longer. If you, dear reader, endeavoured to play it, you ‘would probably burst before you produced a single note. But if you would like to hear what this instrument sounds like, listen in to 2YA on Sunday, July 30. The Port Nicholson Silver Band is giving a concert on that date, and one of the items will be a posthorn solo by Lieutenant R. J. Simpson. The band will play " Mirella" Overture, "Suite Bohemian," and several other interesting items. Englishmen at Breakfast If Englishmen ever have any weak moments, they have them at breakfast time. That is why morning newspapers have to be so much more discreet than evening papers. Mr. Bullfinch is no exception. Throughout the day he may be discretion itself, superior, conservative, efficient; but at the breakf. table he is simply Mr. Bullfinch. With his news-sheet before him and his family around him, he is sometimes sufficiently forgetful of his responsibility to England and the Empire to make testy comments on public affairs. To be with Mr. and Mrs. Bullfinch and their family at breakfast through several decades is therefore an admirable opportunity to see England against the back-

‘i ~~, _ /* ground of current events. This is the chance offered listeners who tune in to "Breakfast with the Bullfinches," a BBC feature which will be heard at 4YA on Sunday, July 23, at 8.30 p.m. For Gardeners Nearly everybody has a garden, and most people find gardening an interesting hobby; but there is so much to do and so much to know that even the most enthusiastic amateur finds himself periodically puzzled. That is why so many people make a point of listening to 4ZB every Saturday evening at 6.15, when the "Garden Club of the Air" is conducted by Don Donaldson. Mr. Donaldson answers questions and gives clear and helpful outlines of seasonal work. "Happy" From Canada Happy Hill is a pleasantly different radio personality whom 3ZB is fortunate to have. He lived for years on a prairie ranch in Alberta, Canada; and confesses to a longing to "hear mountain music at dusk." Happy’s accent is the genuine thing, though he is not harshly nasal. His humour, too, is first-rate, and his knack of saying things in a new way gives him extra "broadcast value." Happy is on the air at 3ZB in the Breakfast session at 8 o’clock on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. What’s A Seremdipidist? All you can be told in advance is that he is a member of a profession connected with auctioneering, and that there is one in London. Of all the auctioneers in New Zealand, the NBS has found the one who went into the seremdipidist’s shop and was_ thereby drawn into his present job of work. He will talk in the series of that name from 2YC, Wellington, at 8.40 p.m. on Thursday evening, July 27. He might explain seremdipidy. A Long-Bearded Vegetarian A lament from Hollywood was reported in a recent American exchange. The specialists in entertainment, with their hordes of experts, their miles of card-indexed "gags," and their millions of dollars in sets and stars, confessed they had been "skittled" by a "long-bearded vegetarian." None other than George Bernard Shaw, with his pre-war play "Pygmalion." Of all Shaw’s artistic roguery "Pygmalion" pro-

vides perhaps the best example: On the stage and on the screen it has delighted millions of people with its wit- and quietly stabbed them in the back with its moral. And now that Shaw has conquered screen as well as stage, the B.B.C. is giving him a chance to conquer the air. "Pygmalion" will be heard from Daventry on Transmission 1 at 4.30 p.m. our time, on July 27, 28, and August 1. Gay Paree Where is the Paris of our grandfatherswho stole over the channel to watch the CanCan, and join in the city’s forbidden life? Paris was a legend in the last century, and even to-day has a special. glamour. No doubt there has been much exaggeration of the romance of the city, yet it has always been the mecca of romantic figures-artists, painters, musicians,

writers. It was the spirit of this gay city that Offenbach endeavoured to capture when he wrote "La Vie Parisienne," and if you tune in at 9.5 p.m. on Tuesday, July 25, to 2YC, Wellington, you will hear the ballet ("La Gaiete Parisienne") from Offenbach’s opera, and you will find that he did indeed catch the spirit of one of the merriest periods in French history. Don’t Complain of the Cold Some will think this a fine time to be even thinking about ice, let alone talking about it; yet F. M. Renner, a Wellington schoolmaster,

has been brooding over the icebergs, and we are to hear all about it from 2YA Wellington at 8.40 p.m. on Monday, July 24. "Ice in the Southern Ocean" is the subject of his talk, and although the title may make us shudder, we should be grateful to him for choosing such a subject. For while we listen to the exciting experiences of skippers bringing their ships round Cape Horn in bitter weather, taking several days to get round ice floes, and sighting " growlers" in all directions, the fact that we can’t feel our own feet for cold will hardly seem worth complaining about. A Jazz Pianist Charlie Kunz, the popular jazz pianist, was born in Allentown, U.S.A., where he recéived his early musical education when he became a member of the Allentown Brass Band and played a French horn. He had studied the piano, and later he organised a small dance band, which he ran in his spare time. In 1922 he went to England with an allAmerican band, and was soon leading one of the most sought-after bands for London night clubs. Lovers of Charlie Kunz and his piano can now hear him in a regular session from 1ZB, broadcast on Tuesday evening at six o'clock, and on Saturday evenings at 9.30. Mechanical Men It is no small thing to introduce a new word into a language, and see it become a word that everyone knows. Yet that is what Karel Capek did when he wrote "R.U.R." ("Rossom’s Universal Robots"). Capek’s play, however, does more than that; it is a savage, bitter satire on war and man’s inhumanity to man, by a writer who, in his own brief lifetime, saw his homeland liberatec and then destroyed. His robots are perfect mechanical men, without souls. They kill humans and themselves without compunction, until there is only one man left on the earth. What it all means you will understand if you listen to 2YA on Sunday, July 23, for an NBS production of "R.U.R."