THINGS TO COME A Run Through The Programmes

New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 7, 11 August 1939, Page 6

THINGS TO COME

A Run

Through The Programmes

ROM the A.C.E. you have learnt to cook, to give life to the living room, to keep bugs out of milk, to buy cheap vitamins and avoid shoddy carbohydrates; but the Home Science Tutorial Section of the University of Otago is the last place from which you would expect tuition in the latest get-rich quick technique. Yet hints for moneyraising efforts will be given in a talk from 4YA on Friday, August 18, at 3.15 p.m. Although we hope there may be something in it for impecunious listeners with an eye on A Good Thing, we expect that the A.C.E. merely intends to give advice on how your club or association should go about the painful process. It is very unlikely, though, that they will take the risk of confining all Otago indoors with the threat of another street appeal, or mention bazaars unless they have some very new ideas about them. With the Whalers It was said many years ago of the old whaling industry that it was the most arduous and perilous calling ever followed by man. To-day in New Zealand waters men chase the whale in powerful launches with harpoon guns fixed in the bow, but it is not sO many years ago since they hunted in open boats pulled with long oars, with a harpoon in the bow and a steersman with twenty odd feet of steer oar in the stern. The industry is closely interwoven with our early history, and many are the stories of daring and hardship connected with it. On Thursday evening, August 17, in the Job of Work series at 2YA, A. G. Jackson, a man who was born in the whaling community in the Marlborough Sounds and followed this calling for many years, will be interviewed. Mr. Jackson’s grandfather gave his name to Jackson’s Bay, and his father was born in the Sounds. He himself saw his first whale caught from an open boat when he was fifteen. For the World’s Fair By the last American mail an important parcel was despatched by the Commercial Broadcasting Service. It contained eight recorded programmes specially prepared for broadcasting at the New York World’s Fair

on New Zealand’s Day, which is set down for September 22. Featuring the charm of Maori song and story, these programmes are a credit to all concerned in their production, and should help to put New Zealand on the map. After being played at the Fair arrangements will be made for them to be broadcast by a large number of independent stations throughout America. If He Dared... "Oh, Mr. Goodman, you can’t do that!" Poor old Mozart would probably spin so fast in his grave that he’d meet himself face to face if they dared to "swing" his music, Even if Goodman is Goodman, Benny would most likely get badly haunted by the com-

poser’s irate ghost if he dared . . . But this gets us nowhere. Benny does not "swing" Mozart on this occasion, and there’s no need for the horrified looks on the other gentlemen’s faces in the picture. It’s just a little idea that occurred to us when we learnt that Mozart’s "Quintet in A Major" will be played by the Budapest String Quartet and Benny Goodman (on the clarinet) from 2YN, Nelson, at 8 o'clock on Thursday, August 17. It should be worth hearing. "The Barber Married " _ Here’s something to make all those addicted to carolling among the soap suds sit up and wonder if they aren’t annoying the neighbours after all. It is said that, as a child, the composer Mozart had so keen an ear that he was able to detect a difference of an eighth of a tone. Remember that when your light baritone or mezzo-soprano floats discordantly through the frosted glass, and be humbled. Mozart wrote many operas, one of the most charming of which is the "Marriage of Figaro,"

which is a continuation of the story told in Rossini’s "Barber of Seville." In Mozart’s opera the barber goes a-wooing, and many complications arise, all of which are straightened to merry music. Two acts of the " Marriage of Figaro" will be heard from 2YA on Sunday, August 13, at 9.5 p.m. Trouble Among the Ogboddys While Eve is trying to curl up her side bits and stop perspiring, the young man contemplates the dismal prospect of having to listen to the curate’s jokes. It is the night of the Choir Supper and the Ogboddys are preparing. There is much discussion about Eve’s pores, and the detrimental effect of using starch instead of face powder to stem their inconvenient activity. The B.B.C. item, "The Ogboddys’ Outing" will be broadcast by 1YA on Wednesday, August 16, at 9.35 p.m. Still a Secret Hearty laughter heard last week in the operating room of the CBS Headquarters in Wellington suggests something good in store for ZB listeners. It was a pre-hearing of a coming National Feature, and if it makes the hardened programme executives laugh it should at least do the same to ordinary listeners. The title we’d like to tell you, but as yet it’s just a mirthful secret. History for Hawke's Bay Quite a number of the pioneers in New Zealand founded families that are still prominent and built up estates that are still farmed by their descendants. Douglas Cresswell’s series of talks about them will start at 2YH, Napier, on Wednesday, August 16 at 8.10 p.m. The first concerns the Rhodes family, and others are about the Deans of Riccarton, John Grigg of Longbeach, the Bidwells and Morisons of the Wairarapa, Samuel Williams of Te Aute, Donald McLean of Maraekakaho, and the Holden family. Operatic " Walk "" We have heard all about the law of compensation; and sometimes it even works. For example, we have been hearing opera jazzed for many a day, and even nigger minstrels usually have their little bit of fun with the Soldiers’ Chorus from "Faust." So it is a

welcome change when the opposite process is applied. The celebrated "Lambeth Walk" is presented a la prima donna in the BBC recorded feature "The Fol De Rols." For your further enlightenment: the "Fol De Rols" is one of the most celebrated concert parties in England. The show will be heard from 2YA on Friday, August 18, at 8 o’clock. Marvellous Middleton "You cross a lettuce and a cucumber, and up comes Mr. Middleton." When they start making music-hall jests like this about a man in England he is really famous. C. H. Middleton is the B.B.C. gardening expert. He has a loamy voice and a way with him. If there is a more attractive radio speaker anywhere on the planet you have not yet heard of him. One of his gardening talks has been recorded and will go the round of the National stations. Station 4YA will have the good luck to broadcast this at 9.25 p.m. next Monday. On With the Dance If you want to brush up your dancing watch for the new recorded dancing lessons soon to be broadcast by ZB stations. Conducted by no less an authority than Victor Sylvester, dancing expert of the BBC, these dancing lessons will be broadcast at 10.15 p.m. on Tuesdays to Saturdays. A Clown Keeps Laughing Some clowns might laugh with tears in their eyes, but most of them are as happy as they look, and the NBS found a particularly cheerful soul for a Job of Work interview to be broadcast from 4YA on Friday, August 18, at 8.45 p.m. He has had one or two mis-fortunes-one accident caved in his chest, broke a wrist, and cracked his skull-but he has seen a good part of the world and helped to make most of it laugh. He is retired now, although he can still ride a one-wheel bicycle and pick up a shilling with a stockwhip; but looking back has nothing but interest for him, as those who listen to him will learn. He Excelled Next to writing a paragraph which will get past the sub-editor, writing a short story is the most exacting of literary arts. Stacy Aumonier knew just what to put in-a short

story and, more important, just what to leave out. Galsworthy confessed himself amazed at the richness and precision of his observation, the poignancy of his irony, and the humane breadth and tolerance of his feeling and philosophy. Through the courtesy of the B.B.C. and Aumonier’s widow, the NBS has dramatised versions of two of his finest stories. " The Fall" was heard last week from 4YA and will be repeated from 2YC at 8 p.m. on Saturday, August 19, The Old Grape Vine Someone once said, "Everything changes except change," which means, of course, that almost everything changes. "Family Tree," a play by Philip Wade, is a study in changing and unchanging things and presents a picture of a conservative family living in an old manor in England. Pride of them all is a magnificent grape vine which they tend from year to year; and while domestic storms rock the

security of the family, while vicissitudes take their toll, and while their beloved old house comes within an ace of being lost forever, the vine continues to flourish in the rich soil. The play treats of many things, of the intolerance and selfishness of snobs, of simple country folk, and of young people in love and

an understanding woman called Agatha, "Family Tree" will be presented from 4YA Dunedin on Sunday, August 13. Mister Brown "Will you sing something, Mr. Brown?" asks the hostess, and Mr. Brown, though he has every intention of singing, stoutly deprecates the suggestion. And Mr. Brown of 1890 very likely lives again in Mr. Brown of 1939, From 1YA on Thursday, August 17, at 9.5 p.m., he may hear himself caricatured, for Mr. Brown probably attended the balls of the season when he was not being bashfully forward at the musical evenings. Mrs. Isabell Cluett’s memories of the ’nineties will be continued with an Old Time Dance this week and an Old Time Musical Evening next week. Not Enough People? Not very long ago the nations were afraid of over-population. Now it is the threat of decline of which they are afraid. There has been such a swing in migration in the last few years that Britain has been receiving more people from the Dominions than she has sent to them. Actuaries and economists have some startling calculations about ageing populations and the fall in totals. H. V. Hodson, who is editor of "The Round Table," and was for some time on the staff of "The Economist," will discuss these problems in a talk to be given from 3YA on Tuesday, August 15, at 9.5 p.m. London’s River The Thames flows through England’s greenest fields and London’s grimiest slums. ‘There is not a yard of its banks which has not seen history made, youth and beauty passing by, age and decay following. Of all rivers it is surely most dear to Englishmen. For them "Earth has not anything to show more fair." With song, music, and dialogue, the B.B.C. production "London’s River" follows down the quietly flowing waters. It ig to be broadcast from 3YA at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, August 15,