THINGS TO COME A Run Through The Programmes

New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 21, 17 November 1939, Page 6

THINGS TO COME

A Run

Through The Programmes

HE stories of naval life that we used to read when we were boys attached great importance to prize-money. The hero would help in the capture of enemy ships and be well rewarded by the Prize Court. It may not be generally known that the system of giving prize-money is still in force, and it is part of the English Prize Court’s work in the present war to allocate bounties among successful crews. The Editor of the "Law Journal" is to talk about Prize Courts and their work in his next talk on the Law of War at 2YA on Monday, November 20. Arrangements have also been made for a series of talks on international law at 1YA by L. K. Munro, who for some time conducted the fortnightly World Affairs talks at that station. Mr. Munro’s first talk will be given at 1YA on Monday, November 20. Funny Papers What is the humour of the Press? One might say it was conscious and unconscious. In the conscious are to placed all the jokes of the comic papers, and such bright remarks

as one we remember from the Manchester Guardian, at the beginning of an editorial, that a certain statesman would agree to any compromise that gave him everything he wanted. The unconscious humour of the Press is a fear ever at the elbow of the editor and the sub-editor. "Breaks" are his nightmare. They can be caused by an error in one letter, as for example the society note in an American paper that Mrs. Smith and her daughter were going on a motoring tour of California and would vamp by the roadside. We shall see what George Wycherley makes of this on Tuesday, November 21, from 4YA. He’s got plenty of material- more, we surmise,

than our artist had when he did this drawing. We are almost inclined to suggest that it is a self-portrait. ~, Dorati Conducts " Cotillon" A When the Covent Garden Russian Ballet played their New Zealand season, not the least popular member of the company was the conductor, Antal Dorati, who has made a special study of ballet music. The balletomane with a keen ear may be able to recognise Dorati’s style when the ballet "Cotillon" is presented from 2YA Wellington at 9.25 p.m. on Tuesday, November 21, for in this presentation Dorati conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra. "Cotillon" is a charming ballet with a theme contrived and inspired by the fashion book of 1932. Onward and Upward Lower Hutt will definitely be on the way onward and upward on Sunday next (November 19, if you have mislaid your calendar). Present at the evening church service of the Lower Hutt Methodist Church will be His Excellency the Governor-General, Lord Galway, to read the lesson. For the sermon, Lower Hutt has secured the President of the Methodist Church of New Zealand, the Rev. Angus McBean. The choir. will sing under (or close to) the baton of C. Swift, and in close co-operation with R. Harman, at the organ. Redson for all this: The centennial of the Lower Hutt Methodist Sunday School which, need we mention, is one hundred years old. Bliss In the swelter of a heat wave last July, crowds attended the first United States performance of Arthur Bliss’s music from H. G. Wells’s film, Things to Come. Those who braved the intense heat applauded lustily the performance of this seven-part suite by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Sir Ardian Boult, music director of the BBC. Time thus describes the composer: " Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss, 47, was born in London, son of a U.S.-born chairman of AngloAmerican Oil Co. Dapper, well-nosed, greying, Bliss is rated as a modernist with a sense of humour." Film music from Things to Come will be presented at 8.45 p.m. on Saturday, November 25, from 3ZR Greymouth. The WORD After our sessions with the Brain Trust in Centennial House this week (see another page of this issue) and our effort to remind

listeners that Lower Hutt Sunday School is celebrating a Centennial on Sunday next, it it a shock to find that The Word (see "Centennial Commandments," also in this issue) has been Taken in Vain, even by the National Broadcasting Service. Among the items in next week’s programmes may be found two in what the NBS carelessly calls the Notable Centenaries series. They should, of course, be called centennials, although either way the main point concerns the number of years which is, as we pointed out in the par about Lower Hutt, one hundred. This week’s birthdays, as you will see from the programmes, are "Commerce, Culture, and Wedding Bells" (1YA, Sunday, November 19, 2 p.m.), and "From Occident to Orient" (4YA, Sunday, 3.30 p.m.). Funny things to have birthdays, of course, but you can’t say it’s not novel material. A Sex Secret Women have secret rules and regulations about putting flowers in pots. A man can grab a bunch, shove them in, stand back to admire, and be satisfied. For a woman the task is a ritual. The flowers must be cut, just so; carried inside, just so; trimmed, just so; singed, just so; sighed over, just so; and arranged, just so. All our women readers will have their own ideas just how so it all is; but it’s always interesting to be contradicted, or find your opinions confirmed, so the president of the Society of New Zealand Professional Florist Artists, whose identity, and sex, seem from our glance at the programmes to be a close national secret, will probably haye a wide audience for his (or her) talk about Flower Arrangement, from 2YA, on Saturday, November 25, at 10.45 a.m. Peru and Wales What, if you don’t find the question impertinent, do you know about Peru? To some, it undoubtedly exists as one of those highly improbable South American places with exports of bananas, postage stamps and revo«lutions. But there is more to it than that; ‘3Peru is a historied place, where once the ~ Incas flourished. Perhaps the history of Peru stopped when the Spaniards arrived to conquer, and amid loud wails, the people of one of the greatest ancient civilisations saw its structure perish. And speaking of wails, we come to Wales. Wales, as any schoolboy will tell you, is on the left of England on Mercator’s projection, so long as you don’t hold the map upside down. The people wear tall

hats, and the language looks like this: "Y Ffydd Ddi-ffuant." "A Visit to Peru" will be presented from 4YZ Invercargill at 9.30 p.m. on Tuesday, November 21, and "A Visit to Wales" from 2YD Wellington at 9.20 p.m, also on Tuesday. Our Artist Comes to Light Our artist has been inspired, this week, to keep more closely to the point than usual. When we told him that Miss D. E. Dolton was to speak from 3YA (at 7.35 p.m. on

Wednesday, November 22) about Children We Know-The Aggressive Child, we fully expected him to produce some-poor snivelling brat, or at the best a politician, since humour in Parliament has lately turned his thoughts that way. But no, he really has drawn an aggressive child, with Eric, or Little by Little, only a secondary figure. His picture of this unmentionable young person will no doubt stir memories in many parents’ minds, and, we hope, excite some curiosity about Miss Dolton’s ideas on how to remove the aggression without spoiling the spirit. Falla’s Spanish Songs One of the best-known among modern Spanish composers, Manuel de Falla can look back, at 63, upon a long life of work for the native folk songs of his country. He has probably done more than any other composer of recent years for the music of Spain. Falla first began to attract notice when at the age of thirty he won a prize offered for the best national opera with his "La Vida Breve" ("Life is Short"). This work, ironically enough, had to wait eight years for its first performance. Listeners to 2YA Wellington at 9.37 p.m. on Thursday, November 23, will hear a group of Spanish Folk Songs by Manuel de Falla, sung by Nancy Evans, contralto.