WELLINGTON ROUNDABOUT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 26, 22 December 1939, Page 16

WELLINGTON ROUNDABOUT

By

Thid

_In Which We Become Quite Irresponsible AST week came a letter. It was [2 handed over, as is usual in such ; matters, to the roomful of secretaries they let me have hanging | about here. (Fan mail, you know.) The | idea was that a reply should be sent. ; | We send thousands out daily, each of | us, from our different luxuriously fur|nished rooms. I can’t think what New | Zealand would do without us. What | worried sweetheart is there who has not | gotten comfort from Ann Slade? How | often has our Puzzle Editor brought new interest into drab lives? Quite surrounded by whole-plate glossies of movie lovelies, and his w.p.b. overflowing with cast-off superlatives, our Film Editor writes ‘furiously all day telling "Curious," "Fan," and " Picturegoer" how Richard Arlen once grew buttercups and how Clark Gable keeps goldfish. Talk about service! If we don’t know the answer we make it up. I, personally, was nearly distracted only last week about how to tan my new trawling-net. And bless me if Aunt Daisy didn’t come out with the answer in the next issue! And Programmes, of Course Of course, we also have rooms and rooms and rooms full of people working on the purely radio part of the magazine. People write in and ask why the Broadcasting Services are all up the shoot, and, of course, it’s our job to tell them. We know all the answers. And recipes! And knitting! And, incidentally, we publish the programmes. I used to know a man who used to say it was nice to have a barometer about the place-it was useful for telling you what sort of weather you'd been having. It’s the same with the programmes. People simply couldn't do without them. Well, as I was saying, you should tell him to marry you as quick as he can, for True Love Will Always Find a Way. And if he doesn’t, go after him! But that seems to have got into the wrong department. From One to t’Other The point was, and is, that none of my fan mail secretaries quite knew what to do about this particular letter I’m trying to write about. ‘Miss Smith referred it to Miss Jones, who was doing her hair at the time and had to pass it on to Miss Brown, who

simply couldn’t see: what it was all about, so we sent a memorandum to Head Office, who referred it to Continuity, who gathered up the whole file (now quite large) and referred it back, and Miss Glumly, who knows about these things and really is a treasure, sent it to the Crown Law Office, and it’s still there, and I'll have to do something about it myself after all. A close examination of my copy (the original has been lost somewhere in transit and we are at the moment conducting a correspondence with the Chief Messenger on this subject — he’s going to get what-ho because he didn’t get in first and say that someone else did it) as I was saying, a close examination shows that the trouble seems to be that the address was omitted, no name given, and the postmark lost when the office

boy tore the cover to get the stamps for his collection. We Have Our Systems What with this, and that, it’s all been rather difficult; but in Wellington, as everyone knows, we have systems for dealing with this sort of thing. All you do is to apply the system. And if you haven’t a system that applies you establish a precedent, which automatically establishes a system, which automatically disposes of all problems afterwards appearing under that heading. For example, Aunt Daisy has a table printed. Under S (for stains) she has L.J. (for. lemon juice), and under C (for cake) she has B.C. (for baking powder) — which once led to a rather amusing contretemps when someone

asked something about something, and she wrote a sweet note about A.D. (for Ask Daisy), the C in B.C. being a typist’s error. And my good friend Ann, when she gets a letter about J (for jilting) knows to reply under P.G. (for pig, or poor girl). If anything, my system is best of all. When someone writes under V.G, (very good), I reply under Y (for yes), and when someone writes under B.S, (for not very good), I reply under C (for cad), This Letter of Ours Now this letter came under B.S. (bad sir!), and all the confusion described above rather put me off my stroke in the card-index. To cut it short, to answer a complaint that Roundabout had been too gloomy, I found myself in Bolton Street (for B.S.), where C could only stand for cemetery. So all I can properly say to "Star Boarder" in answer to his (her) perfectly thrilling anonymous letter, is that I remain his (hers) for more and better gloom, Thid with the hope that he (she) will remain

as he (she) says he (she) is now, "An Ardent Listener Fan." P.S. (for properly sunk): The letter is reproduced on this page in the hope that someone will recognise the handwriting and tell me who it was that sent it to me on a postcard with the caption: "I Can't Gild the Lily, But I've had a Jolly Good Try." P.P.S. (for Pride of the Public Ser vice): My try:To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet, To smooth the ice, or add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taperlight To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish Is wasteful and ridiculous exces%