THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 85, 7 February 1941, Page 6

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

GERMAN visitor to New Zealand some years ago was astounded at the sight of Maori youngsters celebrating the failure of a_ centuries-old plot against the British Parliament. It certainly is a curious example of the tenacity of tradition. But for the Maori, ‘Guy Fawkes’ Day has no political significance: it is merely an excuse for a lark, and the Maori loves a lark. And although the English broadcaster Lord Elton is to talk about Guy Fawkes from 4YA on February 12, it will almost certainly turn out that he is no more interested in the Gun Powder Plot than our Maoris are, but is just out for a lark. His talk of a week or two ago on reading in bed wandered on to quite a number of subjects a long way from reading in bed, end so does this talk. Family Affair Music is very much an affair of families. How many listeners could put pen to paper at this minute and write out a list of the Strausses or the Bachs? How many could say which Goossens was which when they see the name in 2YA’s €vening programme for Monday, February 10? How many could even say how many esses they have in the middle of their name? Not many. It must be confessed than an encyclopaedia is useful in this office for resolving such complications. Leon is one of the sons of the second Eugene Goossens. Eugene II. served like Eugene I, with the Carl Rosa Opera Company, and fathered Eugene

III., who worked with several opera companies, and in 1923 began a career as a conductor with symphony orchestras in the U.S.A. Leon is the famous oboe player who was first oboist for the Queen’s Hall Orchestra when he was 17. Art of Jesting We would like to watch the face of the confirmed funny man getting longer and longer as he hears that all his most treasured jokes are really worse than second hand-that the story he swears happened to his car really happened to a chariot in Rome, or that the one about his sister’s fiance set the court of

Henry VIII. in an uproar. Professor Arnold Wall, in his series of talks on "The Art of Jesting" from 4YA on Fridays, must be pricking the bubble of quite a few reputations for original humour. We've certainly been on the side of the Professor ourselves since one of our own best stories got blown out. It was about a policeman who found an abandoned car in Karangahape Road in Auckland, but ‘as he could never spell Karangahape he pushed it to Pitt Street before writing his report. Years after we learned that the story originated in Dunedin where it concerned a dead horse found in Cumberland. Street which the policeman pulled into King Street. We would be delighted to hear the Professor tell his 4YA listeners that it really referred to a dead mule found on the Plantagenet estate. Trial by Ordeal | It is a truism, a melancholy one no doubt, that people like to see other people squirming. Maybe it is this which accounts for the popularity of audience participation programmes that include general knowledge quizzes, tongue-twister sessions, and " yes-no" jackpot sessions. Christchurch listeners are now to have the pleasure of hearing the announcer instead of the members of the public grilled, as 3ZB has made a change in the "Yes-no" Jackpots. February 13 will be the date of the first new session, and from all accounts it will be an unlucky day for someone. Some Classics A classic has been defined as a book that is praised but not read. How many people have read " Hereward the Wake" by Charles Kingsley since they have grown up? Has anyone at all read "Vathek" by that English eccentric, William Beckford? It was written at the age of 22 at a continuous sitting of three days and two nights, during which he did not take off his clothes. Beckford

wrote nothing more for 50 years and died aged 84. Selections from "Hereward" and from "Vathek" were read by Mr. Simmance from 3YA recently. Next week, Mr. Simmance is to read from a brighter light of that age, Charles Lamb, perhaps the most lovable figure in English literature. This will be "Mrs, Battle’s Opinions on Whist." By the way, does anyone play whist now, or is bridge in undisputed sway? Bells, Bells, Bells, Etc. A month or two ago a Listener correspondent expressed disappointment at the dearth of bell music in New Zealand. Wellington lovers of bell music can listen to regular programmes from the carillon, but in other places in New Zealand there is seldom anything more exciting than the town clock striking twelve. People who are interested in this form of music should listen in to 2ZB at 6.45p.m. on Sunday, February 9, when a special programme of bell music will be broadcast. Records will be played of the famous Bow Bells, the actual chimes rung at St. Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside, London, by the ancient Society of College Youths, and the famous Barnardo Musical Boys will be heard in an item on handbells. Organ Music When we were a small child-if that mixture of numbers and metaphors may pass-our favourite nightmare was being placed at the console of a tremendous

organ (exactly like the one in our drawing) and told to play Handel’s "Largo." We were so very small that our hands barely reached to the keys, while our feet dangled high above the pedals. But the excuse for the impressively illustrated pipe organ is no nightmare, but simply a recital from 4YA by Professor Galway at 8.15 p.m. on Sunday, February 9. Dr. Galway, of course, is well known to Dunedin listeners, both for his frequent recitals of organ music and his 4YA " Masterpieces of Music" sessions. He is Dunedin City Organist, Professor of Music at the University of Otago, and was Otago representative on the Centennial Music Committee last year. A New Angle A drama of the sea from quite a new angle, that of the shipbuilder, is presented in St. John Ervine’s play "The Ship," which the NBS will present from 4YA on Sunday night, February 9. The plot concerns a shipbuilder’s son who,

unsettled by his war experiences, refuses to go into his father’s business. He takes a farm with a brother officer who turns out to be a drunkard, the farm is not a success, and when his father’s company builds a magnificent new ship the son consents to sail in it. The ship goes down as a result of a collision with an iceberg, and the son is drowned. Those are the bare bones of the plot. Drama lovers and those who like sea stories with a novel "twist" to them, should tune in to 4YA on Sunday. On Cooking The legendary but shrewdly practical advice of the mother-in-law to the bride to "feed the brute" is, in the opinion of food reformers, A.C.E. lecturers, cooking demonstrators and all other scientific domesticians, inadequate-it fails to take account of the fact that the stuff has to be cooked. And cooking these days is a very superior business. There are calories, carbohydrates, and cost of living to be taken into account, and to confuse the poor cook still further, there are the rival merits of cooking by gas and by electricity. With commendable impartiality, 4YA has arranged to give two morning talks, one on Wednesday, February 12, on "Cooking by Electricity," and the other two days later on "Cooking by Gas.’ The only people left out are those country housewives who have neither gas nor electricity. For them the A.C.E. talks are on the air again, after the Christmas recess.