THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 96, 24 April 1941, Page 6

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

HE personal history of blind people is very often a record of disabilities bravely overcome and even turned to profit. Julian Lee, the blind Dunedin pianist, whose picture was printed in The Listener some weeks ago, is one such. Not only is he a clever pianist, but recently he has been compéring whole half-hour programmes over station 4ZB. His knowledge of music is sound, and he builds his programmes from the ground up, typing scripts-one of them in Braille-and announcing and playing the recordings he chooses. A half-hour with Julian Lee will be presented from 4ZB on Sunday, April 27, at 5.30 p.m. Dr. Livingstone, | Presume? The realm of discovery and exploration has been chosen as the field of discussion for the first eight or ten talks in 2YA’s Winter Course series, which will begin on April 28. Someone has noticed that 1941 is the centenary of the birth of two great characters in the exploration of Africa, the H. M. Stanley who murmured the famous "Dr, Livingstone, I presume?" and Gordon Bennett, the proprietor of the New York Herald which sent Stanley out, with the further coincidence that 1841 was the date of Livingstone’s arrival in Africa to start his remarkable work. This first series, entitled Lifting the Veil, will not -be confined solely to exploration in Africa, but will be devoted to finding out why the explorers set out on their journeys,

how they did it, and the effect of their discoveries. One result of their work is that it has compelled all novelists since that date to be more careful in their statements about foreign lands: a result which was evidently anticipated by a couplet of the period: When the Rudyards cease from Kipling And the Haggards ride no more. These talks are in the hands of two experienced broadcasters, L. B. Quartermain and L.. R. Palmer, who did a series on geography two years ago, Rabbit Rampage Have you heard the story of the sheep station so over-run with rabbits that the trappers had to lay about them with ‘sticks in order to clear enough room to set their traps, or the one about the little

boy who was found demanding of a frightened bunny: ‘What are six times seven?" because he heard his father say that rabbits were terrors to multiply? These are the folk tales of the outback settlers of the Dominion, and they are no laughing matter, either. The damuze that rabbits can. do almost passes belief, as Mrs. Scott will tell in her talk in the "series An’ Outback Woman. Remembers, from 4YA on Wednesday, April 30. She will speak on "Rabbit Rampage," and while our illustration may: be an exaggeration, it does correspond with what. the farmer’s wife feels about rabbits in the vegetable garden.

Stories from Life Real Life Stories, the dramatic series of tales which is now playing over the ZB stations, should not be confused with the harrowing confessions of domestic upsets which are to be found in certain American magazines. (We read a couple of them once, and came to the conclusion that every American wife who ever quarrels with her husband immediately snatches up a pen and writes a confession — "Five hundred dollars CASH for YOUR confession.") Their Real Life Stories, the ZB’s point out with pride, are a much superior article, being based on the programme entitled Aunt Jenny’s Real Life Stories-Aunt Jenny herself got lost in transit-which is very popular in America. The scripts have been dramatised by the Commercial Broadcasting Service, and are played over all ZB stations at 7.30 p.m. and 2ZA at 7.45 every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. It is sufficient to say that they

are’ exciting little stories about the mishaps of ordinary people like you and me -or would you sooner be left out of it? The Peregrinations of Percy Dusty and tousled, in grimy white pant#® and sweater, with a knapsack over his shoulder and an umbrella in his hand, Percy Grainger, pianist, composer and wanderer, trudged into the railway: station at the little town of Cheyenne, Wyoming, U.S.A. early this year and was stopped by the police, whe wanted to know his name. One constable heard it and grunted: "If that’s so, I’m William Tell," and marched him to the police station. There, Mr. Grainger produced his proof, and was allowed to depart, unperturbed, for a concert engagement at the town of Greeley, Colorado. When Percy Grainger tramped through the English countryside a few years ago he escaped arrest, but he discovered ,something of importance: an old farmer who acquainted him with the tune we know as " Shepherd’s Hey." The story of his vagabonding and of the discovery of the tune will be told from 2YA on Sunday afternoon, April 27, under the title "Percy in Search of a Tune." Two-Fisted Hero Few heroes of fiction can equal the deeds of derring-do of the unbeatable McGlusky, the creation of A. G. Hales. Whether he is in outposts of Empire east of Suez, in the Wild West, or in sinister haunts of Latin America-any-where where men are men and villains are. whiskery and a free fight is the

established method of settling disputes. -there will be found McGlusky. Drunk or sober, he loves a fight, but his deeply religious nature, and his knowledge of the Scriptures always enable him to quote an appropriate verse of the Bible to follow the straight left to the jaw. As a gold prospector he is unlucky, as a Scotsman he is a national libel, but as a popular character in fiction, he is almost without peer. It is no wonder that his adventures have been made into a radio serial, and 2YD will have the pleasure of presenting the first episode of McGlusky the Filibuster on Monday, April 28. Words, Words, Words "Words," wrote Rousseau (or was it Voltaire, or Elbert Hubbard?), " were invented by man to conceal his thoughts." Spiritual disillusionment or indigestion may have fathered the paradox, whoever

wrote it, or even prophetic intimations of Deutschlandsender and Radio Roma, and no doubt there is a grain of truth there, though one has to go a long way round to find it. Like every other discovery of man, the miracle of the word has been abused. That, however, should not prevent us appreciating the miracle and trying to understand it, and for those to whom words are more than marks on scraps of paper there is a session from 2YH on April 28 at 6.45p.m. At that time, Professor Arnold Wall will be on the air again with ‘one of his talks on "The Meaning of Words." Multum In Parvo Frank Beadle, 4YZ’s swing and jazz expert, is compéring, on April 30, at 9.33 p.m., a programme with the intriguing title, "The influence of the small band in jazz.’ We asked Uncle Egbert about it (he has "views" on the subject generally) and he rather surprised us by saying that he was all in favour of it. With the proviso, he added, that the said influence was progressive and would bring jazz bands down to vanishing point before his grey hairs were brought down in sorrow, etc. All of which rather cancelled out our initial surprise and cone firmed us in our belief that age has made him opinionated. Safely out of earshot of him we might suggest that Mr. Beadle may have something to talk about that will interest quite a number of listeners. Personally, we prefer the small dance orchestra; we can identify the different toots better and that is essential if one is to be the compleat jazz fancier.