THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 120, 10 October 1941, Page 3

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

" AN Literary Appreciation be Taught?" the subject of a discussion to be broadcast by 2YA on Monday next is a question to which, from our experience of editors and publishers, we would once have returned an emphatic negative. Now we are not so sure, Perhaps newspaper editors are exceptions. We hope so, otherwise Mr. Pope’s Essay on Criticism is only a scrap of paper and the book talks and readings so assiduously broadcast by radio stations everywhere are so much wasted time, All the same, we do not envy Professor Gordon; who is to bear the main burden of the discussion. Protagonists of one school or another in literature (or music) can at times become as heated as politicians, and almost as wordy. Sweet and Hot We notice with some amusement that Station 2ZB has a session down for 3.0 p.m. on Thursday, October 16 (it is apparently a regular one) entitled Custard and Mustard. There is sometimes a tendency to whimsy in 2ZB’s programmes, and we can only assume that the gentleman who was responsible for the two programmes Songs My Mother Taught Me and Songs I Teach My Mother, is responsible for Custard and Mustard. And although we have never got round to listening to the new session we have had sufficient experience of the fellow’s sly sense of humour ‘to have little trouble in solving the enigma of the title. We'll lay you a "Fats" Waller

to an Artur Schnabel that it is a musical programme which relies for its effect on the cunning juxtoposition of "sweet" and "hot" music, Red-Hot Poppa You’ve heard of a red-hot momma, but you won’t have heard much about the male equivalent until you listen to Further Outlook Warmer, a radio comedy by H. R. Jeans, which will be heard from 4YA next Sunday evening. With three main characters, husband, wife, and doctor, the dramatist has unlimited

scope, Like Somerset Maugham he can make the wife elope with the doctor, or he can, by a Noel Coward touch, agree to let the doctor and husband decamp together. But Mr. Jeans, with commendable originality, disregards the doctor and centres the action in the husband, whose mounting temperature cannot therefore be ascribed to emotional disturbances. And his temperature does mount. At 2,000 F. he becomes the Human Hotspot (see illustration) but the conveniences (see illustration) of such a state are unfortunately outweighed by the inconveniences. The happy ending is arrived at only when listeners have had forty-four minutes to digest the moral, that people with rapidly rising temperatures should not be interested in gasometers, Lullaby We have the feeling that the health. talk from 1YA on Tuesday morning next is going to be rather one-sided. "Health in the Home: Sleep and the Child" is the title, but you will notice that whose sleep is not specified. We have always recognised the value of sleep, but we are steadily being forced to the sad conclusion that there is nothing better calculated to upset the nightly knitting of the ravelled sleeve of care than to have one’s cara sposa hopping up every half-hour to soothe a squalling infant, At best, children, if we may steal a phrase, should be seen and not heard and that, in our opinion applies a fortiori to the hours of adult repose, Those who disagree, of course, can always tune in to 1YA on Tuesday at 11.0 a.m. Tight Corners Remember the businessman’s expenses account which begins with chocolates for typist and ends with fur coat for wife? Well, that’s the sort of pre

dicament from which competitors in 1ZB’s new session What Would You Do? are asked to extricate themselves. Of course not all the problems are concerned with domestic or business peccadilloes; any sort of -corner, the tighter the better, will suffice. The comperes of the session are named, with some daring, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson; three competitors are invited along to 1ZB’s studios and then each is presented with an awkward situation — just like that. Quick thinking and a ready wit are at a premium, for there’s just 30 seconds to escape from that corner. The session is providing a good deal of healthy fun, and no doubt it serves as a training ground for something or other. It is on the air, by the way, every Saturday evening at 7.45. Belay There, You Lubbers! Most of us were brought up in the old tradition of seafaring yarns in which the hero was tall, square chested, bronzed, and fearlessly blue-eyed. Essentially modest and simple of soul, he habitually used words of one syllable, but though his language might be rough it was never rude. The Captain was allowed somewhat more licence. He often addressed the men in words both rough and rude, and when hurling commands such as " Reef the mainsail!" or "Sauve qui peut!" was allowed to tack on a contemptuous epithet such as "lubbers "

or even "swabs." A brutal bos’n might even refer to the men as swine. But when danger threatened all the seamen appeared as simple God-fearing men, their language uncharged by any word stronger than "home" and " mother." Under these circumstances it is difficult to imagine what the parrot in our illustration can be saying to cause the simple seamen such shocked embarrassment. Listeners may find out if they listen to Major Lampen’s talk, "Just Nautical Language," from 2YA at 11 am. on Thursday, October 16. Where The Bee Sucks Much has been written about bees. As one of our fellow scribes put it: ; When Mrs. Gorm (Aunt Eloise) Was stung to death by savage bees, Her husband (Prebendary Gorm) Put on his veil and took the swarm. He’s publishing a book next May On "How to Make Bee-keeping Pay." Much has been written about bees, much has also been said. We said a

good deal ourselves when we sat on one on the occasion of the last annual outing of the Amalgamated Leader Writers and Printers’ Devils Industrial Association of Workers (Inc.). Our desire in the present instance, however, is to draw your attention to the talk to be given from 1YA next Monday-the subject, " New Zealand Honey Producing Flora," and the speaker, W. J. Fix, Apiary Instructor at Auckland. Fantasy In Music Walt Disney, acknowledged as the genius of cartoon producers, has created several world-famous characters-Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Dopey -but in his new film Fantasia he makes a departure. Perhaps the best way to describe the film would be to call it "an illustrated symphony concert." In collaboration with Leopold Stokowski, leader of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, and Deems Taylor, a wellknown music critic, Disney has drawn his conception of such music as Tchaikovski’s " Nutcracker Suite," Ponchielli’s " Dance of the Hours," Schubert’s " Ave Maria," and five other major works. Of these the only one in which a familiar Disney character appears is "The Sorcerer’s Apprentice" by Dukas, wherein Mickey Mouse plays the central character. 1YA will broadcast Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra playing " The Sorcerer’s Apprentice " in the " Masters in Lighter Mood" session, on Wednesday, October 15.