THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 142, 13 March 1942, Page 3

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

on which we cannot but speak with deep feeling. Teeth are a nuisance. They make a great deal of trouble for everyone when they are coming, they are a trial when they are with us, and a tribulation when they are going. But one should hang on to them as long as possible. You never know these days when you may be offered a screen test. We commend to the attention of listeners, therefore, the Health in the Home session from 1YA next Tuesday on The Problem of Dental Caries. Though no one knows the cause of our dental caries in New Zealand, it is safe to suspect neglect. A youth mis-spent in a tuckshop and the soda fountain and hey presto! Mother Caries chickens come home to roost before you know where you are. The talk from 1YA is therefore well timed. Run, Runner Bean, Run There’s a hungry sound about Dr, Elizabeth Bryson’s talk " What Shall We Eat?" from 3YA next Wednesday morning, March 18, at 11 o’clock. That’s just the time when you realise that it’s, morning tea and rummage round in the tin for the chocolate biscuits. We have a feeling, however, that Dr. Bryson won’t suggest chocolate biscuits, but may launch into a ten-minute eulogy on the Value of Vegetables. The outcome of it will be that you'll rush out into the garden and try to waylay a scarlet are (or is?) a subject

runner, because Dr. Bryson is almost bound to say that beans of any-kind-provided they’re not has-beens-are a Good Thing, and that nowadays even a Red Runner is not to be contemptuously cast aside. But by the time you’re catght your runners (and it sounds\an exhausting business) you’ve got to cook them so it looks almost as if it will be lunch time before everything’s ready. All of which may be interpreted as a cunning move on the part of the Programme Organiser to cut down our consumption of essential foodstuffs, such as chocolate biscuits, and reconcile us to a vegetable existence. Women at School After all, if we’re to believe the films. @ woman doesn’t learn much at an American co-educational college except a few facts about dates and ball games and what’s being worn on the campus

this fall. So it really was quite a sound move on the part of Tennyson’s Princess Ida to collect the gang together and establish a women’s college where you could get away from it all. Of course some of the less reliable spirits found that, though you could get away from some things it was more difficult to get away with other things. And the discontent resulting from this led to fifth column activity inside the college and the subsequent defeat of the home team. We hope that the pupils referred to by Miss F. Street in her talk " A College for Grown-up Women," from 4YA on the morning of Friday, March 20, will be much too adult (our artist certainly makes them look it) to be so easily beguiled from the academic path to the primrose one, They seem to like school, but can teacher be enjoying herself? Isn’t there anyone to bring her an apple? Grand Old Duke If a strange man rushed up to you in the city and gasped "I’ve just seen a crocodile!" you wouldn’t smell his breath or examine the whites of his eyes, for you'd know he had seen a crocodile. Not the sort that weeps profusely or that you make genuine reptile skin handbags out of, but the sort that marches two-by-two. And if you were qualifying as a private investigator you would deduce that the strange gentleman was new to the city, otherwise he would have seen many crocodiles and the sight would cease to surprise him. So you would explain that when the ‘mock air-raid siren sounds the dwellers in a

particular group of buildings form up neatly in pairs, and, in accordance with a pre-arranged plan, get marched up to the top of a hill and then marched down again. Which reminds us of something, But it isn’t the Grand Old Duke of York but the Grand Old Duke of Marlborough (Part II.) who forms the subject of the Cavalcade of Empire session to be heard from 2YA at 4 p.m. on Sunday, March 15, Men Minus Motoring Casabianca ought to be-and perhaps is- Rod Talbot’s middle name, for -he is still conscientiously carrying on with his, Thursday evening session, Men and Motoring, at 1ZB, though the strongest whiff of petrol many motorists get is when they clean their clothes. Perhaps, however, he now explains how to keep rats from gnawing upholstery, and which brand of grease will most efficiently preserve metal work until the happy day when petrol restrictions are lifted and the voice of the motor horn is once more heard in the land. Wide Open Faces The title of the Graeme Holder play, "The Sun and the Wind," to be heard from 3YA on Sunday evening, March 15, smacks of the heath, brother, the wide open spaces, the rolling downland, the shining stretches of exposed beach, and, of course, the Open Road. But what you see in our illustration isn’t an open road but a closed thoroughfare, and our two hoboes, contrary to their usual custom, are sitting in an enclosed space, But forget the illustration and get back

to this idea of Open-ness. It’s a wellknown physiological fact that people who live in the Open, like Ben and Joe (illustrated above) have wide open eyes, wide open shirts, and of course wide open minds, On the other hand people who live indoor lives (as exemplified by Hal in the play, who’s an inside man), don’t open their shirts so much, are heavy-lidded, and also suffer from internal disorders. We might add that although the play’s sub-title is "Sausages for Three" Hal always had a glass of milk and water biscuits. Diminishing Grandeur It is interesting that Dan Foley, whose Glimpses ‘of Erin are on at all the ZB stations every Sunday night at . eight o’clock (4ZB, 7.30), is billéd in the programme merely as "Dan Foley" and not as "Dan Foley, popular Irish tenor." We are reminded of the story told -against

himself by a former member of the Commercial Broadcasting Service. He had a. fine bass voice, and he originally arrived in New Zealand to do a radio tour. He was proudly announced as " Andrew Blank, the celebrated Scottish bass." Some time later he made a second tour, and was somewhat concerned to hear himself spoken of as "Andrew Blank, the Scottish bass." The third time it was " Andrew Blank, bass," and then, finally, plain "Andrew Blank." Which does not mean, of course, that his voice has deteriorated at all, or that Dan Foley is not still a popular Irish tenor. Mountainous Mind "My mind is like the Mountain Steep" is the title of one of the songs to be sung by June Clarkson (contralto) in a studio recital from 1YA on Wednesday, March 18. When we first glanced through the programmes we thought the title read " My Mind is Like the Mountain Sheep," and as sheep have not a reputation for intelligence we had doubts about the aptness of the simile. But "mountain steep" is almost as difficult to interpret in a way complimentary to the author of the lyric. It sounds rather as if he had the type of mind that things slide off. Or perhaps he means merely that his mind is rugged or difficult to grasp. But enough of this surmise. We can probably discover the author’s intentions by listening in to this and to four other Grieg songs on March 18, at 8.33 p.m.