THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 153, 29 May 1942, Page 5

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

FTER all the things Peter Dawson said about Australian girls being easy on the eyes (and that goes for New Zealanders, too. See Page 16) we may be inclined to think that the young women whom Mr. Dawson noticed during his forty years’ residence in London can’t have been so glamorous. But to dispel any such impression, Miss Corliss has apparently come forward as the champion of London’s womanhood, for her next Little, Adventure in Music (2¥A, 11 aim. on Tuesday, June 2) is entitled "London Sights are Rare." We know too that Miss Corliss is a woman of her word. For example, when she spoke recently about a grand piano in Hyde.Park she actually meant a grand piano in Hyde Park, so we shall perhaps feel when she has completed her fifteen minutes next week that every woman in London is a tonic for sore eyes. Rest Ye, Brother Mariners The Rev. G. A. Naylor, who gave a series of readings from the literature of the sea from 1YA some time ago, comes back again into the programmes of the same station on Friday week, June 5, with the first of a new series of talks entitled Sketches and Legends of the Sea. The readings which he has selected for this first broadcast are from Kingsley and Tennyson and are about Sirens and Lotos Eaters; but although they are to be readings only we feel that there will be a sermon and a moral in them

for those who care to look. What were the sirens anyway if they weren’t the earliest Fifth Columnists? And is not Tennyson's choric song simply the wishfulfilment of those who have lost the will to smite the sounding furrows, to sail beyond the sunset, to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield? Bread or Cake? Asked what we know of Marie Antoinette (the subject of a talk "For My Lady" from 1YA on Tuesday, June 2 and the following Friday) we could reply that she gambolled, not gambled, with, Mozart under the grand piano or

its 18th Century equivalent in the Austrian Imperial Palace, that she was, the Widow Capet who helped to tip over the ‘tottering throne of France, and that when hungry mobs of Parisians encircled Versailles demanding bread she replied, "Why do they not eat cake?" (See illustration.) But we may yet see the tables turned. Now that cake-eating is a privilege of those thrifty householders who remembered that "an egg in lime saves many a dime," we may yet see housewives gnawing savagely at their scones and bread and butter and demanding Cake. Of whom of course we would ask, "Why do they not eat Bread?" Black and White We wonder whether the title of Major Lampen’s next talk, which appears on the programmes as "Just a Study in ‘Black and White" should not rather be "Jush a Shtudy in Black and White." If this interpretation is correct we may expect from the Major something in the vein of tender regret for the things that have now passed beyond our ken. On the other hand he may have resurrected from his patchwork past some recollections of an excursion into interior decorating. But all will be revealed to those who listen in to 2YA or 3YA at 11 a.m. on Thursday, June 4. Figure It Out If it didn’t smack of Jése-majesté, we'd like to recommend the talk from the A.C.E. (4YA, Friday week) on "Figure Control" to the Acting Minister of Finance, but he is probably aware already of the dangers of inflation, and in any case the inflation that the A.C.E. seeks to guard against sounds more.physical than financial. But we have little doubt that there will be some superficial resemblance between the A.C.E,’s advice and that so often given by Fin-

ance Ministers the world over since the war began. In essence, we are sure, it will be an appeal to us to pull in our belts and brace ourselves for the shock of total war, to gird up our loins, stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, and so forth. Once upon a time there were plenty of mechanical aids to that end, but now the Japanese have struck at the foundation of our foundation garments our womanly women must gird ... but we said all that before. Let us simply add that they should listen to the A.C.E. broadcasting from 4YA on Friday week. And it would be advisable to listen to the A.C.E. talk from the same station on Wednesday. "Controlling the Appetite" and "Figure Control" seem cognate subjects, Autub! Questions of temperament and temperature largely determine one’s attitude to the seasons, particularly with gardeners, and poets. At this time of the year you find one versifier hymning autumn as the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, and another of our colleagues opening a bitter diatribe with "Autub, Thou Bead ad Heardtless Jade." So with gardeners. Many of us who have wantoned gaily through the summer months, delighting in our massed displays of coryza and psittacosis grandiflora, the refulgent glories of furunculosis, anthrax, poliomyelitis and a hundred other annuals, creep into our greenhouses or toolsheds at the first breath of autumn. The hardier spirits, snapping their fingers at sleet and fog and tem-

pest, plunge hock-deep into the morass that was the potato-patch or swing gracefully from tree to tree armed with secateurs and grafting wax. For these unsung heroes of the suburbs 3YA’s gardening expert will bring a message of encouragement and advice at 7.10 p.m. next Monday. "Work for the month" is his topic, and if he can’t suggest enough to keep anyone fully occupied we have a quarter-acre that should provide scope for the most energetic. Ripeness and No Repining When we first looked at the programme we thought that the song to be sung by Georges Thill next week was "All Ripening is Vain," and since someone has said very truly that "Ripeness is All," we received a shock. Admittedly there is not much left to ripen in our gardens. Frost has done its worst on the marrows and pumpkins, and the apples -well, ask those small boys who visited

us when we were out. All that remain to be ripened are a few green tomatoes left hanging on their stalks in the optimistic hope that May would bring sunshine and ripening. But a second glance showed that the song is "All Repining is Vain," which, after a summer of Home Guarding and W.W.S.A.-ing, is a consoling theme that listeners may be glad to tune in to. They will hear it from 4YA at 7.46 p.m. on June 4. Culinary Counsel If there were an exclamation mark after the announcement of the talk "Help for the Home Cook" an echo would doubtless ring in the hearts if not the stomachs of hungry husbands the world over. But there is rio exclamation mark, so we must assume that Mrs. M. C, Allan in her talk from 3YA (on Friday, June 5, at 11.15 a.m.) will not invoke whatever gods there be to help what is past man’s power to repair, but that she will instead set herself the commendable task of helping the hapless housewife to trap and serve appetisingly the right proportion of proteins, carbohydrates, and vitamins, together with the few elusive minerals that normally escape into the vegetable water and hurry away down the sink. Perhaps the new vitamin biscuit, guaranteed to restore temper and poise, that scientists in England are busy baking, will meet the housewives’ need, However, until such a biscuit is on the market we welcome Mrs. Allan.