THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 168, 11 September 1942, Page 2

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes —

HOSE whose adventurous spirit is not fully sustained by an expedition to discover the extinct marmite, or a skirmish with cats in the moonlight, or a brush with earwigs in the backyard will welcome talks on adventure. Listeners may prepare their minds by listening to Mrs. Madeline Alston from 3YA on Tuesday morning next week, on "The Spirit of Adventure". The following morning Miss Ngaio Marsh will continue to satisfy our craving for escape from scrubbing brushes or typewriters with her reading of another of Miss Margaret Johnston’s talks on "Adventurous Women". Prunes Are The Spur If we are to believe Virginia Woolf, it is not the inferior quality of cerebral matter that is responsible for the dearth of woman geniuses, but the sad fact that women are willing to tolerate tepid prunes and custard while their well endowed brethren mellow under the influence of well chosen wines and gastronomic delicacies. The retorts to this comment are many-that genius is bred not in Oxford Colleges, but in gutter and attic, that Jane Austen wrote her

novels in a dining room full of children and other domestic distractions, and that there has never been a female Leonardo da Vinci, nor Beethoven, nor Shakespeare, nor Socrates. We prefer to leave such arguments in mid-air and point out instead that though there are mo women composers on the upper rungs, there are quite a number who have been clambering up the ladder. If you listen to the 3YA "For My Lady" session on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday next week you will hear the story of some of them. White Rajah There is apparently little limit to what may be done with your talent’ provided you do not wrap it up in a napkin. James Brooke, born at Benares and educated at Norwich, conceived the noble if rather odd idea that his talent (a round £30,000 inherited from his father) would be wel! spent.in the extirpation of piracy in East Indian Waters, and from this laudable enterprise he scooped, not merely a fortune and a.title, but a kingdom (or strictly speaking a Rajahdom) which his family held and governed until the Japan-

ese invasion last year. By skilfully picking the winner in native disputes in Borneo, the original Brooke was rewarded by the Sultan with a neat little slice of Borneo (Sarawak) which from this time on he ruled with an iron rod on principles of free trade, no headhunting or piracy, and long life to lucrative

products, such as oil, sago, and rubber. Listen in to 2YA next Monday evening ("White Rajah: The Story of Sarawak", a BBC production) to hear how _it was all done and perhaps undone. Quality of Mersey The quality of Mersey is not strained but it wasn’t that which made us wonder a little when we learned that the next of Miss Valerie Corliss’s Little Adventures in Music (2YA, September 15) was entitled "Romantic Merseyside’. After all, the Jordan is probably as muddy as the Mersey and it has been lyrically celebrated from Babylon to the

Deep South and from Paul Robeson back to the minor prophets. We can even understand Merseyside being romantic in other ways-if you are one of those who can find romance in dirty British coasters, coal, iron, armourplate, and the other concomitants of modern industrialism. It is the conjunction of romance and music which we find difficult to fit into ‘the Merseyside scheme of things. Surely only a Prokofieff would attempt to translate the myriad pneumatic rivetters, steam-hammers and _ steel-presses into musical notation. But perhaps Liverpudlians know better. At any rate, Miss Corliss will doubtless enlighten us. Pearls About Swine As every schoolboy knows (or ought to know), bacon and eggs form the foundation of British character. A poet has very fittingly written, O breakfast, O breakfast, The meal.of my heart. Bring porridge, bring sausage, Bring fish for a start, Bring kidneys and mushrooms And partridges’ legs But let the foundation be bacon and eggs. That being so, it will be realised that the New Zealand dairy-farmer who runs pigs as a sideline is in a unique position to serve the United Nations, provided he knows how to go about it. To assist him 3YA will broadcast a talk entitled "Breeding programme: Fitting Pigs to Food-Supply," next Tuesday evening. Those anxious not to waste time fitting square pigs into round holes are advised to tune in. Not Naming No Names Saxon, Norman, and Dane are we, as Kipling pointed out, and we are also, no --- -- — ;

doubt, fearfully and wonderfully made up of a lot of other and lesser breeds without the law whom Kipling disdained to consider. But despite our murky and indeterminate origin, and despite the Anglo-Saxon phlegm which keeps our hearts off our sleeves, most of us betray our ancestors in one way or another every time we write our names, To help listeners to get right to the roots of their family trees, 1ZB now presents a session on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings, entitled "What Does Your Name Mean?" If you want to find out if your ancestors came over from France with the Conqueror, or went over to France with the August Bank Holiday excursion of ’07, send your name in and 1ZB’s etymological experts will do the rest. If you are bashful about it, no doubt you could send a nom de plume. (Answer to Correspondent: Yes, Mr, Bothamlay). Too Fatalistic At Forty Sea hawks like Hawkins and other birds-of-a-feather such as Drake were familiar (though not to the point of contempt) with the Roaring Forties, and always did the right things when they ran into them. But even men of the Elizabethan sea-dog breed may have been a little stumped when encountering the Fatalistic Forties. However perhaps for the life-lusty Elizabethan the forties were not fatalistic, perhaps they were as roaring a boomtime as any other of a man’s life. But times have changed, and to-day we forty-year-olds must accept the adjective provided by the Health Department, and listen in with resignation to 1YA’s Health in the Home talk next Tuesday morning, "The Fatalistic Forties." Colourful And Eccentric In the days before Colour was introduced into the schoolgirl’s life, by the advent of Max Factor, Walt Disney, and Cecil B. De Mille; when Romance had no chance to blossom in an atmosphere of serge skirts, hockey sticks, and promenades en crocodile, the schoolgirl was forced to resort to the Novelette to supply these two necessary ingredients so sadly lacking in her everyday life. So we may picture the schoolgirl of a generation ago concealing a candle and the latest Ouida beneath her pillow, and at dead of night burning the one and devouring the other. And in moments of great excitement (the unhealthy excitement produced by the latter) we can even imagine her reversing the process. We hope, however, that an intellectual rather than an emotional excitement will be aroused by the news that Miss Cecil Hull’s talk from 1YA on Saturday, September 26, at 10.45, "Two Eccentric Englishwomen" will deal with Harriet Martineau and--Ouida. —