THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 181, 11 December 1942, Page 2

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

EXT Sunday, December | \ 13, is the Third Centenary of the discovery of New Zealand by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman. This.was the first stage toward the unravelling of the mystery of the great unknown Southern continent which geographers for centuries believed must exist if only to redress the geographical balance of the known world. Tasman’s glimpse of New Zealand, his skirmish with Maoris and his impressions of the high mountainous coasts of New Zealand are the theme of a play "The Shadow and the Substance," to be broadcast by 1YA on Sunday, December 20, at 3 p.m. to celebrate this occasion, Silence is White Reared as we have been on the nursery adage that speech is silver and silence golden, we find the title of Mrs. Beryl Dowdeswell’s talk, "High White Silence" (Friday, December 18, from 2YA), a refutation of the time-honoured principle. But perhaps Mrs. Dowdeswell’s talk refers to the restraint exercised by tight-lipped Englishmen in high places or tight corners when Eastern potentates or Western dictators bully for vital information. However, Mrs. Dowdeswell may equally well be retailing her experiences on the starry, snowcovered roof of the world where eggs will not boil and it is impossible to make even a cup of tea over the alpine cooker, Whatever Mrs. Dowdeswell’s topic is, we shall listen with ears laid back, The Sneeze Beautiful Sternutation, commonly known as sneezing, is the convulsive sprayey noise that happens when you smell pepper or Chewing’s fescue or feathers or somebody sweeping the stair carpet, and there’s an art in doing it, according to the Health in the Home series. From 1YA on December 15, "The Art of Sneezing" will be discussed in this series, Hay fever victims would probably rather hear about the art of not sneezing. If the Health in the Home series will tell us how we, who are allergic to feathers, may once more creep under our green eiderdown with impunity, we shall send a signed testimonial saying what a success the series is. Talking Notes We have heard of musical cigarette boxes and musica! chairs, but something novel seems to be promised by the BBC production "Listen to My Notebook" from 2YA on Fridays (December 11 and 18), at 8.2 p.m. However, as the notebook belongs to J. B. Priestley, we presume it will be more concerned with a message‘ than with a melody. ~ Recordeal The stay-at-home-and-grow-fat little pigs and even the little pigs who go to market for the greater enrichment of their masters, the little pigs who enjoy a typical John Bull diet, and the little

pigs who accept the practical tenets of theosophy by eschewing fieshly things, are disregarded in this week’s pig talk in favour of the little pig who goes wee-wee-wee all the way to the broadcasting studio. "Pig Recording" opens up a hitherto unexplored field in pig possibilities. It is the perfect answer to the

proud boast of the Chicago pork cannery owner that every part of the animal is used except the squeal. So we can expect that even the most pigoted of our pig-raisers will listen with interest to the talk at 7.15 p.m. on Monday from 4YA.

New Worlds for Old "Good-night, New World" is not as ‘we might suppose, a farewell to America, but a play by H. R. Jeans produced by the NBS. The theme is the H. G. Wellsian one of a time machine in which some members of, the brave new world of

To-morrow visit our present world and follow, in a series of visits, the career of a certain disheartened doctor. Those who find this present world discouraging, will enjoy listening to this play (2YA, Wednesday, December 16, at 8.3 p.m.), in which the doctor is transported from blitzed London to the New World, there to find courage and solace in the knowledge that his unborn son is to become a great architect, and that after all he has not lived in vain. Two Operas Donizetti composed his 60 operas at a period in which opera was, above all, an exhibition of vocal tone and technique. And listeners who like hearing vocal gymnastics artistically wedded to attractive melodies should enjoy 2YA’s programme for this Sunday, December 13, at 9.27 p.m., when excerpts from two Donizetti operas, Daughter. of the Regiment and Elixir of Love will be presented, When Tesmet Found Us At the very moment when Abel Tasman and his crew were braving the wrath of murderous Maoris at Golden Bay and his enterprising map-makers were sitting in their cabins charting out the coastline of what was to be, only 300 years later, a land of such strategic importance, it is possible that Milton was sitting in his study quietly composing a sonnet or a pamphlet, and that Herrick was out in his native fields thinking wistfully of summer’s vanished blossoms. And lest during the coming Tasman tricentennial celebrations we should tend to be unmindful of these things, Professor Adams will deliver from 4YA this Friday evening (December 11), a series of readings "From English Authors Contemporary with Abel Tasman."