THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 278, 20 October 1944, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

MONDAY F you haven’t heard of Hoodoo McFiggins, or Gertrude the Governess, or the baby who swallowed the entire Christmas dinner, you won’t have heard of boarding-howse geometry, or the hero who flung himself upon his horse and rode off madly in all directions. You may even think that Literary Lapses is a treatise on the immoral life of writers. But if you are a lover and a reader of Leacock,. you will know better, and you will listen to the BBC programme to be broadcast from 2YA on Monday, October 23, at 7.43 p.m. Also worth notice: 2YA, 8.10 p.m.: Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet. 3YA, 9.25 p.m.: Haydn Trio No. 14 (studio). TUESDAY \WHEN George Bernard Shaw advocated simplified spelling a year or two ago, he took the word nearest to hand to illustrate his point-his own surname. "Why," asked Mr. Shaw, "should I have to use two symbols, S and H, when one would do?" Punch, quick to see the point, took the matter up on its Charivaria page, and inquired "Since when has Mr. Shaw taken any notice of anyone who said ‘Sh’?" In practice, of course, Mr. Shaw wastes very little time over the superfluous letters of English spelling. He writes in shorthand, in what a friend of his used to call "the Pitfall system," and leaves it to a secretary to spell out the words the world waits to hear. For Mr. Shaw, then, escape from the trials of spelling is a thing of the present. For Professor R. Lawson, of Otago, it is an "Idea for the Future." Hear his talk on it at 7.15 p.m. on Tuesday, October 24. Also worth notice: 2YA, 9.40 p.m.: Mass in Five Voices (Byrd). 3YL, 8.0 p.m.: Russian Music. WEDNESDAY . E’VE always known that there’s more in the sea than ever came out of it. So, no doubt, did the old lady from the country whom Punch portrayed looking at the ocean for the first time and listening incredulously to her friend’s assurance that there was a lot more water underneath, too. And science has taught us what some maritime peoples have probably known for cen-turies-the value of edible seaweeds. For an A.C.E. talk on this subject, "There’s More in the Sea Than Fish," tune to 4YA at 10.0 a.m. on Wednesday, October 25. Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.0 p.m.: Trio in D Minor (Mendelssohn ). 3YA, 9.30 p.m.: Music by Purcell. THURSDAY ARLIER this year a professor of dairying was quoted in the Press as having said that anyone who took up farming was taking up an admirable form of life, which is simultaneously a hobby and an entertainment, a remark which must have frightened many farmers who feel they have enough taxation. to meet already without being threatened with an entertainment tax on top of it all. But the professor was only expressing a sentiment that has always been in the hearts of citydwellers, who cherish romantic and altogether delightful notions about the spiritual joys of the life of the sower,

i tl the shepherd and the reaper. Haymaking, to the city worker, is another of those entertainment-hobbies that only the lucky farmer can now enjoy, but his chance is coming. J. W. Calder is to talk about "Haymaking" from 3YA at 7.15 p.m. on Thursday, October 26. Also .worth notice: 2YC, 8.0 p.m.: Quartet No. 1 (Bax). 4YA, 8.0 p.m.: Music by Handel. FRIDAY HERE was a time when you could buy a piece of old furniture for a song-perhaps a kitchen table that only needed a bit of attention with sandpaper and a pot of paint, or a Morris chair that any handy man could restore to good condition with a length of webbing, a new covering and a few tacks. But try it now, and you'll discover that the kind of old furniture you can get for a reasonable price is nothing to make a song about. If you sigh for those other days, you may be interested to know that a whole cycle of songs about "Old Furniture," written by Claude Arundale, is to be heard from 3YA at 7.30 p.m. on Friday, October 27, sung by Jean Maclachlan, in the studio. There are five songs in the set"Under the Hammer," "Old Furniture," "The Toby Jug," "The Spinning Wheel" and "The Spinet." Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.15 p.m.: "Emperor" Conterto (Beethoven). 3YA, 8.34 p.m.: Music by J. S. Bach. SATURDAY " CE upon a time there were four little rabbits... . "Now, my dears," said Old Mrs. Rabbit one morning, "You may go into the fields or down the lane, but don’t go into Mr. McGregor’s garden; your father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor. . . ." So begins one of the very best children’s story-books of the last two generations-‘"Peter Rabbit." Beatrix Potter, the author of this and many other delightful little books, died early this year, and the BBC produced a programme in her memory, which will be heard from 1YA at 5:0 p.m. on Saturday, October 28. It revives all the little characters she drew from lifethe animals and birds of the hedgerows around her own home in CumberlandSquirrel Nutkin, Mrs. Tiggywinkle, the Tailor of Gloucester, Jemima Puddleduck and the rest. Also worth notice: 1YX, 9.0 p.m.: Symphony No. 6 (Sibelius). 3YL, 8.0 p.m.: Music by Beethoven. SUNDAY LISTENERS to 2YA recently heard for the first time "Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo," set for tenor and piano by the English composer Benjamin Britten, and on Sunday, October 29, these songs will be heard from 2YH, Napier. W. McNaught, music critic to the BBC Listener, says they are the best set of songs that have appeared in England for a generation. "Beautiful melodies are not easily come by," he writes, "but Britten’s songs are not of a melodic cast. . . . Their fragments of speech, lyrical or dramatic, form themselves freely, yet fall into a design that is in the first place musical." Also worth notice: 1YA, 3.30 p.m.: "The Song of the Earth" (Mahler). 3YA, 3.0 p.m.: Boston Symphony Orchestra,