THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 347, 15 February 1946, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

MONDAY ONDAY has always been a black day, and it looks like becoming darkness visible now that the baked meats of the week-end are followed so irrevocably by the stalé bread-crusts of Monday morning’s toast. In fact, we can’t understand why 3YA’s garden expert should pile Pelion on Ossa by selecting Monduy for a talk on "Garden Weeds" (February 18, 7.15 p.m.). If only Burbank (qv. Tuesday) had spent less time in evolving new and hardier varieties of potato and prune, and concentrated a trifle more of his energy on developing weaker varieties of weed, we feel sure that 3YA’s expert would be in a position to speak more reassuringly than we suspect he will. Also worth notice: 2YA, 7.15 p.m.: ‘"‘Pernicious Weed .. . Sublime Tobacco."’ 3YA, 9.25 p.m.: Music by Brahms. TUESDAY OR the talk in her series "Rambles with a Botanist" next Tuesday, Feb‘Tuary 19, Rewa Glenn has chosen Luther Burbank, the most famous of all plant breeders, as the subject. Though Burbank, who died just on 20 years ago, was influenced from the beginning by Darwin, and though his 50 years of continuous experimentation might well be described as the practical application of scientific theory, he himself disclaimed any scientific intention. "I shall be contented," he said once, "if, because of me, there shall be better fruits and fairer flowers." Just how splendidly he succeeded, those who listen to Miss Glenn will have an opportunity of learning }(2YA, 11.0 a.m.). _ Also worth notice: 1YX, 8.16 p.m.: Concerto in F Major, K.459 (Mozart). | 4YA, 7.17 p.m.: "Cattle at the Crossroads" | (BBC farm talk) WEDNESDAY EXCEPT for the few who are in a position to shoot a net or switch a fishing-rod in the North Canterbury ‘Trivers at the appropriate season, salmon | have been as scarce in the last six years as kind words at a UNO conference. But there may be better times ahead and until they come the best substitute we can suggest (apart from spam or bobby shrimp paste) is to hear about salmonfishing. Station 2YD_ provides this spiritual release in its new serial, The Silver Horde, beginning at 7.20 p.m. on Wednesday, February 20. Adapted from the book by Rex Beach, it is all about the wild men of the north-west American seaboard, who eat what they can and can what they can’t. Also worth notice: 4 1YA, 8.0 p.m.: Quartet in G Minor (Debussy). 2YA, 9.25 p.m.: Palace of Varieties. THURSDAY [Tt is sad to think how birth-marks have lost their glamour, in these days of scientific finger-printing. The Army still records with precision "large mole, lower dextral lumbar region" or some such detail of blemish or flaw, but we feel that never again will birth-marks decide the fate of nations by identifying orphaned princes or pretenders, as they often did in the -books we once read. Not that this detracts from the value 1 soe

of birth-marks to the writer of fiction. We have not forgotten our delight at that- line in Holy Matrimony, "Is the mole hirsute?" or Monty Woolley’s attempts to keep his collar on. So listen to "The Birth-marks," in the Drama in Cameo series (2YA, Thursday, February 21, 3.15 p.m.). It may bear out what we've been saying. Also worth notice: 1YX, 8.0 pim.: ‘Trout’ Quintet (Schubert). 4YA, 9.25 p,m.: ’Cello Concerto (Dvorak). FRIDAY HERE ig nothing so consoling to the sufferer as to learn that someone else is suffering too. If one cannot get tobacco, or a house,.or’a seat on the Limited, if one has hay-fever or grass-staggers or the grippe, then it is balm-at least to one’s soul-to commune with others upon whom Circtimstance has the same fell clutch. That is why we expect to listen with mournful pleasure to the radio play "It’s Hard to Get News," from 2YA on Friday, Fehruary 22 (3.0 p.m.). The essence of news is the unexpected, and we can’t expect anything unexpected while the silly season is still with us. Put wait till the football season begins! Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.32 p.m.: Symphony No. 7 in C Major (Sibelius). : 4YA, 9.48 p.m.: Seventh String Quartet in E Flat (Milhaud). ; SATURDAY ARY SCOTT has been talking to New Zealanders about backblocks life for some years, but she has no difficulty in finding something new to say. Herself a town girl who married a farmer on a bush farm in the days when good roads were far less numerous than they are now, she knows the life at first-hand and has a keen eye for the humorous and the dramatic. "A Farm Woman’s Diary," her new series, which begins from 2YA at 11.0 am. on Saturday, February 23, could;-she says, be the diary of any country woman. So listen to it-if only to find out how often it coincides witl your own experience. Also worth notice: 1YX, 9.45 p.m.: ’Cello Concerto (Elgar). 3YL, 8.0 p.m.: Music by Mozart. SUNDAY "T)ISHONOUR BY MY DESTINY," which will be heard from 2YA for the first time at 9.32 p.m. on Sunday, February 24, is a play by the Australian writer Maxwell Dunn on the life of W. T. G. Morton, the American dentist who pioneered the use of ether as an anaesthetic, and who was recently the subject of a Hollywood film, The Great Moment. A Boston chemist suggested the use of sulphuric ether to Morton, who was seeking means to lessen the pain of extractions, and the first successful extraction under ether was made by Morton in September, 1846. Actually the first operation under ether had been performed in 1842 by a doctor named Crayford, but Morton first made the idea known to the medical world. But he gained no financial benefit from his work and died in poverty in 1868. Dunn’s © play has been produced by the NBS. Also worth notice: 3YA, 8.5 pm.: "Drum-roll Symphony" (Haydn). 4YA, 9.22 p.m.: Septet in E Flat (Beethoven). ’