In Two Latitudes

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 393, 3 January 1947, Page 11

In Two Latitudes

N a recent Monday evening at 6.45 there was an awful struggle between Thomas Handley and Donald G. Bradman. Bradman was in the early stages of his double century, scratching a little; Handley was in Tomtopia, hatching plenty. The new ITMA series, transmitted by the BBC Pacific Service every Monday, presented Handley starting off for the moon in a rocket, mainly to escape Miss Hotchkiss, but’ the rocket knew where it was going and landed in Tomtopia. Although the Colonel is still with us, some new faces have appeared. Mona Lott, Handley’s Laundress, brings his washing and tells him of the troubles of her relations, amongst whom are Stinker Lott, her friendless cousin, and Poppa Lott, her uncle, a martyr to indigestion. The Brigadier, a nephew of the Colonel’s, has a frenzy for physical fitness, but Handley and the Colonel silence him with scandalous reminiscences of his mother, Crafty Clara. Dan Dungeon, an old retainer, lets fly with paleolithic puns and a sepulchral laugh, while Sir Percy Palaver, the new Governor, invariably speaks with his mouth full of cheery stones and hot porridge. Obviously these are people to cultivate, but who could listen to them with a quiet mind while Bradman was reaching forward tentatively to Wright, and being at least morally bowled two or three times? So I switched back and forth, wandering unhappily between Sydney and Tomtopia, and in the process probably developing a_ split personality worthy of the attention of Georges Simenon or Hollywood.