The Fitness of Things

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 408, 18 April 1947, Page 8

The Fitness of Things

I SUPPOSE if you are a programme arranger and have, right at the beginning, constructed seven programme moulds, one for each day of the week, you are naturally going to use them as much as possible. They have advantages. The ingredients for each day’s radio fare can be prepared well in advance, placed in cold storage, and turned out ready for consumption on the appointed day. The consumers probably like things this way, just as guests of long standing in the boarding-house who are used to boiled mutton on Wednesdays would feel a certain sense of insecurity if, instead, smoked fish presented itself. But even the most barnacle-en-crusted habitué would feel aggrieved if boiled mutton were served on Christmas Day, because it also happened to be Wednesday, and would consider his Jandlady at worst, a heathen, and at best one lacking a sense of fitness. The same could be said of those who organised the Easter programmes, particularly the programmes heard from the commercial stations. Because from 2ZB on Fridays we are accustomed to hearing She Follows Me About, Nick Carter, and the Drama of Medicine (enclosed in the usual commercials) does not mean that on Good Friday we will be satisfied with the same cold collation, with extraneous garnishing of so-called Easter Music. This was clearly a case where the usual programme should have been dispensed with, and something more suggestive of bitter herbs substituted.