THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 540, 28 October 1949, Page 26

THINGS TO COME

Man From Tonypandy A BBC producer, Tom Ronald, found "himself in a minority of one when he put 6n the air Cliff Gordon’s play, This Vale of Tears. Everybody else connected with the production was Welsb, so listeners can count on an authentic atmosphere when they hear this comedy of Welsh working-class life. Gordon has had a good deal of success recently both as a playwright and an actor of Welsh characters. The leading man in This Vale of Tears is Donald Houston, who, in spite of his Scottish sounding name, is a Welshman from Tonypandy. He is a former Bevin boy (one of the young men who signed on for work in the pits) but he exchanged the coal face for the microphone and the film camera. This Vale of .Tears will be broadcast by 3YA at 9.48 p.m., on Monday, October 31, The Big Race HAR LAP, the New Zealand wonder horse who died in America (probably of poisoning) after his sensational winning of the Agua Caliente Handicap, did not have to go to America to meet with malevolent gangsters. A few years earlier he had become the centre of one of Australia’s greatest race sensations when, on the Saturday morning before his Melbourne Cup victory in 1930, he was shot at, unsuccessfully, by men in a motor car. The Red Terror, as he was familiarly known, went on to win the big race carrying 9.2 and ridden by James E. Pike, He won bya good three lengths, and although the time, 3.2734, was slow, the odds of 11 to 8 on made him the shortest Melbourne Cup favourite in history. Nobody knows whether any sensational event will occur this year, but listeners will be able to hear a commentary on the 89th running of the greatest race in the Southern Hemisphere at 5.0 p.m. (approximately) on Tuesday, November 1. It will be broadcast from the YA and YZ stations. Carcass Rejection ao \WHaT are the causes of carcass rejection? In the case of Sam Cairncross’s freezing works study On the Hooks (which was recently offered as a gift to the National Art Gallery) no reasons for its rejection were given by the selection committee. Farmers, however, may know that 5000 sheep are rejected annually by freezing works in New Zealand because of bruises and other defects. In a recorded talk to be broadcast in 2YA’s Farm Session at 7.12 p.m. on Tuesday, November 1, L. W. Rose discusses this question. Fire and tar brands, horn gashes, and stains may also cause partial or complete rejection, while the presence of hydatids results in 80 per cent. of lambs’ livers and kidneys being unsuitable for export, Some sheep and lamb livers can be cleaned by trimming, but with cattle only 10 per cent. of the livers can be used. In most cases of rejection the remedy, Mr. Rose says, lies in the farmer’s own hands, and those who listen in on Tuesday night may get a few ideas as to what can be done. Bier: Homework y "y HOULD school children have to do homework? That’s an old problem that has been thrashed out in many a teachers’ common room, but a few new ideas on the subject are included in the first of a series of talks to be broadcast

from 3YA under the title Teacher’s Diary, starting in the Mainly for Women session at 10.0 a.m. on Tuesday, November 1. The author does not, for professional reasons, want his name to be published, but admits that his talks are of a general nature, dealing with ordinary children and their behaviour, not

with child psychology, complexes, or repressions. They are told as if he were reminiscing out loud, the first on "Homework for Children," the second about quarrels at school, and the third and fourth, under the heading "A Roomful of Children," describing the types of personality that occur in a classroom again and again, The Arts in Auckland T is one of the -oddities of human nature that frequently the people least well informed about a particular town or district include those who have been born there and have lived there all their lives. It is not impossible, therefore, that many. Aucklanders are cheerfully unaware of what has been happening within their native city in the field of the arts during the past 12 months. Arts in Auckland, a series,of four talks now being broadcast by 1YA at 7,15 p.m. on Thursdays, should do much to enlighten them as well as to stimulate those who are already interested in the subject, L. C, M. Saunders, spéaking on music, began the series on October 27. Other speakers and their subjects are A. C. Hipwell, "Art," November 3; R. T. Bowie, "Films," November 10; and Ernest McDonald, "Drama," November 17. Each talk will include a critical survey of recent local developments, For Gastronomes Only F:ATING, said the French philosopher La Rochefoucauld, is a necessitybut eating inteHigently is an art. Ever since the time of Ecclesiastes (who said

there was no better thing under the sun than to eat, drink, and be merry) men have been devising ways of making the food they eat taste better, but modern

CoOKiIng really dates from the time of Napoleon, when the French substituted the "made dish’"’ for masses of roast meat, piled in pyramidal form and held together by skewers. Today gastronomy is an art that demands the co-opera-

tion of all the senses. The crispness of fried dishes and pastry, the odours of seasonings of herbs and truffles, the softness of well-thickened sauces or the succulent freshness of fruit, give more pleasure to the true gastronome than he gets from listening to a symphony, hearing a poem read, or gazing at a beautiful building. If you too enjoy these things, you should tune in to the programme being broadcast from 3YZ at 11.0 a.m, on 'Wednesday, November 2. Its title is Are You a Gastronome? R.L.S. Short Story AN adaptation by Keith D. Williams of Robert Louis Stevenson’s short story Providence and the Guitar, which was produced originally in the BBC Home Service by Noel Iliff, will be heard from 1YA at 3.30 p.m, on Sunday, November 6. It presents a night in the life of a 19th Century troubadour, Monsieur Leon Berthelini. One day he and his wife descend with two boxes and a guitar at the station of the little town of Castel-le-Gachis. Before they leave it the guitar, their voices, and the bonhomie of M.. Berthelini bring them a passage of arms with the Commissioner of Police, a meeting with the Mayor, and a collection totalling Fr, 3.75. And that is not all; they are locked out of their hotel, win the friendship of a penniless English tourist and reconcile a struggling painter and his wife. The part of M. Berthelini is played by Rudolph Offenbach and ‘his wife by Gladys Spencer.