Four-way Stretch

New Zealand Listener, Volume 25, Issue 630, 27 July 1951, Page 11

Four-way Stretch

HOPE I am wrong in supposing that this switching of women’s panels between the four centres is an attempt to wean us from our personal loyalties and forcibly feed us on a more varied diet. I am a strong believer in the value of the personal factor in communicating the idea (who would accept a handy hint that didn’t come from Aunt Daisy?), and we had just got to the stage with our Wellington panel of knowing them

I personally rather than merely as respecting their undoubted intelligence. When you don’t know people you are in danger of attaching too much weight to their opinions, especially if these opinions are delivered with the NZBS hallmark upon them. When you listen to the same people every week for a month

or so, you gather enough of their personal, background to be able to screen their opinions in terms of it. Then you develop special affinities-you get into the habit of relying on the good sense of those whose opinions most nearly echo your own, Finally, a constant listener, you are able to appreciate the interplay of personality within the panel, you collect little scraps of gossip that enable you to follow the game more intelligently. But now our pleasure-with-profit panel listening is to be restricted to once a month, and even if our loyalty to the idea of listening to panel discussion glues us to the set every Wednesday at the usual time, it will take months of patient listening to get our

dossiers up to date.

M.

B.