1951—A YEAR OF GOOD INTENTIONS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 25, Issue 650, 14 December 1951, Page 8

1951—A YEAR OF GOOD INTENTIONS

EADERS may remember that at the beginning of 1951 we printed a collection of New Year Resolutions, Some ofthese pledges, we suspected, were not made in the appropriate mood of high seriousness: there were hints of levity, as if resolutions were thought to be mere holiday exercises or excursions. Throughout them could be traced the lamentable conviction that promises made to the self would not be kept, and could be little more than good intentions. As the year came near to its end, therefore,, we decided to ask our contributors what had happened. Had they succeeded or failed? It was, perhaps, an embarrassing question- especially for those who, we discovered, had completely forgotten their fesolutions. Still, the answers came in. Some were announcements of success; a few were admissions of failure; and others, perhaps the majority, indicated both progress and backsliding. But the contributors must speak for themselves. Their resolutions are reprinted, and below them are the reports and comments. aE % Pa

] PROPOSE to do less work in the coming year than in the one past. This will not necessarily entail greater idl , but less I begin 1951 with some such precautionary resolution I may be led by circumstances into doing not less but more than in 1950. OWARDS the end of last year I expressed the intention of doing less work in 1951 than I did in,1950. You now ask whether I succeededi Certainly I did. The carrying out of my resolution required nothing more than’a sustained lack of resolution,

R. M.

Burdon

RESOLVE, wearily, in 1951, not to listen to any episode of MHester’s Diary, The Devil’s Duchess or Dad and Dave, except the last, to any excerpts from The Bartered Bride, nor to any Quiz, Request or Sankey Singers’ Session, to switch off all ZB announcers who make matey littlé jokes about other ZB announcers, and all plays about revenants, spivs, war-time Eurcpe and seal-skin trousers; and to tolerate Danny Kaye and Jimmy Durante only on new recordings. "O keep my vow I really tried, of stifling or evading soap-opera slabs, The Bartered Bride, old jokes and HitParading, all plays of crime and suicide, and crooners’ serenading. I found my set was still and dumb more often than it sounded; my seeking for perfection’s sum by facts had been confounded, and

so to former ways I’ve come, by noise and corn surrounded. My opiate-sodden constitution abandons every resolution, believing, since it’s I who make them, none has a better right to break them.

J. C.

R.

a _--s RITICAL blinkers must be donned. We are "to encourage local talent.’’ Not reasoning why, I shall listen, bolstered by insular pride. Fewer hours with Menuhin, alas! And Solomon! But if taste wins, I can sell the radio and buy records. N irksome resolution, but fairly conscientiously kept. It brought occasional pleasant surprises, but patriotism is not enough to bridge the gulf that lies between the performance of the gifted amateur and the dedicated professional. Insular artistic standards benefit neither the audience nor the artist who is pitting himself against the

best recordings.

Loquax

Bs * bd RESOLVE to read no more Penguin detective stories, or if I do buy them (since the breaking of resolutions is half the pleasure of making them), to have the courage to be seen buying them. STILL preen myself on that unrelenting sense of purpose The Listener gives me credit for, first in suggesting that I should make New Year resolutions and second in appearing to believe that I might actually keep them. Alas! I did sneak into a shop recently and buy some Carter Dicksons. But my purity is still only slightly mottled -through simple lack of time, which alone saves me from my grosser self.

David

Hall

* % oe I CAN’T help thinking it would be a good idea if I could manage to return a few borrowed books, and answer some of the letters in the stack in front of me. (1) JONES on The Nightmare has gone back. So has The Naked and the Dead. Cetera manent. On the whole, have succeeded reasonably well: operative word-"few." '(2) Many have answered themselves. Time, the great healer. Square-off: in the middle of the paper war it is possibly no bad thing to be a paper non-

combatant,

A. R. D.

Fairburn

* * * O take such things as test cricket more calmly; prune my style and try to write some verse; read fewer detective stories; see more of my own country; relax and listen, maybe to radio, maybe to nothing; and culti-

vate my garden, including an asparagus bed in which so far hope has triumphed over experience. REFRESHED by England’s one Australian victory, I take test cricket more calmly. I have written verse and pruned my prose style; what compulsion more agreeable than this Listener invitation? Undiminished consumption of "detectives" is relaxation in the world’s barrage. I have seen more of my country, including the strike boon of the Kaikouras by day. The few stalks from my asparagus bed-a promising adoles-cent-are sweeter than the bought.

Alan

Mulgan

* * * sewer 1951 I propose to continue energetically my campaign against broadcasts and public performances of modern music in its more maniacal manifestations-i.e., as evinced by concoctions of discordant noises, pseudomusicians ‘masquerading as contemporary composers, among whom are many British examples and at least one New Zealander. Y personal resolution, to continue protesting against the flood of bad, discordant "modern" music, which threatens destruction of our finest musical standards, has succeeded in so far as it has provoked amusingly vituperative recriminations from Listener correspondents whose angry blood I have drawn. On the other hand, strangely enough, it has not yet intimidated the NZBS. I shall persevere, however, undeterred by

knowledge of King Canute’s marine rebuff, or by the story of the fat lady who ate dripping daily after reading that constant dripping wears away a

stone.

L. D.

Austin

B kev only New Year’s resolution that I can possibly make is not to make a New Year’s resolution. You see, I know myself too well. But there are a few things I would like to do resolutely throughout the year (and know I

won't). They are: Keep a diary; make notes of good ideas and not lose them immediately; start a filing system that works; not get too mad at those Listener readers who thought I was asking for ‘‘niceness’" when I suggested that New Zealand short stories should picture the suburban scene more truthfully. N re-reading my last year’s Resolution, it seems as though I shall have to explain why I haven’t done the things I said I wouldn’t be doing, anyway. Diary.-I did start, getting triumphantly as far as January 5. Notes of Good Ideas.-Never the pen, the paper and the idea together at once. Filing System-Not bad, but'a bit ricketty. The gas bill seems to gravitate to the folder marked "Film Notes"; the laundry bill to "ZB Book Reviews"; a nail file, and a book on the Habits and Care of Budgerigars turned up in the "Listener," and "Work in Progress" is jammed full of newspaper clippings which have not yet been pasted into scrap books. As for the last, I suppose I have kept that one-but more from inertia and a congenital inability to keep on keeping "mad" at anything for long, than from any lowering of the colours. I still think

I was right!

Isobel

Andrews

* * * Y own personal resolution for 1951 is to take for my own the main items of the famous code of Robert Louis StevensonTo work a little harder and with determination and intelligence. To remember enough of the past to profit by its mistakes. To worry never, but to think seriously of the future, and not only of today. To be cheerful and keep smiling. To cultivate economy and to waste nothing of value. ELIEVE it or ‘not, I have kept all but ONE-the one about not worrying. I did not ACHIEVE this Good-ness-it was THRUST UPON ME. For my Publishers demanded new Cook-book Copy immediately-so that disposed of Number One. Long experience had already taught me to observe No. 2. My ever-expanding daily Mail-bag has kept me _ cheerful; and the needs of CORSO, Darby and Joan Clubs, Red Cross, Unesco and so on have effectively controlled my attitude towards

waste.

Aunt

Daisy

* * bd RESOLVE to make my radio criticisms more constructive. It is an exquisite pleasure to demolish in a few well-chosen words @ programme that has taken six sweating (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) scriptwriters six weeks of taxpayers’ time to write, especially when one gets paid for it. Or shall I resolve to try to write a programme? Y resolution (to write pars less acerbic) proved so easy to keep that it obviously echoed some subconscious urge towards tolerance not unconnected perhaps with the approach of middle age; the years which, though powerless to provide me with a philosophic mind, have at any rate given me a philosophic outlook. Of course, my personal opinion is that I’m not so readable as I used to be, but who wants to stride to fame over a fellow-artist’s lacerated feelings?

M.

B.

2% * * nS Bes continue gradually detaching myself from }2 this world; delightedly exploring the speculations of other minds; marching cheerfully towards that moment bringing Farewell to seeking, doubt and grief, False hopes, despair, and half-belief. What lies beyond that final door I then shall know; or know no more. PLEDGED to detachment from this world, impressive stacks of Hansards were taken away-appropriately enough-by gentlemen who remove rubbish. Eight months’ devotion to detachment; then sacrifice of serenity on the altar of friendship; a wild plunge into electioneering. Rising from sackcloth and ashes, begin again the climb to the ivory tower, murmuring, with Swinburne: : From; too much love of living, From hope and fear set free; I thank with brief thanksgiving, Whatever gods there be.

J. Malton

Murray

'y SUBMIT practical resolutions, capable of fulfilment unlike my usual private impossible resolves. Next year I shall sleep longer; I shall spend. less, but more regular, time on

housework; and more time among horses (this has nothing to do with racing), and gardens. How benign, how delightful, life will perhaps be | MADE four resolutions: the first, to sleep longer, I broke in favour of the fourth, to spend more time in gardens (mostly in my own); the second, to spend less, but more regular, time on housework, I broke-that word regular was the trouble; and the third, to spend more time among horses (nothing to do with racing), I most happily kept. In such a tight schedule something had to go; and I can always try again with those tender annuals, my sleep and

housework. resolutions.

J.E.

B.

* * > RGANISE an economic community of friends who will each specialise in one spare-time activity-shoe-repairing, film-de-veloping, house-painting, laundry-work, win-dow-cleaning, typing, and every other job which it is impossible to get done or ruinous to pay for. Thus reduce the present dissipation of everyone’s leisure into fifty odd-jobs all badly done. Also adopt bulk-buying within this community. HE system made no provision for evaluating and recording the work done by various members. We needed an Augustine currency and have begun printing notes. Thus we shall all have two more jobs instead of other people’s fifty, and two incomes, one of them taxfree. We hope eventually to make our

currency interchangeable with that of other private groups which are doubtless springing up all over the country.

Augustus

O strike the happy medium between effort and relaxation, so that having done a satisfactory amount of work increases the pleasure of taking things easy. S is the rule with makers of resolutions (the floor of hell, etc.) I slumped badly and loafed for three months; however, in sheer disgust at having to put up with my own ego so much I snapped out of it without the aid of any resolution and am now

working.

F. L.

Combs

* * k (*To construct fifty-two Crossword Puzzles within the first month of 1951 so that my week-ends for the rest of the year may be gloriously untrammelled; to please everyone by using no anagrams, no quotations, no dictionary definitions, no references to films, plays, books, sports or hobbies with which some addicts may not be conversant; and NEVER, in ANY circumstances, to add to the Editor’s worries by missing the mail.’’"--Ed.) HAT happened to my Personal Resolution? Was I able to carry it out, and if not, why not? Was I rash enough to make one? I must have done, to have the Editor ask these embarrassing questions twelve months later. ! What on earth was it?* I can’t find a copy of it anywhere, and I stopped hoarding my Listeners some time in 1945 when they overflowed from the shelves in the garage, so I can’t look it up. But speaking from past experience, I should say I broke it before January

was over,

R. W.

C.

POSTSCRIPT.-No resolutions are being solicited for 1952, ee eae eae