The Spectrum and Us

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 776, 4 June 1954, Page 23

The Spectrum and Us

N American lighting engineer once invited some friends to a dinner party. The food was magnificent, but as the guests sat down the lighting changed. Steaks turned a bilious grey, the celery pink, the milk blood-red, the eggs blue and the coffee yellow. The dinner was a sickening failure, but the engineer’s experiment an outstanding success. He had proved, if proof were needed, that we eat, in part, with our eyes. There are, however, many more pleasant illustrations of the effects of colour. Some of these will be given shortly by Valerie Scott, of Wellington, in a series of recorded talks to be broadcast in .Women’s Programmes from X stations. Entitled Colour in Everyday Life, the series deals with colour-as applied to the home, to clothes, to food. and to enlivening social occasions. There are even a few hints for harassed mothers: "If you have difficulty in making your child drink milk, add a few drops of cochineal. No child can resist the novelty of pink milk." Miss Scott, who is engaged in advertising and publicity work, is deeply interested in the effects of colour on people, and claims to have read most of the available literature on the subject. Outside of her work, this knowledge assists in her leisure occupations of stage designing for the theatre and the making of pottery. Colour in Everyday Life starts first from 2XP, New Plymouth, on. Tuesday, June 8. At fortnightly intervals thereafter it will start from Whangarei, Gisborne, Wanganui, Nelson and Timaru. In each case it will be broadcast in the Women’s Se$sion.