The Chit-Chat Club

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 10, 23 September 1927, Page 3

The Chit-Chat Club

Points from Papers Put "Over the Air."

(Set Down by

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‘Well," said Hargost, "you can believe it or not as you like, but I tell you my secret is worth £1,000,000," and leaning forward in his chair, he blinked behind his huge horn-rimmed glasses in the way in which had earned for him the nickname "Blinks." "You wouldn’t be here to-night if it were," said Harrison, trying hard to hide ‘his curiosity. The "wireless bugs" of the X club were seated round the fire discussing the iniquities of artists and announcers when Blinks gave vent to his astounding statement. | "Tt’s rotten of Blinks to go upsetting us like that," said Winton Thribs, ‘just when we were nice and cosy too. If your secret is any good you'd better tell it to us, and we may be ahte tp do something with it.’ —

‘"-Poor old Winton," said Blinks devisively. "Can’t get the ‘vot am Yr touch out of him. Got visions of floating the ‘Thribs Terrific Tempter’ company, or something I suppose. My secret was given over the wireess."’ "Well, what the Devil use is it?" said the oldest member irascibly. "You don’t think you're the only fool-with a wireless set do you? If every idiot | has heard it...." | "The asylums will be making huge profits," chipped in Harrison. "T suppose you thought you were going to be in on it, you old sinner... At your age, too. You should be thinking of

higher things." | "The secret," said Blinks, determined to be impressive still, ‘"‘was given in a lecture by Mr. Stanley S. Bull, a member of the London Authors’ Society. His lecture dealt with the choosing of a career for your "Good Lord," said Harrison, "T heard it myself. I might have known you were pulling our legs. What did you think of it?" "Well," said Blinks judicially, "I liked it, and I didn’t, if you can understand." , "Oh, yes, perfectly clear-just like mud," said the oldest member contemptuously, delighted to have the opportunity of getting one back on

a tormentor. "What I mean," said Blinks, "is that the address on the whole was a very good one, but it seemed a little padded in places. Of course, I daresay there would be plenty of people who enjoyed every word, and certainly the ideas were sound enough." ‘Where does the £1,000,000 come in?" asked Thribs, who still apparently had visions of adding an honest penny’ to his income. "Jim coming to that,’ retorted Blinks, "Mr. Bull said that the most awful thing in the world to-day was the number of fellows who were square pegs in round holes." "By jove, he’s right there," said Thribs. "Every time I look round my office staff, I think there’s half of them like that."

"We said that parentS always worry a great deal about their boys and what they are to become, and very often force them into uncongenial occupations, or asked the schoolmaster. After all the poor schoolmaster has enough to do to teach them, and he really doesn’t, or rather shouldn’t, know them as well as a parent. And another thing he said, with which I quite agree, was that the kids with the wealthy parents started off with a handicap."

"Oh, I don’t know about that," said Thribs, who had followed his father into a well-established business, and who was on the way to haying more than his fair share of this world’s goods himself. "When I look at you I think he was,’ said Harrison, which silenced Thribs for the time. "What about that infernal million?" said the oldest member, who thought he was being cheated out of something. "He summed it up in one word,’ said Blinks. "And the word?" queried Larton. "HEALTH!" "He’s perfectly right," said Brenton, who was a keen physical culturist, "and we know the way to get it."

"Oh..." said the oldest member disgustedly. ‘What the Devil’s the use of that information? Ive got health, but I’m cursed if I’ve got a million." "Pye had a_ fair bit of ill-health myself when I was younger," said Blinks, "and I reckon as long as a chap has his health he hasn’t much to worry about. Bull’s idea is to leave Nature alone and let her guide the boy to his future, but try and give him HEALTH. Get him in a healthy state of mind and body and his future will be sound." "Tis a problem knowing what to do with a boy these days, though." said Harrison. "Let Nature decide, and I do believe, like Mr. Bull, that things will ha O.K." said Blinks. : |

"Talking of present day problems, said Wishart, "reminds me of that second address that Captain Fellowes, that British Air Ministry chap, gave from 2YA, This airship business and the speeding up of our communications is a problem in itself." "Tig going to be a great help to our Empire," said Drexter, who was ever a firm patriot. "With quicker communication between the Dominions and the Motherland, we will each be able to keep in better touch with the other." "T ean’t quite understand why this airship question has just sprung into prominence," said Blinks. ‘They

must have developed them pretty rapidly." , "No, most people have that impression, too," said Wishart, "but the second address dealt with that part of it, and showed that there has been a very steady development since pre-war years. It is only recently that the ‘powers that be’ have realised that the airship with its accommodation for numbers, offered the best means of passage for air traffic. Airships were written down during the war, to discount the Zeppelin danger, and they had to be produced too fast to make the improvements safe from the viewpoint of civil aviation. "But they haven’t made any big censational flights in airships,’ said

Blinks. ; "Oh, yes, they have," retorted Wishart, "In 1927 a German airship flew 4,200 miles in 96 hours, right to East Africa, travelling over hostile country much of the way, and in 1919 a British airship flew the Atlantic in 108 hours. Two or three noted German airships have made long flights and carried thousands of passengers, and in 1924, the United States airship, the Shenandoah, flew 8,100 miles in 22 days, and moored for a time at a mast in each city she visited. Beeause of the accidents which happened to some of these airships, the British Government appointed committees of experts to investigate the | various problems. Experiments cost-| ing several hundred thousand pounds were undertaken and as a result of these airship travel between England and the Dominions will shortly be pos-

sible." | "We weren’t meant to leave the; ground," said the oldest member. "And according to you we weren’t | meant to have wireless either,’’ said ; Blinks. "It’d be a great world if we | ‘were never to progress." Wireless sets-nothing but spluttering contraptions....’’ started the oldest member. "With the advantage of being able | to shut them up when you want to," interposed Blinks, effectually stopping the flow.

"Talking of programmes," Said } Drexter, who prided himself on tak- | ing an interest in art, "I heard a very | good address on Byron last weekgiven by Mr. Stanley Bull, the chap with Blinks’ million pound secret." _ "He was a profligate if you like,’ | said the oldest member severely, ‘and even worse than some of you | modern young fellows." "Yes, he certainly was an absolute | Lotter," agreed Drexter, "Lut from what Bull said you can see that it was partly hereditary, and partly his | early training that were respectable. Anyway you can’t get away from itthe man was a genius. Mr. Bull

s ranked him next to Shakespeare. "J’'d put Kipling above Aim," said Blinks, who was an ardent admirer

of all Kipling verse, and never discriminated between a genius and a born poet and songster. "I never could stand the way these chaps like Byron ambled on through about a hundred verses." "His verse out to be barred," said the oldest member fiercely. Immoral, that’s what it is-and so was he." "The evil that men do...." said Harrison. "Childe Harold is one of the most wonderful things in the English language," said Drexter. "Byron’s "weaknesses have been the subject of endless books. He certainly was. highly temperamental, but surely we. ‘can accept his genius now. His life was a sad one and so was his end. He lived with a crowd of wonderful poets and writers and numbered

among his friends Shelly, Lom Moore, Campbell, Wordsworth and Sir Walter Scott. What a galaxy of genius ane Byron towered above them all.’ "But you can’t get away from the fact that he was a spoilt society darling," said Blinks. "Ror a time, yes’ said Drexter, "but he died alone, and almost forgotten. He travelled in Europe and Asia and after writing some of his finest poems returned to England to be lionised. But when he went East again he gradually fell from bad to worse, and eventually died almost. without a friend. It’s all very well to harp on his vices, but time should have softened the memory of those." "After all,’ said Brenton, the ontdoor fiend, "poets have only limited uses. Give me the explorer. What is Byron compared with Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher, and those men who | have carried the English flag to every

corner of the world? "Everyone can’t be an explorer," said Thribs. "Nor an exploiter either," said Blinks, with a sly glance at Winton whose "ten per cent. principles," as Blinks ealled them, were well known to the X club members. "There’s a jolly fine series of lectures ‘on the air’ just now, by Lieutenant Gordon Burt," said Brenton. "Te was a member of the British Antarctic expedition under Commander Worsley in 1925. He has already given one address dealing with early attempts at arctic exploration, and if his others are anything like the first, I’m going to make a bird of them." By this time the hour had advanced so far that it was time for the members to be wending their way to their several homes, so after ‘just one more’ they bid each other a cheerful good night and departed for dinnec and the evening programme of listenin. .

Just for You "ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS." "CONQUESTS IN THE AIR." "A SECRET WORTH £1,000,000." "BYRON-THE PROFLIGATE GENIUS." a? Se