Auckland Notes

Radio Record, Volume VI, Issue 14, 14 October 1932, Page 9

Auckland Notes

By

Neutron

‘THE Szigeti relay, as heard through IXA, was an outstanding success. Jn fact the transmission seemed to bring us not only the artistry of a masterp but. the very atmosphere of the concert hall. It isn’t often that tense Silence can be effectively broadcast, but it was so ‘in this case. We in the north heard Szigeti’s magic and the hushed Silence of the big audience, then the tumult of applause. The rélay really took listeners into the heart of a musical triumph and it can be said that re- . ception was perfect at this end. Surely all listeners will appreciate the Board’s enterprise in this matter-and it ‘should be added that no visiting artiste ever had a more wonderful advertisement. It is a very safe bet that Szigeti’s northern tour will benefit as a result of the Wellington relay. It is to be hoped that the policy as disclogsed by the Bradman and Szigeti relays wilk’ be steadily developed. \ ® a o@ HURSDAY evening’s Orphans’ Club concert was a better balanced programme than has been usual of late with 1YA. With a sound backhone of numbers by the Orphans Orchestra- which is in accord with listeners pre-ferences-there was good vocalising and some capital elocution. Personally I thoroughly enjoyed Mr. J. W. Bailey’s musical monologue, "The Difference." Quite often spoken things that might do well enough from the \ platform, when the speaker is visible, fail to "get over," on the air. The radio suecess or otherwise of such an item depends quite largely on the speaker’s choice and in this instance the choice was a happy one. There was humour, 2 surprise ending and at the last a flash of pathos. The whole programme was enjoyable: so too was the evening with the Savoy Quartette on Wednesday. » 2 & ON Tuesday Professor R. M. Algie took 1YA listeners to Finland, land of a thousand lakes, which, said the speaker, should really be the land of fifty thousand lakes. One and a half times the area of New Zealand, with four times our population, listeners gathered that it is a paradise for the ladies and architects. Winland was the -first country in Burope to give women the vote, and every bride is allowed to bring in her trousseau free of all duty. (Now our tariff is being revised, how aboyt all our bachelor M.P’s ’phoning Mr¢ Downie Stewart on the subject--or is the suggestion a breach of privilege?) Then the architecture of Helsingfors, the capital, it was suggested, would give four aces and a. beating to our Dominion towns. The Finns make even their gasworks look beautiful, while their railway station is a model for all Nurope. The professor, who in everyday life discourses on law at Auckland. ’Varsity, when not climbing mountains, painted an interesting word picture of his visit to a progresgive country and a friendly people. h * e * "QKIPPER," who blows the postman’s birthday whistle each Thursday from 1YA and does other things to entertain the kiddies, had a kindly brainwave a little while back. He disgovered that the children in the Auck-

land Hospital’s isolation ward were really isolated. Cut right off from friends and relatives, had no wireless to help pass the Jong lonely time. "Skipper" set out to remedy this through an appeal to his young friends to provide the funds to instal radio in the isolation ward. Last week he announced that he had received £79, and told of one little girl of Herne Bay who planned and car through a penny concert at her school and so secured £1 for the fund. "Skipper" was justly entitled to sing’ a paeu of triumph, which ended :- "And alenost any day There'll be music for sick children Coming through from 1YA." The idea and the result entitle the originator and the children and grownzups who helped to warm, congratular tions. 2 a (GERMAN conditions were made ap pallingly clear by Mr. N..R. King-ston-Smith in 1¥A’s. W.E.A. session on Wednesday. Very few of us have re alised what this has meant to New Zealand. Britain js of course our best customer, but most would expect that, normally, the U.S.A. would raak sec. ond in trade with us. However, Germany held that position before 1914which seems a millenium ago. Now with German wages cut, not 10, but 40 and 50 per cent., and German imports restricted to 27 per. cent. of the 1929 figures, our trade with Germany is exceedingly small. And the currency smash-up of 1923 is something that suggests New Zealand can still be described as the Fortunate Isles, Fancy the considerable life savings of a family being turned into nearly enough to buy a suit of clothes and the annual pension of a civil servant being almost sufficient to buy a box of matches. And then when things looked up everybody borrowed from abroad, till States, munitipalities and individuals were up to the eyebrows in debt with, after the present collapse, nothing to pay with. It wasn’t a, cheerful picture ag the lecturer presented it, but it had the ring of truth--and its always best to know the worst. & F e (CAPTAIN FALCON continuing his exposition of India’s North-west Frontier problems, revealed himself as the world’s champion egg-eater: he might be described as hard-boiled on that subject. On a tour of inspection -I believe it was done in a day-as the honoured guest of various Pathan villages, he ate, among a variety of other fodder, 36 hardboiled eggs. In the evening his batman announced, as a treat-more hard-boiled eggs, Just for the moment the gallant Captain felt he would rather face a hungry tiger than the insidious egg. However, he’s in form again.now and the Government should secure his services at once, as well as those of more Indian Army officers. Such a move would re store prosperity to our harassed poultrymen far more effectively and at mauch less cost than a dozen wheat cargoes from "Aussie," ® & s F all 1YA’s talks this week i enjoyed most Miss I. M. Cranwell's "Food Plants ef the Maori." She knew

her subject and made it interesting. Also she dropped a hint that might lead to the establishment of a new industry, Fern root dried and pounded, she said, was & most valuable food and was regarded as a specific against sea-sickness, How ahout our scientific researchers following up the trail? There's a fortune in it for anyone who will make our national emblem, the silver fern, the sheet-anchor for distressed ocean voyagers, The importation of kumara, yam, taro, paper mulberry, gourds, ete., by the Maori migrants around 600 yeatg ago, the ceremonial cultivation

of these with the final turning to the Bast, even the pollination of the gourd flowers by the Maoris, was well told by the speaker. Her picture of olden Maori life and agriculture was something all New Zealanders should be able to see. The fact that the Maori with little flesh food, no grain, and no milk, preserved his fine physique is an interesting dietic fact, while the statement that coast native women eating seaweed and fish were free from goitre while the inland women were’ subject to it, is one more proof of the need of iodine in the food ration,