This World of Ours

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 34, 3 February 1939, Page 2

This World of Ours

S| 6y

JOHN

GUTHRIE

sHEVHO wrote this stuff?’’ asked Producer Sam Goldwyn when the incidental music to a certain film did not please him. ‘‘Mozart,’’ was the reply. ‘‘Wire him!’’ said Goldwyn. ‘Get someone more jazzy.’’ Co & & "The jamboree had been most successful and the boys had thoroughly enjoyed themselves. During the whole trip there had not been a single breach of con-duct.-News item. Business men in the main cities last week went scurrying

about their work with a hunted look in their eyes when the newspapers reported that the Boy Scouts had returned from the Sydney jamboree, none of them knowing when one of the boys would do them a bad turn. Cub Hyphen-Smythe, of the Wolves Patrol, endorsing the ‘news report of good conduct, said that, except for a few snakes put in the beds of the less popular boys so that the others could do them a good turn by mak‘ing an incision and sucking out the poison afterwards, the trip had been devoid of incident. Most of the scoutmasters changed into longs on arriving at Wellington, the knickers being little protection in the capital, said one chap, and he’d like to know how a Highland regiment was going to get on there. But one thing he would like to say, and that was the peculiar noise heard by Wellington residents somewhat resembling the note of @ deep organ or wind through the rigging of a huge ship was the sound of the

wind through the wires of the frame of the uncompleted Exhibition Tower and not, as was wrongly suspected by some, the sound of the wind through the hairs on Scoutmaster Blenkinsop’ 8 legs. This Weeks Fatrytole ‘When Franco has conquered in Spain, Tialy will stiffen in its demands from France. A crisis may be expected in April.’’-Cable item. Well, after everybody else had been having crises, it seemed a bit mean that Germany and Italy and Japan should have all the fun and the British people not having a look in, so one day a clever young chap at the Foreign Office went to his ehief and said, Look here I’ve got an idea why shouldn’t we have a crisis, 820 what i mean. Trouble Flere So they gave him a month’s notice (nobody being allowed to have ideas in the Service) and sent the idea on to Cabinet. Well, Cabinet had a good talk about it and decided to send a notice to Holland saying you Dutch people are a bit offside, we may remind you that our late and well-beloved sovereigns William and Mary came from Holland to Britain some decades ago, and they forgot to bring you with them, but this being obviously an oversight we do think you really belong to us. After all, if you belonged to our sovereigns in those days you ought still to belong to our sovereigns now. Protest The Dutch people said, say, big boys, you lay off that roughhouse stuff, but the British Cabinet said we haven’t had «a decent crisis, everybody else is having them, you’re for it. The Dutch people said was that so, if that was the line the Empire was going to take they’d cut off supplies of gin and tulips to Britain and the Dominions, -but the British Cabinet after a long

and serious meeting said the people of the Empire must vighten their belts, not gins, but guns is the motto, and you can’t cat tulips anyhow, we must have a crisis. Cut ft Out Well, Germany by this time was very anxious about Britain taking Holland and being on her frontier and Herr Hitler sent off a Note saying, Is this your vaunted cricket, you cdds, demobilise, can’t you, but the British Cabinet said the Navy had got steam up and the Air Force is just spoiling for a erack at something, they’ve got some bombs they want to try out, we’re invading on April 1, if this is convenient for you. I do eall this a bit thick, said Signor Mussolini, I’d pencilled in that date. You’d better see if you can do anything with Mr. C. Adolf. Fly over or something, get a move on, I think he’s going nuts. For all the newspapers now said Mr. C. was sitting im his cottage in the Highlands survounded by tanks of his favourite trout and listening to the sound of the bagpipes because he wasn’t fond of music, a What About ht? So Adolf wired to Mr. €., what about the neutrality treaty with the Netherlands, and Mr. C. wired back saying he was so sorry but his seeretary had been going through some old papers in his desk the day before and had carelessly torn it up, so it wasn’t binding any more was it, or was it? Oh, dear, said Mussolini, there’s nothing to do but make a dramatic flight and see the man, do get a move on Adolf, this frightful Navy’s got some new 18-inch guns it wants to try out, so away Adolf flew to Mr. C.’s Highland cottage and pleaded with him and got him to sign @ No More War Pact and for God’s sake, said Adolf, don’t let that secretary of yours start tidying wp again. sn, "a

Peace-maker 7 And Adolf flew home and was hailed as the Peace-Maker by his people, and Mr. C. said to the Dutch, it’s O.K. boys, we’re going to take you by a Commission instead, and the British people said, Hooray, gins, not guns is our motto now, and Signor Mussolini said he would have to postpone his crisis, there’d been too many flesh-and-blood shows lately and they didn’t draw the erowds they used to. And ten years later, after all the German professors had been doing historical research on this crisis, one of them with a keener sense of humour than the others suddenly began to laugh like anything and said, don’t you see, April 1 is April Fools’ Day in Britain, it was all a big have. Well, nobody wanted this blot .on the escutcheon of the PeaceMaker passed down in history, so they liquidated the professor, and everybody but the academician lived happily ever afterwards.