RANDOM SHOTS

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 116, 17 May 1924, Page 18

RANDOM SHOTS

*7fiMNEC

Some write to please the country clash And raise a din; Some write a neighbour's name to lush. Some write —\ulu tliou.ht—tor needless cash, For mc. itn nlm I npver fash, 1 write f-iir fun. It was rather cruel of one of the newspapers to notify as the dress requirements of the '.Empire Ball, "powder, patches, and coloured faces." Personally, however, 1 would welcome a little arti- | ficial colour on the artitieial whiteness j of women's complexions. It would relieve I the monotony, I have heard men say that the standard of commercial morality is not so high in Auckland as it is in tbe South, j This week, however, I am able to bring evidence in defence of Auckland. One firm. ' advertised during the week "The 'Re- j pulse' bargain," and here is another ndvertisement of a few days ago:—| "Ducks, 30, Indian Kunner, 8 months, just started laying; 4/(1 for quick sale; sickness reason for disposal." Could commercial candour go further? j The Moscow Government has renamed Petrograd Leningrad. I suppose that if anybody in Russia suggested Ttctrograd it would be a case of a wall aud a tiring party. "Is this defendant an experienced driver?" was a question put to a constable by Mr. F. R. Orr-YValker, S.M., at the Wellington Tolice Court. "Well, I should say he is," was the reply. "He has been before the Court on two previous occasions." I have tried hard to think of suitable comment on this gem, but in vain. I must leave it to you in its unadorned loveliness. j

I am told that at the civic reception , to the Fleet the other night, the Taka- | puna guests put to good use the experience they so often have in pushing for their boat. The door of the supper room was a narrow opening, and the crowd was dense. Quite automatically, so I . am informed, Takapuna people within sight of this promised land formed themselves into the wedge that does such good service daily on the wharf —and got there. To the many advantages of living in Takapuna this training in shock i tactics has to be added. The names of the visiting warships were used in a rather equivocal way in a draper's advertisement some days ago. A few lines below the heading "Wei-1 come to H.M.A.s. Adelaide" appeared in equally large type the words "Our expert corseticre," followed by the an- j nouncement tbat this person "is always in attendance to discuss your require- i ments." It used to be Baid that officers • in foreign warships wore corsets, but 11 have.never heard this habit imputed to j the British officer.

Rear-Admiral Brand has nsked this riddle: "Why was the Special Service Squadron like a Ford car?" The answer was "Because it was all 'Hood.' " There is another version: "Because the 'Hood' is the best part of it." It is strongly suspected that this riddle came through a Ford agent, from a joke-making department in the Ford works. Henry Ford would never have done what he has done if he had minded in the slightest jokes about bis car. It used to be Charlie Chaplin. Then it was Charles Chaplin. Now it is Charles Spencer Chaplin. Perhaps (say when he plays Hamlet) it will be Charles Spencer-Chaplin. "Keep eating potatoes in the dark." Such was the advice of a gardening expert last week. I must protest. Have we gardeners not enough hard work and worry in our war against nature and pests, without having to eat potatoes in the dark?

Two nood stories came my way this week. One was of an Aucklandcr of good English family (you know what I mean) who, anxious to do the right thing by the flagship, inquired of a naval friend what the procedure was. lie was told that he should go on board, leave his card and sign the visitors' book. This sounded simple, but he found himself bailed up at the gangway by the sentry, who told him that ho could not go aboard. Explanation of his purpose had no effect. "It's only the very select as does that," said the sentry. Just before this a more fashionably dressed man had gone on board on a similar mission, and the rebuffed one came to the conclusion that visitors were graded "very select" by the clothes they wore. The other story is of a woman who with three children stood patiently in the queue for a long while and eventually got on board. No sooner, however, was the party on board than in some way the children got mixed up with the out-going queue. Explanations were unavailing, and the party had to walk off again, feeling possibly like Mark Twain when he got up to see the sunrise on the Rigi, and found that what he was looking at was the sunset.

My paragraph about tbe New Zealand Julius Ceasar brings mc an old story ; from a correspondent, which I give because it is sure to lie new to many of ; my readers, and has a sequel that is i new to mc. My correspondent couples Mr. Caesar with an Englishman named I ..eland Hood. The twoment fri-m Napier] to Te Aute College, and Mr. Hoed intri-1 duced Mr. Caesar to some of the Maori boys there. One of them replied, "Alas, ', where is my friend Brutus?" Tiie version I have heard, which I think is better. ' is that the introduction was made to an . apparently uneducated "savage" sitting; wrapt iv a blanket, and that he rose ' with dignity, bowed, and asked most politely after the health of Brutus. The , sequel is that the Englishman, enjoying the joke, told a Napier farmer about it, , and the farmer replied. "That's the re- ; suit of teaching these black unntcntion- ; able, the Bible." i The modern Caesar family is not, alone ; in being handicapped by a.famous nameThat rare spirit, the late Sir Walter Raleigh, professor of English Literature at Oxford, had a name that was an embarrassment to himself and h _ admirers. When you quote him—and lie is most quotable—you have to explain that you refer to him and not to the great Elizabethan. Raleigh made a trip to America, and naturally the Pre-s looked out for him. An interviewer, boarding Iho liner, aeeosted a passenger. "Excuse mc, but are you Sir Walter Raleigh?" "No," said tile ready Englishman, "I'm Christopher Columbus!" i i I