RANDOM SHOTS

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 192, 15 August 1925, Page 22

RANDOM SHOTS

The miniature waterfall in the interior decoration scheme at the Town Hall reception on Wednesday may have been a delicate compliment to the guests, but it paled before the anything but miniature fall of water outside.

Contact with our American friends may have serious consequences in the speech of the people. It is rumoured that an office boy answered his employer's bell with the words, "Did you tickle the buzzer, sir?" and was sacked on the spot.

The following is said to have been heard in the Magistrate's Court, Haetings, on a Ranfurly Shield match day: Counsel: "I would like to know on what grounds my friend asks for an adjournment:" A Voice: "On football grounds." Excellent grounds indeed. Would that all playing grounds —Eden Park on a wet day, for example—wore as good as the grounds of this application.

You may have read how much disturbance of earth there has been in Rotorua recently; how great holes have suddenly appeared in public places, and steam vents have blown up. Well, the local paper says, "There has not been a pronounced movement in property in Rotorua during the last six months." Goodness! What would Rotorua people call a "pronounced movement ?" No less, perhaps than the total disappearance of the post office into a depression far deeper than the trade depression they lament. Tlie next paragraph says, that the road to Rotorua is decidedly dangerous owing to under-mining by the hike waters. Movement in property forsooth!

The Thames Hospital Board has "given itself away" by stating—in a complaint about the use of its ambulance—that an ordinary taxi 1b "safer and warmer" than the board's ambulance. The board should now give away the ambulance. The board charges £4 for a ride which, in the "safer and warmer" taxi, would cost only 30/! The implication that the carriage for the sick is cold and unsafe makes one wonder what the Thames people mostly ride in. Even a wedding party would not want the ambulance.

Mr. John Brown has been before the Magistrate. He objected to the publication of the fact, but the Court refused to keep a secret. The name was not suppressed, and in future the defendant will be known as "Done Brown." Disclaimers from the other forty John Browns in Auckland have not appeared. When one of these gentlemen takes a wife she becomes a Brownie, beloved of Fairyland, and can get into debt, or be as naughty as she likes, for as Mrs. Brown she has innumerable sponsors. In tho language of sportsmen, the police 'fire into the brown."

They said it was the best coffee they had had since leaving home." So re"ports a V.M.C.A. official, who has been supplying refreshments to American sailors. This is another feather in Auckland's cap. There are some, however, who would dispute our right to wear it. An Englishman assures mc that he cannot get a decent cup of coffee in Auckland. He says he has sampled many places and even bought and ground coffee berries, but he still lacks the drink that "mother used •to make." All Britons, more or less, however, lie under tlie charge of not being able to make coffee. They either boil it too much or too little—l forget which. But coffee is not a national drink. Tea is, and I understand the efforts of foreigners to make tea are generally deplorable. The dear old colonel in "The Silence of Colonel Bramble," that wise and witty French book, about the British, used to tell the author that there were two things in the secret —that the water must be boiling and the teapot must be warmed before the tea iB made. Priceless advice this, which should noted by many British people.

Our old friend and hero "Tiny" Freyberg, seems to have said to himself: "A fine day; let us go out and swim the Channel." He made no very elaborate preparations. He did not advertise himself, or announce to the world the foods he was going to eat, or the cigarette ho was going to smoke, on the way. Ho just went and did it—or rather tried to do it. It was the depth of bad luck that he should have to give up, utterly exhausted, only half a mile from his goal. It must have been utterly utter exhaustion, for "Tiny" is the gamest of the game. For a man of 35 who bears the marks of more wounds than he can count, it was a gallant effort. It was written of Lord Roberts: If you stood 'Im on 'is 'end, You could spill a pint o' lead Outer Bobs. and the same sems to be true of Colonel Freyberg. Some good stories come from Wanganui these days. If it were a fishing centre one would not know what might be told. The latest is that while a band was playing "The Nightingale" at the racecourse one afternoon, a tin whistle emulating the song of the bird, "one of the best singing thrushea in the district" flew into a tree above the bandsmen and sang lustily. The conductor says this was new to him; as a rule, birds keep far away from a brass band. Birds have a good deal of sense, haven't they? My own suggestion is that the thrush took the nightingale's song for a thrush's and went close to the music for company, which wouldn't be very complimentary to the player. Or, perhaps, being a well-educated bird, it knew that the nightingale sang only at night, and its intention was to "jam the wireless," so to speak, and teach the offending bird to keep to its union's hours.

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, I rise to second the following Dunedin motion: "The rustling caused by dipping into lolly bags is becoming a nuisance at Dunedin concerts. It would be a great blessing to those who attend concerts to listen if some enterprising person were to make and bring into fashion a special sort of bag, say of wool or fluff, that would not intrude upon the ear." It would. Why can't we have a lolly bag that is as silent as a tobacco pouch? A man can fill his pipe without making a sound (I am not suggesting that he should do it in a theatre), but a woman naturally finds it difficult to take a jujube out of a bag without disturbing her neighbours. There is nrysh talk of the need for wool packs or* a new substance. There ia Just as much need for _ new bag lor leuiw,