RANDOM SHOTS

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 246, 17 October 1925, Page 22

RANDOM SHOTS

BY ZAMIEL

The final terror will be added to jazz when the saxophone player can play and sing at the same time. It is said that crossword puzzles are out of favour. The substitute seems to be the real meaning of the Labour land policy. ; Owing to lack of support, Mr. Maurice Brownlie ljas declined to contest the Napier seat. The ingratitude with which this country treats its heroes is scandalous. The medical officer of Christchurch has forbidden the use of watercress taken from the River Styx. Charon might have something to say about this. Possibly the river would be better called the Stynx. A Communist, charged at the local Court this week with using indecent language, said that the language was quite all right, as it was used to working men. One would expect a Communist to reserve his worst language for the hated bourgeoisie. In writing of the new illumination of Wanganui's Durie Hill suburb, the reporter says that moet of the inhabitants have, through long coming home in the dark, developed bumps of locality to an extraordinary degree. The locality of the bumps might indicate the angles of the suburbs. A little incident of the week: A young man from the country was talking to a. young man of the town about the islands of the Hauraki Gulf. The townsman referred to "Motu-ee" and "Motutap." The visitor pronounced " Motutapu " in full. Then the townsman : " You're not used to Maori names, are you?" "Pep, pluck, and perversity were the three qualities most marked in American business methods," said an American lecturer in Wellington this week, and he urged New Zealanders to follow America's example. " Perversity " does not seem to be quite correct, but it may throw some light on America's demand for her pound of flesh from Europe. In connection with what has been named the "Simpson Geyser" at Rotorua, those who now gather on the adjacent bridge to witness the play of upshot mud and water are warned that they run the risk of being run over by motor cars when "geyser-gazing." Gazergrazing by motorists and geyser-gazing by spectators add terms of musical alliteration to our volcanic language. They do things better in France. A leopard recently broke loose from a Paris zoo, and remained at liberty until killed. The- excitement over the leopard was such that he was more valuable dead than alive. Such a large demand set in for bits of his skin that all the old leopard hides in the city were requisitioned and bits of them sold as genuine relics. His body, also, lay in state, and the public was charged two francs entrance. Thus the zoo authorities made quite a profit out of the escape. A Labour candidate gets mixed: "The speaker concluded the reference to the Minister with a word picture of Sir James emulating Don Quixote, charging the windmills of his imagination, emitting 'hysterical squeals, , and, with the flaming sword of Damocles in hand, 'standing at the Garden of Eden and pointing the way out! , " The mixture might go a little further, and depict Sir James Parr also cleansing the Augean stables, steering between Scylla and Charybdie, rolling the Sisyphean stone up the hill, counting his chickens before they are hatched, bringing Birnam wood to Dunsinane, and, like Oliver Twist, asking for more. The dance-recital that lasted until almost 11.30 p.m. the other night and then had to be shortened in order to allow those who had remained until that hour to catch their last trams, was not unique. Ultra-protraction is a disease which smites most children's entertainments. The cause, of course, i a that teachers will try to jam as many pupils as possible into the programmes, in order to avoid trouble with the numerous parents who become peeved if their darlings are not included in the performances. Even if the children merely skip on one side and off the other, the doting parents are satisfied. That's quite satisfactory to the parents, but what about those people who go along in order to support the good causes for which some of the shows are produced? As for remedies, I suggest that, for one thing, tiny tots, 'barely able to walk, should be left at home in their cots and not made to tumble over themselves on a theatre stage. That would save time, and, incidentally, do a good turn to the kiddies. Probably the idea of giving the programme in sections, extending over several nights, would do. In any case, when you come to think what might have happened had 300 pupils appeared the other night, you realise that 11.30 p.m. wasn't really very late after all.