Random Shots

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 10, 12 January 1929, Page 2 (Supplement)

Random Shots

"\ 2&MEDS

Some write a neighbour's name to lash Some write — vain thought — (or needful cash, Some write to please the country clash And raise a din; For me, an aim I never fash, I write for fun.

Australia, it is agreed, lacks a fast bowler. There ought to be time to find him between runs.

Dame Nellie Melba, in her appeal on behalf of British opera, eeems to have struck a very shrill note.

Admirers of the cricketer Hobbs presented him with a boomerang. This, I suppose, was a delicate expression of their desire to see him back again.

Earth from Auckland's Civic Square is to be transported to Australia as ship's ballast. "There's some corner of, an Aussie field will be for ever— Grunson!"

"Seven varieties of mosquitoes have been discovered in and around Auckland." As far as the average man is concerned there are only two—those he has just "swatted" and those he hopes to "swat."

A magistrate expresses the opinion that the Auckland climate attracts vagrants. "We get dozens every week," he said. Probably very few vagrants have arrived since the Christmas sample of climate.

"It wag reported recently that officers of the horticultural division of the Department of Agriculture had discovered Whangarei district." It eeems unlikely that the discovery was not made long before, but no doubt the officers will make a report, and have it filed.

A German professor, speaking at a women's conference in Paris, condemned the use of poison gas in war. His description of its effects was "so horrifying that many women left the hall in tears." The professor apparently gave his audience a whiff of tear gas.

Perhaps the day will come when the whole Empire may "listen in" to the description of the Test series between England and Australia. It is to be hoped that by that time the Empire's people will have learned how to live with only ten months' work.

Miners in the interior of New Guinea are charged £2 for the aeroplane trip to the goldfields, "and it costs 5/6 to get a bottle of beer to them." The aeroplane pilots must feel their responsibility. They have precious cargo to carry, on both inward and outward flights.

An English woman M.P. has decided not to stand for re-election, on the ground that; her children, between the ages of seven and fourteen, are at present most susceptible to home influence. Perhaps she lias found it hard to enforce domestic discipline on children who knew that Ma must soon be "off to the House."

A cashier in Auckland did not recognise a sovereign when it was tendered to ■ her. She took it to her employer. So far, so good. Iβ it not possible that in a few years' time a cashier in similar circumstances will be unable to find anyone who has seen a sovereign, with the result that the person tendering the strange coin may be charged with attempted fraud?

It is remarked that the Prime Minister succeeded during the Christmas holidays in "completely effacing himself from the public Raze." It appears that the absence of the public gaze did not prevent him from negotiating two loane of the trifling total of £19,000,000. Perhaps New Zcalandera are to be taught the lesson that a Prime Minister who is really "getting things done" needn't have publicity agents.

One has heard adjectives (one adjective recurred frequently) applied to the Public Service as a whole, but now "the heads" of the service have been required to classify each employee, and a number of adjectives, supposedly applicable to some of the members of the service, have been supplied by a thoughtful Commissioner. I find this list sadly incomplete. Are none of the State employees "ruthlessly efficient," "inconveniently zealous," "unpardonably obliging," or "heinously enterprising??' The possibility has been overlooked, too, that some may be "sceptical of infallibility of superiors."

MUSIC —AND ART.

Dame Nellie Melba, making an appeal on behalf of British opera, asked: "Why should music be the Cinderella of the Arts T" Music —"slavey" of the Arts! Is this true? The tear-drop starts As my sympathetic Muse Vibrates to the doleful news, And I'm tempted to agree With the woea of Harmony. Poor old Cinderella! Yet Somehow I cannot forget That the simile is wrong When I hear of queens of song Who dispense their melody For a nice three-figure fee. "Easy money," did yon say? Better than the scale of, pay That the public likes to part For some other brand of Art— Painting, Scripture, or, what's worse— Literary work, and—verse! So I say that Music ain't Got a genuine complaint. When you think what luck it has— Concerts, cabarets, and jazz; Why, the world resounds with tones, Wireless, bands, and gramophones. Tims "au naturel" and "tinned," Boom of brass and squeak of wind, Instruments and songs galore— - Lots of which we own are "poor," Fill our ears and load the breeze With this Cinderella wheeze. What about it? Well—-er—Rate ! Music's made for sharps and flats And can pitch a fairy tale • Up the whole chromatic scale. Every "leger" line denotes You can say it best with "notes." Music — Cinderella? Gee! This is bow it seems to me. Cinderella won a prize With a shoe the proper size. So if Music wants some "oot" Take this tip: Put In the boot! .::. :--. .•:. j i .-.,■ .i . . -"4--B.A.