RANDOM SHOTS

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 27, 1 February 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

RANDOM SHOTS

BY ZAMIEL

Anyone who imagines that the staple food of Dunedin is porridge is mistaken; t is bananas. It appears that, when one chairman is subtracted' from one. United party tile remainder is still the United party, "The late fall of Easter this year neans that the tanks will be closed for six consecutive days." Is this meant is a kindly encouragement ot burglars 1 Cabinet has decided to impose a dumping duty on South African jams. I magine that if a dozen housewives were isked what "a dumping duty on jam" means 'there would be some curious •eplies, A research into the utilisation of land in New Zealand is to be conducted by the Auckland University College. I hope that the researcher will not forget to include a New Zealand child's definition of a farmer: "A man who buys farms and sells them again." "Scholars are enrolling at the Seddon Memorial Technical College at such a rate that the authorities are in a quandary to know how to accommodate them all." It seems that a great number of young people are resolved not to be "agriculturally biased." Only three States have not been represented at any of the conferences of the International labour Organisation. They are San Domingo, Ethiopia (or Abyssinia) and New Zealand. But the three have different reasons for their absence. It may be presumed that San Domingo and Ethiopia know no better. New Zealand, on the contrary, does know better, but until recently she has had a Reform Government. Millions of people are anxious to see the Naval Conference achieve its object, and many of them read all that is printed about the statesmen's deliberations. But a reader requires a phenomenal zeal to go on reading conference reports after learning that the problem of the moment is "to find a formula for a discussion of global and categorical tonnages." Phrases like the last would kill the public interest in anything. Many people don't like Mr. Epstein's' "Rima," and some feel so badly about it that they seek to disfigure it. Mr. Epstein no doubt reflects with satisfaction that his works evoke some emotion. Many sculptured works, including some in Auckland, da nofc evoke any emotion at all in people who look at them. Usually people don't look. Critics of the New Zealand cricket representatives have been very silent lately, although the team in the second Test was not greatly different from that which lost the first. Yet, if certain players are as bad as their critics said they were, after the first Test, they must still have been bad players in the second Test, which they virtually won. It's a hard world for the hasty critic. "For the last few days the Hon. P. A. de la Perrelle has been holding a conference in Wellington to cement further the solid foundation already laid to draw overseas visitors to the Dominion and to provide every facility and comfort for them in their travels." But "solid foundation" and "comfort" don't go well together. The modern tourist demands something with cushion? on it. In any case, if the foundation is solid, why give it more cement? The enterprising skipper of an overseas ship undertook the task of shearing a sheep which was part of the deck cargo. The operation took place in the Red Sea, and "after an hour or two of strenuous work" it was not finished. It was finished on the following day. Even allowing for the heat of the Red Sea, one fears that the captain could not make a living at shearing. He must sometimes have wondered, when the operation was in its second day, whether the wool was not already growing again on the parts he had shorn. Two youths who "took to the bush" in the Wairarapa, and stole guns and food from settlers' houses were easily captured after it week. The first question they asked the policeman was, "Can we have a sleep?" When one comes to think of it, Deerfoot and the other heroes of our younger days never seemed to waste much time in sleeping. They just went on and on, "tirelessly through the forest," and if any enemy appeared they either killed him or went on another 20 miles. When one reads of these modern boys and their weak craving for sleep, one realises how the race has deteriorated. |