RANDOM SHOTS

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 185, 6 August 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

RANDOM SHOTS

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L Excellent headline, "Freezing Work--1 ens." Too true! Help them to thaw. New Zealand kauri is now being used • by the British Board of Trade. By gum! 1 Give a book a bad name and it soon 1 becomes a popular talkie. A legless American is about to 1 attempt to swim the Channel. Some feet! The price of oil is about to rise. I shall abandon my petrol lighter for matches. Wonder why Paavo Nurmi was excluded from the Olympian Games? Is this the dead Finnish? The one-man branch bank has been abolished in England. This is in order that the gunman may not draw. As a scribbler I am not in favour of republics, having read that an English author is drawing £250 a week in "royalties." Jack Hobbs is still playing the brightest cricket although he is 50. A mere two score and ten. Pooh; he can beat that. It seems to be proved that women are far more expert as solvers of crossword puzzles than men. They always have the last word. Dear old Spooner being dead yet speaketh. At a New Zealand college the lecturer announced, "We will now discuss the poetry of Skeates and Kelly." A world-famous composer, a little irritated with the criticism of a provincial reporter, has had the cheek to say: "A critic is one who does nothing and knows everything." Lord Hailsham prophesies the breakup of the British Empire. I wonder if this is the same British Empire that has been breaking up every six months or so since Frankie Drake's day? They have their timber troubles in America, too. One paper says that 32 million people visited the States forests last year and that "several of the forests are practically intact." It is a pity that when an English company ordered a large quantity of New Zealand tobacco for cigarette making, none should be available—so the whole thing ended in smoke. Recently a golfer who is very particular about his caddies found a new one on the links. "Do'you know anything about golf?" he asked. "No," said the caddie, "I'm jest noted fer me patience." There is a new movement among "the khaki shirts" in U.S.A An old soldier mentions that there was a distinct movement among grey shirts in France in 1916, until they were boiled in the old brewery. I note that those lazy Reds in Russia have only harvested thirty-two million acres of wheat, and that this is a mere measly 15 per cent of the area sown. They ought to see the wheat we grow in Canterbury! Discipline is exceedingly useful in times of danger. When fire broke out in an English glue factory last month the foreman, an old sergeant-major, commanded the hands not to become panic stricken. So the gluemakers stuck to their job. In America they are trying to rectify the scholastic system, which hithorto has rather neglected British matters. One U.S.A. schoolmaster recently asked his class: "What is 10, Downing Street?" Instantly a 100 per j;ent American lad chirped: "A speakeasy," There have been more complaints about the wretched writing of modern boys. Reminds me that Thackeray, who wrote the greatest of all English novels, wrote dreadfully as a boy. \et as an adult he one day took a fourpenny piece, traced a line round it on paper, drew a crown in the centre, and the ' whole of the Lord's Prayer around it ( with a quill pen! Our office boy says he could do it easily, only he hasn t got ' a fourpenny bit.