TEN TO ONE AGAINST WET CORONATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 69, 23 March 1937, Page 7

TEN TO ONE AGAINST WET CORONATION.

INSURANCE ODDS.

Novel Open-Air Functions

Planned.

CINEMAS WANT RAIN,

United Press Association.—Copyright.

(Received 11 a.m.) LONDON, March 22. Insurance companies are laying ten to one against the Coronation being wet. Business is brisk. Organisers of sports and street tea parties, and owners of blocks of grandstand seats, are insuring against rain, but cinema proprietors against fine weather. Tea party insurance is a novelty. These parties ■ will be arranged for children in their own streets by private subscription and will last all day. They will include races and games. The Postmaster-General, Mr. G. C. Tryon, informed the House of Commons that he had arranged for an issue of a special ljd Coronation stamp. The Coronation stamp, for the first time in the history of the United King- ' dom, will bear portraits of both the King and Queen. It will be the same size as the King George V. Jubilee issue in 1935, and the same colour as the present lid (brown).

LOOKS YOUNGER.

PORTRAIT OF THE KINO.

LONDON, March 19.

Queen Mary spent an hour at the studio of John St. H. Lander, the artist who is painting a Coronation-robes portrait of the King. It was not the first visit Her Majesty has paid to the studio as she has been watching keenly the progress of the portrait.

She turned over old sketches made for a similar portrait of George V. and after a critical study of the King's portrait, said: "It is a very good resemblance. You have made him look much younger than he is, but I think that is all to the good."

IMAM'S LARGE PARTY.

ARABIANS FOR CORONATION.

LONDON, March 19

The Imam Yahya Yemen is coming to London for the Coronation, complete with a household consisting of 75 women, 10 eunuchs, and 20 special servants who are always at the Imam's beck and call. His representative has already arrived and is searching for a large house for the Imam and half a dozen other houses for the harem. The Imam has never before left his native land of Arabia.

There ia another reason for his visiting London besides the Coronation. He is anxious to make contact with the British Government and establish a Legation in London, bringing his country into diplomatic equality with his powerful neighbour, Ibn Saud, who is already represented.