...Of Many Things

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 28002, 23 June 1956, Page 8

...Of Many Things

(CANTERBURY is providing roast lamb and baked salmon for the supper at the Wellington Rugby Union's ball for the Springboks after the match today. This is a change from the usual menu Canterbury provides for Wellington—humble pie and raspberries.

T IKE all the other inhabitants Christchurch,- our statues are in two minds about the climate. Captain Scott is taking no chances of a sudden run of frosts: Queen Victoria, her eyes fixed on the Oxford Family Hotel, is snuglv wrapped up as befits her age. Rolleston and Godley, though hatless, have at hand a coat and a rug respectively. Fitzgerald has hat but no coat, trusting, presumably, in the bosky luxuriance of his whiskers. Moorhouse. perhaps for the same reason sits hat’.ess and in the Botanic Gardens. defying the Canterbury climate: he ought to have known better. Captain Cook, his boat cloak flung contemptuously over a bollard or some such nautical fal-lal. gazes with a wild surmise at female apparel displayed in a shop window. He might at least do up that waistcoat button. * rpHE Walrus regrets to announce the A death of a distant relative. Porto, the friendly seal at Portland, near Whangarei. Civilisation was too much for Porto. He ate some tinned fish. Ptomaine poisoning is suspected.

npHIS is what the builder wrote: “I hereby agree to build dwelling according to plans and specifications for Mr A. W. C Blank street. Redcliffs. for the sum of two hundred and twenty-two pounds fifteen shillings £222 155.” The price is correct. Don’t ask The Walrus for the builder’s address. His letter was written on January 4. 1912. not 1956. The house, a four-roomed cottage, still stands.

rpHE F. 8.1. is trying hard to catch the serviceman who disclosed that the last H-bomb at Bikini missed its target bv several miles. “It is imperative to find the leak on Eniwetok and plug it,” says the F. 8.1. If there arc any more tests no-one will be able to find Eniwetok, let alone trace a leak in it.

rpHE law of compensation still A operates. Waikato may have beaten the Springboks, but the same week Mr Stewart Hardy began sitting as Magistrate in Hamilton. Sample fines in his court —No warrant of fitness. £4; failing to comply with traffic lights. £l2 10s; over 30 miles an hour. £7 10s; £l2 10s, £2O; ineffective silencer, £6. The change from Inver cargill’s near-Antarctic climate to Waikato’s comparative warmth has obviously not thawed out Mr Hardy’s heart.

r pHE dance hall proprietor had 1 trouble with his patrons. A retired policeman told him how to stop it. He borrowed the local constable’s helmet and hung it on a hook in the cloakroom. There was no more trouble.

UTGH winds which damage telephone lines are not the only troubles subscribers in one part of Canterbury have to endure. This week linesmen repaired most of the broken lines. But “The Press” received a report that “some subscribers may remain temporarily excommunicated overnight.”

VEW faces in the West End? “Razors were used again in London yesterday" said the report this week from London of gang warfare in the West End.

rp. S. Eliot’s Gus, the Theatre Cat who A played every possible part and knew 70 speeches by heart, has a rival at the Risingholme Community Centre who lives among the props and scenery backstage. Next month Wiggles will make his grand entrance on the stage of the- ReDertory Theatre in “I Remember Mama.” So far his entrances have been unrehearsed. but the

“Risingholme Community Centre News” reports two “walk on” parts. In “I Remember Mama” he becomes a member of the cast and will have to attend rehearsals regularly. Wiggles agrees with Hamlet that the play’s the thing. He has not demurred at being cast as Elizabeth.

rpiME was when the Christchurch A Tramway Company. Limited — please don't confuse it with the present Transport Board—chased business. When John Etherden Coker became the proprietor of the New Brighton Hotel, he advertised that dinner and luncheon parties were “a speciality.” “Arrangements have been made,” he advertised in 1893, “whereby any 10 persons desirous of so doing can obtain a special tram either from or to New Brighton.’’

A report from the Victory Park -X Board on alterations at Lancaster Park to handle big crowds expected this vear said tests were being made of the south embankments strength with loads equivalent to four and a quarter men to the square foot. The Walrus hopes he won’t be that quarter man.

A stock inspector from the Department of Agriculture, says more Canterbury farmers have been charged with exposing lice-infested sheep for sale this year than ever before. So the Clerk of the Magistrate’s Court who has had to read a big number of charges in three successive weeks can be forgiven for charging one farmer with exposing for sale ’’sheep-infested lice ” ’’Even in its altered form we will still plead guilty to the charge," said counsel for the defendant. * " > A MILITARY intelligence. grocery z’A division. Starch advances, more • walnuts land. * 1 HOLLYWOOD’S goddesses of beauty and grace are better known in Christchurch than the Graces nt classical mythology. Euphrosyne, Aglaia. and Thalia, the daughters of Zeus were depicted on a cameo bought by a friend of ours. Jeweller and purchaser were both slightly hazy about the goddesses. She consulted a reference book and later told the ( jeweller. He had information too. Another customer had looked at the Graces. “I suppose one is Grace Kelly." she said. "The other must be Grace Moore. I wonder who the third is." The Walrus can tell her. Grace Green. of course, in Christchurch. . ,

"VOT what they were in 1937" is the —comment heard on every hand. , , Could it be that they are? Or have we improved?

A British motorist has established A his legal right to shave with an electric razor while driving his car. New Zealand Transport Department inspectors intend to prosecute anyone caught in the act. The official view here is that there are enough close shaves in traffic. rpHE tax-gatherer's tentacles have recently tightened their hold on Gisborne and Whangarei. Gisborne now boasts an office of the Inland Revenue Department's taxes division, housed in premises built for the youngest and lustiest of the taxation departments, the T A B. Whangarei citizens seem to have been invited to try their luck at tax evasion. The duties division has established itself in the Kia-Ora Buildings. * DAT Vincent, Kevin Stuart, and the Scarlattis have been talked about in the last few weeks by the Rugby writer and the newspapermans wife who knows more music than football. The Rugby writer seems to have proved her musical knowledge is not so extensive. He now announces that there were six Scarlattis: Alessandro (composer): his brothers Francisco (violinist) and Tommaso (tenor with 10 children); his sons Pietro (organist) and Domenico (harpsicordist and composer with two wives and _ nine children): and his grandson Guiseppe i composer). * (CANTERBURY ewe mutton is being shipped to Russia. Red stripe, of course! —The Walrus