RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31941, 19 March 1969, Page 18

RANDOM REMINDER

ODDS, AND ENDS

One could spend a lifetime carrying out the tasks one is invited to attend by those little paragraphs scattered through the newspapers, such as the one recommending the use of petroleum jelly for treating cracks in leather upholstered furniture. The reader is assured that this prevents the damage spreading, and gives nourishment to the leather. It does tend to give strength to the belief that one should not waste anything. An old onion is almost certain to be

featured in one of those paragraphs, sooner or later, as being the basis of the most efficient method of removing candle grease from telephone books. Don’t throw away that broken clothes hanger. It might have been especially designed to remove blockages from small pieces of plactic hose. Small pieces of pineapple, with the rough skin removed, might remove scorch marks from table linen. We are not too sure whether we read that one properly. The only Irritating

feature about this most useful service is that the paragraphs are usually very small, one never knows quite where to find them, and there is no index system to them. They should all be published in a book, properly indexed, so that when your youngest knocks the ink over the carpet, you can find out in a flash that it is time to produce that pot of cold porridge, to which a few drops of tincture of orange have been added. It would be a best seller.