RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 171, 15 April 1933, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events LOCAL AND GENERAL (By Kickshaws.) After very lengthy meteorological calculations prospective holiday-mak-ers may be interested to know that according to ‘Kickshaws” it is sure to be fine for the holidays if it doesn’t rain A writer declares that it is most important to set out for one’s Easter holidays on the right note. On the other hand it is almost a certainty that one will return with no notes at all. * * • A composer in America says he could write a Fox Trot every day for a month. Let us hope he chooses February, for preference when it is uot a Leap Year. * » “A correspondent recently asked 'for a simple rule for ascertaining Easter Day,” says J, 11. Harwood, Palmerston North. “In answer thereto I submit the following: Easter Monday is the first Monday after the third full fiioon in the year. The most complete article on the Easter question was written in 1845 by Dr. Morgan, and is to be found in his Budget of Paradoxes, now a rare book.” [There have been four full moons so far this year, the laht being on April 11, so to say that Easter Monday is the first Monday after the third full moon in the year cannot be correct. Easter Day is always the first Sunday after the paschal full moon, i.e.; the full moon that happens upon or next after March 21. Should the full moon happen upon a Sunday, Easter Day is the Sunday following. It should be noted iu this conection that the 14th day of the calendar moon' has, since the time of Moses, been considered the full moon for ecclesiastical purposes.— Kickshaws.] • ..» .* News that the Eskimos are growing an additional rib is Indeed good news. Ever since man gave one of bis spare ribs in the cause *bf woman, the lendency has been not to grow new parts, but gradually to lose existing ones. Long ago in the fight for mastery man relinquished his tail in time to make cinema queues a ; practical proposition. Some six thousand years of toothache ushered in the dental plate in which process man lost all his teeth. The popularising of appendicitis as a society disease has practically lost man hi# vermiform appendix. Nearly half a million years of listening-in has failed to preserve for mankind those muscles of the ears calculated to make them twitch." This is considered by some interested persons to be the greatest loss of all. Long ago in the dim dark days when sanitation was not what it is to ; day. man practically lost his sense of smell, while to-day in early babyhood he loses an ape-like ability to hang indefinitely from a horizontal support. This loss is a serious one in the case of •office workers forced to return home in crowded trams.

. If man continues to lose portions of his normal anatomy at the rate that has been oceuring during the last few hundreds of thousands of years, the future for him is not a happy one. A thousand or more years of motoring would certainly lose him his legs. His muscles of locomotion would atrophy completely, like his ear muscles. On the other hand the muscles of his arms would develop new ligaments suitable for controlling the rotory motions of the steering wheel. Doomed to sit for life, man would develop muscular cushions, greatly in excess of what is supplied to-day. The general outline of man would, therefore, change from the extreme angularities of all arms and all legs to the softer curves of the slug or jelly fish. In time it is probable that man will lose , his brain, the deficiency being made good by artificial mearis. Except as an inlet for food the head would be unnecessary. In time it too would go. Two eyes on stalks, like crabs only complete with rear mirror and red reflector, would spring from th© shoulders. Sealed for life in the aluminium sheathing of his aeroplane-eum-ear the human whelks of A.D. several hundred thousand would laugh at the human penguins of 1933. ’ ♦ * The day before yesterday we were told that an Italian gentleman named Robiano had removed his patent foods from their containers in order to lighten his aeroplane on its trip to Australia. To-day it is revealed that v young lady called Batten has packed her spare clothes iu a" brown paper bag in order, to reduce Weight on her trip by air to Australia. There is a distinct danger if this habit becomes-prevalent on the Australian flight; not only will Australia become full of paper bags, but it" will be swamped with patent food without containers. The habit also is not a good advertisement for aeroplane trips to Australia. Weight will be so whittled down that passengers will only be accepted after a week's fast. Ladies will be asked to have their hair cut short. Gentlemen will not be allowed to travel with boot laces in their boots. Children will have to sign a certificate that their ears have recently been washed. Babies will be disqualified if their nails have not been cut at least less than two clear days before the journey. Moreover, journalists wiH’only be allowed to start provided their fountain pens have been emptied and sealed.

If one looks back at all the outstanding flights ever since tho aeroplane was invented too much stress nas been laid on the lightness of the traveller’s gear. Kingsford Smith himself seems to have overdone the ham sandwich and biscuit menu. Lindbergh, of course, it is said, took nothing at all to eat in order to save weight. Amy Johnson has relied upon hot air from her own engine. The time has come to change all this. Someone must fly to Australia with a live cow and a pail into which it may be milked in midair. A flvlng farmer should break tradition with a load of hay. If the aeroplane is to get anywhere, it must rise above bare necessities. Think of arriving after a long motor journey with discarded powder-puffs and jettisoned lipsticks.

When Yule comes, dule comes, Cauld feet and legs. When Paseh comes, grace comes, Butter, milk and eggs. Scottish rhyme.