RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 295, 8 September 1933, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current

Events

LOCAL AND GENERAL

(By

Kickshaws.)

A New Zealand newspaper mailed to New York 52 years ago has just arrived. Who said New Zealand was in a backwater? • • •

This latest invention of a train tjiat runs in grooves ought to fit in very nicely in some countries with stateowned railways.

It is all very well for Zane Grey to complain that New Zealand supplies nothing but cold shoulders—after all, what else can you expect from a country that takes a pride in its frozen mutton. ‘ 1 ,

“Ack Eddi” writes: “Cap you please come to the rescue? Two of us were recently discussing the respective heights of parts of Wellington as viewed from Brooklyn. An argumentensued that Mitchell Street, Brooklyn, is higher above sea level than Is Mount Victoria. With your wonderful ability to sift the facts, we will take your verdict as correct if it is at all possible for you to settle this point." Mitchell Street is roughly . 700 feet above sea level. The highest point on Mount Victoria is about 650 feet above sea level. —Kickshaws-

Regarding the suggestion to name two destroyers Turl and Kupe, a reader writes that If these names were used the navy would be sure to refer to the former as the “Too-right" and the latter as the “Coop.” Ipeifieptally, it i« Interesting to point out that the present names Eclipse and Esk reserved for these destroyers have naval Associations with New Zealand already. The Eclipse was a warship that spent much time on the New Zealand coast during the ’sixties. The latter part of her time she was commanded by Captain Freemantle who later became Admiral Sir Edmund Freemantle.

News that a colossal statue of Mussolini 236 feet high is to be erected on a hill in Rome seems to indicate that we have entered era gigantic monuments. The old Colossus of Rome ranked as one of the. seven wonders of the world bpt to-day, If it were still in existence, it would take a back seat. The Colossus of Rome was certainly 105 feet bight, but It was puny compared not only with, the latest Mussolini monumental exuberance, but with many, others that have recently been erected. A gigantic figure of Christ nearly completed in Brazil stands 150 feet high. Workers at a Leningrad fayory are devoting their spare time to erecting a statue to Lenin 370 feet high. This statue will be 65 feet higher than the statue of Liberty. If Darius the Mede carved his doings on the rock of Behlsfun the Americans are carving their tale on Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. The statues of Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and Roosevelt senior, are to be 465 feet high. Washington’s nose will be 60 feet long. -

If the civilised world has started a craze for tall statues it is also in the throes of a craze for weird ones. It would appear that everything is to have its monument. There is a monument being erected in Breton to immortalise an omelette. Seattle has its statue to the world’s champion cow. A biological institution ig the same country, is talking of erecting a statue to a cow” whose stomach had a glass window; there is a statue to an apple in Canada; Japan has a statue to the first orange; France to Camambert cheese; Germany to the humble “spud”; and if rumbur be correct there is a movement to erect a statue to the man who first brought bananas to Britain. We seem to have gone statue mad. Possibly this craze gained impetus after the war in the myriads of War memorials that sprang up. '

It is said that when the Minister of Lands visited a tannery recently it was demonstrated to him that chamois leather does not come from chamois. Although this may come as a surprise to wielders of this material, chamois leather is but one of numerous articles that masquerade under false pretences. Chamois leather belongs to the category Of such misrepresented things as Indian ink, camel’s hair brushes, and briar pipes. The chamois leather originally did come from chamois, but Indian ink never came from India. Originally Indian ink came from China and to this day it is called Chinese ink in France. Camel’s hair brushes, perhaps one -should add, come > from squirrels, and briar pipes are made from white heath. Even the well-known rice paper never had any associations with a rice plant. Rice paper is made from the pith Of a tree. Real rice paper is a coarse, rather brittle material, rarely seen in everyday walks of life.

One might add while on the subject of well-known commodities with misleading names that cork legs are not made of cork any more than the oldfashioned cork hat was ever made of that material. Dutch clocks are not made in Holland, but Germany; country dances have nothing to do with the country; Dresden china is not necessarily made in Dresden any more than Axminster carpets are made necessarily at Axminster. It may come as a shock to some people to learn that Oxford and Cambridge have no colours. The world-renowned dark blue and light blue are the colours of the athletic clubs of the two universities concerned. Any member of the universities who was not a member of either of these two clubs would therefore be Ineligible from an etiquette point of view to flaunt their colours—but not in law. Incidentally, one might well add that a tartan is not the dress of a Highlander. What a Highlander wears round his waist is called a kilt, what he wears round his shoulders is a plaid. The tartan is no more than the colour scheme of the cloth. • • B

“While on the subject of sunspots," says a reader concerning a paragraph on the subject yesterday, “isn’t there a remarkable law connected with spots on the sun that shows that their frequency varies in a regular period of eleven years and about forty days? The year 1927 was one of the greatest frequency, while this year (1933) is a year of least frequency. It is stated by some meteorologists that in years of least frequency we have dry seasons. Judging by what Britain has been experiencing recently in the way of weather the assumption seems to have some truth in it.”

“What is a naturalist, and what is his work?” asks “A.A.A.,” Pahiatua. A naturalist is an individual who makes a study of lower forms of animal life, such as birds, beasts, fishes and the like. A naturalist also means a person who studies naturalism. This deals with the origin of religion, particularly its derivation from natural reason.—Kickshaws.