RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 248, 17 July 1935, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current

Events

(By Kickshaws.)

Critics of those trunk air services, we expect, will say they are boxed up.

A visitor has expressed surprise at the tremendous number of laws in New Zealand. We have to have a good number to allow for breakages.

It always seems ironic that when a Frenchman wishes to create discord, his mind always seems to turn to La Place de la Concorde.

“Reading your Random Notes of Saturday, about the amusing telegrams, brings to my mind a humorous incident of the Hawke’s Bay earthquake of February, 1931,” says “Waipukurauite.” “A telegram had been received by the mayor of Waipukurau from an official in the devastated area of Napier. In fact, the mayors of most towns received the same telegram which read: ‘Picks, shovels and cars urgently required.’ Telephones were busy and by one o’clock fifty cars had been commissioned in our little ‘berg,’ and were off full throttle to Napier with instructions to report on arrival to an official at McLean Park. We reported. The official gasped. Fifty cars from Waipukurau, fifty from Waipawa, the same from Danncvirke, and one hundred ou the way from Palmerston North. Who had sent out the SOS? It transpired that the telegram handed in for transmission read: ‘Picks, shovels and bars (crowbars) urgently required.’ ”

The moon has given itself some little publicity by becoming entangled with the earth’s shadow. But this is but one of the queer things that the moon does. We accept the sun as something beyond our control, but we treat the moon in a far more offhand manner. Moreover, the moon treats us in a manner just as offhand. The truth is that the moon always likes to get astronomers guessing. Astronomers have traced the moon through all her complicated motions. They have studied and allowed for every possible disturbance. They have, as a result, set a schedule for the moon. But the moon refuses to follow it. The moon is a lady and during au eclipse she has been known to be late. Indeed, some ten years ago, during an eclipse of the sun, the moon arrived so late on the scene, astronomers were quite concerned. So late was she that she put out the astronomers’ calculations by over a second of time. An error like that is too large to be explained by a human mistake.

Possibly the man in the moon could explain the wayward ways of his protege, but it seems as far off as ever before a man of the world will be able to get to the moon to interview the man in the moon. The trouble about the moon is not its distance from the earth, a mere quarter of a million miles, but the climate. When the sun is shining directly overhead on the moon the temperature rises some 51) degrees Fahrenheit above that of boiling water. This is an uncomfortable temperature. Unfortunately temperatures on the moon when the sun is uot shining are just as uncomfortable. It has been estimated that in contrast night time on the moon brings with it a frost of 270 degrees below freezing point. Another complication is that gravity on the moon is not what it is on the earth. A man who reached the moon would find his weight reduced to some 301 b. all told. If he jumped about to keep warm he could leap over a fair-sized hill. The moon, indeed, would be a most undignified place in which to live, for an elderly and not at all athletic lady could jump right over our heads and be out of sight in a few minutes.

If the moon is somewhat inclined to be inhospitable to our civilising influences, so far as colonisation is concerned, the moon is not beyond influencing things on this world of ours. For one thing, the moon affects our weight. It is not worth worrying about. The fact remains, however, that when the liner, Queen Alary, has the moon overhead she will weigh 201 b. more than when the moon sets. The moon, moreover, affects the pendulums of all grandfather clocks according to her position, and, of course, the moon gives us the tides. It will be seen, therefore, that the moon takes quite an interest in us. Nobody, from bathers to masters of crack liners, can ignore the tides that are produced by the moon. Moreover, the tides have a profound effect on the land nearby. When the tide rises in the English Channel the houses on cither side bow to one another in an entente cordialc that goes back to the days when there were no houses to bow. One might add, perhaps. that the moon is probably responsible for more marriages than even Cupid himself. An eclipse of the moon is therefore something about which to be concerned.

Besides tides, marriages and the like, the moon plays a far more important part in our daily lives than we usually appreciate. The moon is a dead globe, the astronomers tell us, and they proceed to treat the moon as if she were made of putty or plaster of Paris. Farmers all over the world from Timbuktu to the Solomon Islands will tell you that the moon is not to bo treated lightly. In the South Seas the Kanakas uro at pains to plant their maize with the waxing moon. Alany a farmer considers that pigs should be killed on a waning moon. Then the fresh meat will not waste on cooking. There are, moreover, many farmers who. like the savages of the Solomon Islands, would not .’.ream of sowing on a waning moon. Seeds sown at. that time are slow to sprout, they are frail, they do not thrive. Seeds sown perhaps a fortnight later with a waxing moon grow the quicker. It is during the wax of the moon that the farmer’s wife sets her eggs and that her husband grafts his trees. Fishermen, one might add. have a- firm belief in the moon. Even the Scottish Fishery Board notes in one of its duller publications “that the changes of the moon have an influence in the catches of herrings.”

“Talking about sharks.” says "Truth.” “on a certain job several men were sitting having their mid-day meal. The conversation turned to sharks. One of the men. an' Australian, said. ‘I was firtiing on Bondi beach one day and I hooked a big shark. After playing it for some hours 1 managed to land it. It was cut open and. do you know, we found a double-deck tram-car and the conductor was on the top deck arguing the point with a woman about her fare.” “This incident actually occurred on our links, where sheep, cows, horses and fowls may be seen, at various points.” says "8.G.A.,” Carterton. A lady who drove from the tee. Hit the rump of a startled gee-gett. As he beat a retreat Ho exclaimed “Rather neat, But don’t make a target ot me!"