RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 190, 10 May 1938, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights On Current

Events

(By

Kickshaws.)

A musical expert declares that radio has killed jazz. Radio, we hope, has come to stay.

The real armament problem is io produce guns of smaller calibre and men of larger. « A scientist who has been investigating the matter declares that there is a limit to space. He only had to try to park his car to discover that fact. * * * “Regarding ‘Whiskers’s’ shavingbrush,” writes “Ziff,” “it still lias a few years of life, judging by the one I recently discarded. 1 bought this in Sydney before leaving there 1:1 May/ 1918. Allowing 350 shaves a year, that is omitting an occasional Sunday, its record for more than 20 years must top 7000. Since 1903 I have only used two razors. One is the original blade razor, which lasted until about 1922, and the safety razor holder which replaced it, and which has just broken. While on brushes, I still use hair brushes given to me in 1909. They have lost their silver backing and have been relegated to the office, but they give good daily service.” “Hard Beard” writes: “I can claim to outdistance ‘Whiskers’ by 15 years. When I started shaving, my brother presented me with two razors, strop and my dear old shaving brush. I used both razors alternately until recently (I now use a safety) ; the strop I now use to whack the cat. I calculate my dear old brush has lathered mv face and chin 10.950 times at least; this beats ‘Whiskers’s’ record by 5475 times.” [Regarding the novel use for the strop, Mr. A. 8. Paterson may have something to say.] . The ban imposed by the Lord Chamberlain on t?wo New Zealanders anxious to be presented at Court is but one of a multitude of problems that beset this official. Behind all the grandeur and pageantry there are weeks of careful organisation, made all the more difficult to handle tactfully owing to etiquette. All the preliminary details are settled by the Lord Chamberlain. Lists of applicants have to be scrutinised for months. . Questions of precedence Lave to be decided. Those to be presented must apply for two cards. These cards contain questions which must be filled in correctly. The name of the person ,to be presented, names and rank of her mother and father, and the name of the lady who is to present her are included in the questions. The Lord Chamberlain presents the names to Their Majesties. Those who are approved receive cards of command about three weeks before the Court. * « * A Court gives employment to about 100 extra people in Buckingham Palace. Additional pages, cooks and waiters are engaged. It takes the kitchen department about a fortnight to prepare the food. Two of them do nothing but make sandwiches at the last moment. Two others spend two days, cutting bread without a stop. As about 700 invitations are usually sent out, curtseys have to be made at the rate of at least 10 a minute in order to get the whole proceedings completed in a reasonable time. Incidentally, a squad of lynx-eyed scrutineers is employed to see that every person is properly dressed. Every man passes the eyes of these individuals. He is not permitted to go before the King, no matter how trifling the inaccuracy of dress. Some men who have donned their complicated court dress at home have been turned away from the Palace because they could not effect adjustments in time.

No 'doubt it is highly important that traditional etiquette should be maintained at Royal functions. In the case of British Royalty there have been efforts to reduce etiquette' as much as possible. Maybe this has produced some noticeable results. Perhaps those responsible for court etiquette have not forgotten the terrible predicament in which the French Court once found itself. When Louis XIV wanted to visit (he wounded Marechai de Villars court etiquette introduced a comical difficulty. The King could not possibly remain upright while the marechai, his inferior, lay down in the Tloyal presence. When the problem' appeared insoluble it was arranged that the King be carried in prostrate, and should lie beside the wounded marechai. At this period the streets of Paris were rendered almost impassible owing to etiquette. When the carriages of people of rank met in the narrow streets the traffic had to be held up while an official ruling was obtained who should go back arid -who should go forward.

The contemplated journey from Auckland to London in 13 days on the part of two Wellington business men is yet another Indication of the way that the world Is shrinking. Two years ago a mining engineer set the pace by travelling from Singapore to Dunedin in eight days. This trip required the services of five different aeroplanes, but, it is understood, normal air route schedules were adhered to throughout the trip. In all, Mr. Blackie, who made the trip, travelled 5600 miles by aeroplane and 1200 miles by ship. A maker of shoes in the United States of Amrerica named Emerson can claim to have started the hustle travel pastime in 1935, when he bought for £lOOO what was virtually a concession ticket that covered all the air routes of the world. He planned to leave New York on April 20, and promised to be back for a foursome on July 17. In the interval he travelled 50,000 miles—some 40,000 of them being in the air.

So far as can be discovered, the world’s champion hustle record still stands to a Norwegian marine engineer named C. F. Christensen. In 1934 he travelled from the bottom of the world to the top—from the Antarctit to the Arctic regions—in less than a month. Nobody hag ever gone from one Pole to the other as fast, but. then, very few people have any urge to do so. In 1933 Sir Benjamin Fuller set a pace that was considered swift in those days when be took only 22 days from New York to Wellington. It will not be long before this trip will be accomplished in less than a week. Indeed, the record for travelling round the world now stands at 18 days 14 hours 56 minutes. If we except tlie Graf Zeppelin’s figure of 11 days ,23 hours 33 minutes of actual flying time, it is probable that the commercial record will not remain long unbeaten. The round-the-world journey took 117 days in 1876. At the beginning of the century it had been lowered to 60 days, and in 1926 it bad been further reduced th a little less than a month. This world we’re livin’ in Is mighty hard to beat: You get a thorn with every rose,. But ain’t the roses sweet? —L.H.J.