RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 92, 12 January 1939, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights On Current

Events

(By Kickshaws).

The stage is stated to be set in Rome for Mr. Chamberlain’s visit. Well, well, we hope this time the scene-shift-ers will know their job. * * $

English farmers, it is stated, desire cuts of New Zealand mutton. Undercuts and import cuts are the two main cuts involved.

Fears are expressed that an American expedition to collect samples of New Zealand fish will catch New Zealand birds. What fishing yarns those boys will be able to swap when they get back to America. * * *

“What is the average expectation of life for a New Zealander born today?” writes “R.J.S.”

[Here is a list taken from the Official Year Book, which gives an idea of the way we are living to greater and greater ages in New Zealand. The age of males comes first, and then females: 1895 55, 58; 1900 57, 60; 1905 58, 61; 1910 59, 62; 1915 61?, 63; 1922 63, 65; 1931 65, 68. We can, therefore, prepare ourselves today for a further eight years of worry if we are a boy baby, and a similar period of housekeeping if we are a girl baby.]

Kickshaws notes with relief that the proposed Racing Commission inquiry is to be comprehensive. There are numerous little points that the Commission might well solve. These are not so much questions of procedure as questions of putting last things first. One must admit that the race is always to the swift, but it is strange how this works out The Commission might well explain why it is that, when one sees a virile horse prancing and neighing and scratching at the turf like any golfer, the horse comes in first if one has not backed it and last if one has backed it. It is suggested that the Commission form a special “huddle,” whose duties will be to solve entirely a problem that has baffled completely the average racegoer. Another matter that might well have the special attention of the Commission is why, when a friend gives one a “sure thing” free of charge, it usually comes in last, if indeed, it runs at all. We feel that the Commission is going to be very, very busy.

Horse-racing is such an important secondary industry in New Zealand, we feel that the Racing Commission, once it starts to sit, will never stand up again. It will require some little time for it to discover why the man next to one next day on the way to work always knows of someone who knows someone who put £lO on the top “divvy” of the day before. We suggest that the Commission actually find the fellow who has done this and take his photograph. So far nobody has ever seen this rare bird. Another point that might well be investigated, is why afternoon tea inevitably runs out before one gets there. Ardent tea drinkers have been known to report that this delicacy runs out before lunchtime. These and other minor little points are of the utmost importance to the man that matters, those fellows who never succeed in backing a winner, thereby contributing their full quota to racing funds. We would also like the Commission to tell us how it is .that in a close finish the general public always manages to select the wrong winner. This, and the unsolved riddle of what happens to the fellow who puts his last shirt on a race, are matters of supreme importance, demanding solutions.

News that our Australian friends are enjoying sweltering heat along the whole of the eastern half of that continent is calculated to make shivering New Zealanders slightly jealous. We may take so-me pride in that we never enjoy 199 degrees and above but there are accasious when anything seems better than a December winter. It comes as a further aggravation to discover that though it is warm in Australia there have been occasions when it has been even warmer. At Marble Bar, a mining township that does not live up to its name, the maximum thermometer has been known to remain day and night at more than 100 degrees for 103 consecutive days. Indeed, .Perth has enjoyed as best it may a temperature of more than 90 degrees for 20 consecutive flays. Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane have put up runs of up to a fortnight. If readers like it warm, they are advised to move to Broome, Port Darwin, or Thursday Island. How long they will stay there is another matter.

Maybe we folk in Wellington can rejoice that we do not enjoy heat waves similar to those in Australia. Actually, it comes as a surprise to discover that Wellington gives us an average temperature equivalent to San Francisco. Auckland and Rome can claim almost identical temperatures, as can Dunedin, Paris, Loudon and Dublin. This seems to indicate that averages often fail to give a very good account of existing conditions. Khartoum is one of the all-round hottest places, with Darwin a close second, and Bombay third. Brisbane is only a few degress cooler than Cairo. Nevertheless, there is a vast difference between the climates of the various places mentioned. Climate is a delicate mixture of wind, rain and sun to which has been added a touch of mugginess. On the whole, Welliugton can claim that despite its winds and its presistent refusal to throw a heat wave, the climate, taken all round, is as good as anywhere else in the world. Unfortunately residents in any place are apt to define climate as semething that folk elsewhere are enjoying.

Despite Australia’s heatwave there are hotter places to be found than there are in Australia. The world’s hottest spot enjoys a temperature of anything between 2000 degrees and 4000 degrees. Moreover, this spot is only 50 miles away from Wellingtonstraight down. Exactly how hot it is there is still a matter for conjecture. Meanwhile, on the surface of the world the hottest spot barring volcanoes, has a temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit. This temperature uas been recorded iu an isolated part of the Himalayan glaciers in the province of Kashmir. Au idea of what this heat means may be had from the fact that the average temperature at which akettle sings is only about 10 degrees above this temperature. There are several places where temperatures of 150 degrees have been recorded. Death Valley, California, claims temperatures of this nature, ■ though they are unofficial. In parts of Massawah and the Ogaden deserts of Abyssinia temperatures have been recorded of 158 degrees. It is possible to fry an egg in the sun on a stone.

“My family are all wondering who Enrasions are; their homeland, nationality, and so on. Could you please enlighten us?” writes “E.”

[This is a word used to denote children born of a Hindu mother aud a European father. This term originally was confined in India.]