RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 128, 23 February 1939, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights On Current Events (By Kickshaws). Judging by the way he is hampering the oyster industry this season, the weather clerk can’t have been told about the “Buy New Zealand-made” campaign. * , A woman journalist who made a disturbance at a Nazi meeting in New York said she laughed in order to prove that free speech was not tolerated. What she has proved is that if a woman cannot have the last word she has the last laugh. • ♦ »

A slant into the way that foreign terms become introduced into a language, may be had from a study of the term “0.K.” This term has become accepted in English slang. Indeed, there is every sign that it has been given verbal recognition in the word “Oke.” The British Empire may eventually bless this horrible word. But the French have gone even further. The French public honour the term by conjugating it after the best style of French verbs. “J’oke,” “tu okes,” and so on, ending prettily with the infinitive “oker,” pronounced curiously enough in the best American manner, “okay.” Our phrase, “coming man.” which we use to describe someone with a future, has also entered the French language as “comingman.” All that can be said in retaliation is that the English language consists almost entirely of foreign words adapted in the course of centuries, or decades, to public use. Indeed, efforts on the part of dictators to stem this foreign invasion appear arbitrary and a waste of time. » * *

t lt is strange that golf should urge some people to undertake the most ridiculous tasks. A golfer who hit off at Brisbane intended to continue driving till after 1800 miles he holed out in Sydney. The task was estimated to. take eight months. Bogey was 36 strokes to the mile. It was calculated, that at least 1000 balls would be required. In contrast we never hear of a footballer kicking off at Parliament Buildings. Wellington, in an effort to touch down at Spirits’ Bay. We never read about a tennis player who volleys off at the Bluff hoping eventually to arrive at Nelson. One.may well ask why do golf enthusiast,; do such extraordinary things. Admittedly the record in New Zealand appears to be a cross-country game • of golf from the Weraite hills to the Lansdowne links, at Masterton. In 1919 a golfer teed off at Piccadilly Circus, London, played his ball through Trafalgar Square and Fleet Street to the Royal Exchange. We hesitate to encourage this sort of thing in this Dominion.

The recent refusal of the French authorities to permit tourists to visit Italy as a counter to similar restrictions. made by the Italian authorities is more serious financially than might be' imagined at first sight. The export of comt modifies may be of importance, but the export of people, on the hoof, has risen to a position of almost equal importance. The total value of the tourist to the world has been assessed at about £750,000,000 a year. The American travelling public spends a round £200,000.000 a year. More Americans enter Canada than there are people in Canada. But Canada does not mind this invasion, because the visitors leave behind £60,000.000. France, above all countries, has long appreciated the income to be derived from tourists. In fact, they leave behind in France more than £100,000,000 every year. Part of this is made up from the £450 each the American tourists bring into the’ country and leave there. Some idea what people will spend when in holiday mood may be had from the fact Unit at the height of the season at Blackpool, England, money is spent at the rate of £2OO a mini: .

Those folk who lightlieaitedly talk about colonizing the interior of Australia might well dip into the reading matter concerning efforts to explore those areas, let alone colonize them. It took some 50 years to explore what might well be called the environs of Svdney, a distance extending perhaps 300 miles inland. It was eighty years before the continent of Australia had been traversed from north to south. McDougall Stuart made three efforts to do tills before be was successful. The third effort started in December, 1861. On July 17 the expedition plunged into the mud and mosquitoes of the alluvial coastlamls and on the 24th had reached the sea near the mouth of the Adelaide river. Ou his return Stuart discovered that he had been beaten by a neck by Robert Burke, who, at a cost of £12,000 and the loss of almost his entire personnel, had made the crossing despite an appalling lack of leadership and commonsense. Indeed it. was the search parties sent out to search for search parties searching for Burke’s followers that cleared up most of the mysteries of Central Australia.

“One night, while having a conversation on the telephone, I was surprised to hear a radio programme at the same time.” writes “Curious.” “My friend remarked that our-.radio was very plain over the telephone, but the strange part was that we were not getting the same programme on our set. On hanging up the receiver and taking it off again we discovered that the programme was still going, and kept up for the rest of the evening. Could you kindly explain this telephone mystery?” [The Post and Telegraph Department has kindly supplied Hie following explanation: “The bearing of radio programmes on telephone instruments is not a mystery to the telephone engineer, a it has been experienced on various occasions. The phenomenon is due tc the fact that, under certain conditions the transmitter in a telephone acts a* rectifier, i.e., performs the same function as the detector in a radio receiver. The telephone line acts as an aerial, and the whole installation performs the same function as a radio receiver when the telephone receiver is off the hook; th result being that programmes of nearby broadcast stations are overheard when tlie conditions are suitaide. I should be glad if you would mention that any telephone subscribers experiencing this trouble should comi uuicate with ‘Complaints’ and steps will be taken to have the trouble corrected.”] » * * ... No! To condemn all Germans For the crimes of some Would be an error As monstrous as their own. We cannot indict a nation! But we can cry aloud: Oh, Germans who are just And merciful, not blinded By foolish lies or pinchbeck loyalty, Let soon the day come When again your country shall stand — Not in the dark recesses Of reaction savage and malign— But, as we knew it once. In the vanguard of civilization. —Hamilton Fyffe in the “Daily Herald.”