HOUSEHOLD HINTS FOR MEN.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3463, 31 March 1930, Page 2

HOUSEHOLD HINTS FOR MEN.

1 have always regarded it as a distinct evidence of bad judgment on the part of editors of nmvspaijors that their valuable household hints are always given on 1 lie woman’s page, obviously with the idea of concealing them from men, writes A. P. Garland in the London Daily Chronicle. Yet which of the two sexes needs the hints most? Ask yourself whether George Duncan or 1 is more in need of a tip in regard to the play of a masliie with a hanging lie. 1 speak feelingly. All my family are away. Save for the sporadic incursions oka disiliusioner char, I am holding the fort alone at home and fending for myself. And wiiat a fend! Eager and enthusiastic though I am, every hour in tsiie day I am encountering problems that 1 have no chance of solving. Where am I to turn for guidance? This morning, for example, 1 rather broke a plate belonging to a muchcherished and valuable china set. The tiling might have happened to anyone. I was frying some bacon, and just took up the newspaper to see what gifted animals were showing their paces at Brighton. Suddenly the bacon seemed unaccountably to have started to burn. 1 dashed lor the nearest plate, dropped it, and bent it considerably.

Now, what’s the etiquette in a case like that? In other words, where am 1 to get a substitute plata in readiness for the return of Her? 1 haven’t the faintest idea where the set was bought, or, even then, if they keep spares. Is itj possible to rearrange thol set so’that the absence of one plate may not ..ie discovered for months, by which time I can blame the loss on a burglar — cat burglar for choice? Anyhow, I was helpless and hopeless. I looked round for a friend, but there was none. I thought of appealing to the girl on the telephone exchange, but our relations have been somewhat strained - since yesterday, when she would persist in putting me on to the Gas. Light and Coke Company—admirable people, no doubt, but you don’t want to spend your day talking to them. By the way, why don’t china manufacturers sell 13 plates for 12, on the lines of the book publishers? That would provide one for breaking purposes and still leave the set intact? it’s all so grim and bewildering. Again, is the laundry already aired when it comes home? To be on the safe side I hung mine on the kitchen stove, turned on a jet of gas, and left it to get on with the job. As a result, half an arm has disappeared from one dress shirt.

That, of course, is easily replaced. The shops are open till six. But how am I to dispose of the remains? If I put it in the dustbin some' Paifl Pry is sure to stumble on it and inform the police. They will scent a tragedy. The Big Five of Scotland Yar c F will come tramping through my place. On the other hand. I can’t offer the shirt to anybody as a tip or cut it up into small pieces for bandages. So, in self-defence. I’m going to sneak out to-night and post the whole shirt under cover of darkness in the local pillar-box. Perhaps I’ll put a couple of stamps on it and address it to a missionary in M’Furnbo Jumbo for the use of one of his heathen. It may start a new fashion in one-armed shirts. And I have no fearst of discovery. The name marked on the shirt is “Jones.” Further, i. a kettle really boiling as soon as the steam shoots straight out of the spout? Or should one let il have a bit of a run before pouring it in the teapot? Somehow the tea 1 make tastes pretty’rotten. I use one teaspoonful of tea per person—that’s me—and .one for his nob. according to Cocker. But I don’t seem to get the right' results. What do you do with the gruesome bits of fat that collect in a kitchen sink when you’ve washed a few dishes? When you reheat coffee should you put the milk in with it or not? What hymn, ballad or spiritual chant in order to time the medium boiling of epjgs? What’s a good plan to follow if the telephone rings when you’re ail soapy in the hath? j Those are hut a few of the hundreds of problems that I’m constantly running against and being beaten by. It’s no use telling me that lighthousemcn and nightwatcliiiien can solve them. That doesn't help me a scrap. The time has come. I think, for a neat manual of Household Mints for Grass Widowers.