POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 98, 27 April 1935, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

BY PERCY FLAGE

Chronicle and Comment

Seemingly ex-King George II of Greece is immune from rex appeal. # i> ■ » ' ■ ■ Mr. Lang's New Deal is merely the old one with the usual joker in the pack. * • • ■ An English editor asks: "Take sex out of motion pictures, and what would we have?" That's an easy one: George Arliss, of course. * * « Wouldn't it annoy one to kill the fatted calf for his returning prodigal son only to find that when away the lad had turned vegetarian? *"■ * « A'"follow up." A German Judge suggests a hemlock cocktail to dispose of condemned criminals. That sounds like something with a (last) kick in it. . : ■ . • * # ♦ FAULTY KNEE ACTION? . From a London paper:—Luang Damrong, of Cranleigh, Surrey, a member of the personal staff of the ex-King of Siam, was fined £5 at Woking for failing to keep proper control of a motor-car. It was alleged that he had his arm round a girl who was sitting on his left knee, and that-he lost control of the clutch of the car. But not the grip of the, gal. * <> ■ # .. ECCENTRICS. Talking of eccentrics—as we have been: "Wicked Earl" recalls to us William Beckford, a famous art collector, who inherited several million pounds. He built Fonthill, the most spectacular country house in Great. Britain. If had a Gothic tower hundreds of feet high which subsided almost as soon as the workmen had gone. Literary minds will remember Beckford as the author of "Vathek," which he wrote in French at the age of 21. Lastly, there is Sir Claude Champion de Crespigny, whose wife died last month. This peer did the bravest thing ever known in the Isle of Wight. He bathed with his wife off the Squadron Steps at Cowes. It. is whispered also of. him that when he was a Sheriff he did not flinch from any of the grisly duties connected with that office. ■.■•.• # ■*: ■■■•.•■.■:>.. BRUSH UP YOUR GREEK. What follows may be all Greek to you, but, greatly daring, we pass it on and take the risk. The old Greeks had a great many words for a great many things, because they discovered or invented so many things. They coined words long and words short. They had a two-letter word "ge" pronounced gay, for "earth," but * they used to call an ascetic monk an old • "heautontimoroumenos," or "self-tor-mentor." It is this special genius of the Greek language (comments one with more scholarship than we shall ever possess) which enabled good old Samuel Johnson to get the better in a debate with a Billingsgate fish-wife whom he called a parallelopipedon, so that the poor woman, burst into tears. It also permitted the Puzzlers* League of America only the other day to provide themselves with a new. champion/ word, pneurnonouHramicroscopisiiieovolcanokoniosis, meaning some form of a dust disease. The Greek language can do,'this,'just'as it can sum up an entire natural philosophy by saying; "pantarei"—"everything flows." • ~..-' : '..*■.. «" :■ ■•. ■'. . ■ . SCHOOL'S IN. Do you know that— (1) Edinburgh was originally. Dunedin, or Edwins-Fort? The /'burgh" is - merely the Germanic alternative for the Gaelic "dun." v (2) An English prize-winning Chow, jet black in colour, was mated wiih a red-brown lady Chow, and the outcome was,a family of six snow-white puppies? (3) The Rev. J. S. Robertson, for 59 years minister of the parish of Cummock, Ayrshire, who died recently, was credited with having written and preached over 3000 sermons? . • (4) According to one of England's leading glass spinners, one cubi<y inch of glass can be spun to over 200 miles? (5) An Essex lorry-driver who has a record of over 200,000 miles on the road, was fined last month 4s costs for speeding? (6) There are no Frenchmen in the ranks of the French Foreign Legion— only the officers are of that nationality? (7) A Mrs. Bernie Gillis, of Prince Edward Island, has just had her nineteenth child in eighteen years? (8) The Hawaiian ukulele is not Hawaiian? It was introduced there by the Portuguese in 1877? .' (9) There are sixty-four streets, squares, roads, avenues, and gardens in London which bear the name Albert? .. ' ' ■:■ (10) Included in theappointments of the 79,000-ton French liner Normandie is a garage which will house 100 cars? *■■'.■ # ■■ • ■ PRONUNCIATION. This is how the 8.8.C. announce* are expected to say these words:— Bertha in her tawny beret Looks as keen-slick as a ferret Not for all the gold in.Ophir Would we like to be a chaufftmt Or a Sir-I'm-coming valet, Or. a mason with a mallet. Dear, this is the point at issue: Shall you kick me?. Shall I kiss youi Being a car casualty Makes men weep fat tears and salty.. When, a soldier, you go route Marching, mind what you're about. What fun, eh? to see a tortoise Labouring through your kitchen hortus. On occasion, in the Dail Angry passions seethe and boil. We were never an aspirant For the job, dictator-tyrant. One could not procure, with threepence, Any really lethal weapons. « ■ » ', •». . THE NEW DEAL. ■ An American editor comments that,' "After two years of experimenting the Secretary of Agriculture shows a belated recognition of economic laws." Now listen to this conversation of two of Mr. Wallace's clients:— "Good morning, neighbour. What in the world arc you doing?" "I am giving this calf a New Deal. His legs are so short he #can't reach the feed;trough. I'm putting these stilts under.him so that he may get his share. See how peaked the ,poor thing looks." "Yes, I see he doesn't look any too peart, but you'll have your troubles making those stilts stay on." : "i suppose I will, but meantime his legs will be getting longer and pre^ sently he will not need them." "That is true, but by that time where will be other calves with legs just as short? My advice to you, neighbour is to lower your feed trough."