POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 110, 11 May 1935, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGS

If you see it in the London Sunday "sensationals" it is so-so. * »•■■■'•■•■■ Add similes: As exhilarating as th« Garbo peal of girlish laughter. . * .•■_*• There were 51,924 marriages performed lin California 'last year, counting Hollywood marriages as marriages. • ♦ ■.' » ■ * After the State dinner, Mr. Forbes will find it bard-to "get'down to the dish of plain beef and mutton to be served up by Mr. Elliot. . " 'Ammersmith."—J.ack Lang is-very sore about the Stevens" Government* new bathing dress, and is sure there is something behind it \ ~ ~-; ; ' ' • • -.'.' "•;. "; .. ,'; ~-■■ SO THERE. We filched ; this when the ownef wasn't looking because it applies to " us, too:— An artist seeks beauty to paintV:^^ That's simple if done with restraint, But most of my time's - Spent in seeking new rhymes; p r If you think: that it's easyi-it ain't '■*' ■ ■'- - •'•■ ' "-, ■' •'■ ■ /■•<■- -:..',, v,- % BROUGHT OFF- A -TREBLE.*'" The other day we told,of an English, racing dame who exclaimed1 delightedly when,her horse (the winner).ridden by her son, returned to the saddling paddock: "Isn't If splendid! 'T bred them, both." Someone who read that par > called in to tell us another, and as we were, out, he left. this,.story, behind him. At a trotting meeting in'the far south, a horse named Clare won. a certain event." It turned out 'later' that Clare's proud owner hadbrought off an unusual treble; he, had bred the winner, bred the driver (it was his son), and bad built the sulky himself." That's a record which will take \ lot of beating. ' . ': 'W,;t., y ••■■■ T*«v; ■: >.• ( i: {s•:££.£ . ■ HEADLINES^ SIMPLIFIED.* *. This is. a technical matter, inserted with the primary purpose,of inducing-' our colleagues to take a mbre"lconsistent interest in this nonchalant feature. Headline' writing is ah':art-%id like all art, is largely at natural gift.-'But a gentleman has reduced the art "to a science—in a book lately published in London.- The' author^ gives -headlinfe language a special . classification as "block language," and frees 4tf from most of the rules of grammar: Its'parfc of speech are "nqminals, neutrals, .verbals, and particle's." But these should' be used with precision. He warns headline writers againstTising a'word "in. Jnternominal position "of gunctional character," and likewise they showd be careful not to combine two words of which the first is a ,"d-nexus and the other a semi-variable in postnominal position with active function." Yes. headline writing is as simple, as .that; • • • SCHOOL'S IN. Do you know that— . 1. The world's tiniest watch; measuring only three millimetres square, was stolen in a London shop raid?, 2. That the special 'name for tho female swan is "pen," and for the mala bird "cob"? 3 Mrs,. Havercamp,. ope of the fewwomen "postmen" in "the USA, who * lately retired, walked 34,000 miles' in. fourteen years, and is 3 stone heavier than when she started? ' 4. Britain's oldest church organist'is a woman, now in her 98th year, who. for more than 73 years,- played -the organ at the Creaton (Northants)/Cori^ gregational Church? - ■ 5. In 1934 Britain's building societies lent £103,192,000 for home-making purposes, giving employment to nearly 3,000,000 workers? 6 Miss D. B. Evans, -.driving hep 18-mch-wide car at Brooklands last month, won a handicap race, doing 102 m pji ? 7 The leasehold of 6000 -acres of land at the bottom of the Gulf pi Mexico has been sold for £81,200 to an oil-refining company? £'"-,,-v.- 5----8. The largest pyramid,' which covers 50 acres, is at Cholula.in^Mexico? The largest of the Egyptian covers only 13 acres. „ •>. -.^ -. 9. Last year 35,000 persons "were killed and 1,100,000 injured in motor accidents in the U.S,AI? fiJ :, - *, 10.'In the old-world A! Village jof: Wharnchffeslde, Yorkshire,' a,small farmstead has,been occupies •by ("succeeding generations of one famUy'^or 300 years? , f* * • •: '-/ BALLADE OF, RED HEADS.- " ' History-makers, -with "It" to "spare. Down the ages they made their way— * Charmers -with gorgeous Titian hair, Beginning with, Lilith—6* so they say— >" -, '** *■ Who reached the headlines ix£ Adam's day; s / «/ '-"«-, Red heads no mortal;'naff - could tame, T ~ \ Who knew no law but* their yea* and nay ... "-■.,? They light the years'Hlte towertf o£ flame. ." i r* i J<Jezebel made bid Ahab swear, > Filluig his people with'dismay « (And his head with sharp little nails); and there • Was Russia's Catherine, oh. quits , , au fait ". With the high technique of amorous play— A blinding star hi the great love ..game; And Nero's Poppaea, who led him astray . . . They light the years like towers ol flame. The Pompadour, who had an affair With a Frankish ; King (he had feet of clay And head to match); and the regal, rare * Virginal Queen who held at bay. The Dons of Spam; Nell Qwynn, that gay Packet of love, with a golden name That will live in the heart of romfihc* for aye, ... They light the years like towers o| flame. \ ENVOI Stiggins, we beg of you, Sir, and pray. Not, not impetuously to defame That dazzling, lamentable array . .. They light the years like towers ofi flame. -* - •/ » ♦ DREAM WITHIN A DREAM. Re your dream phenomenon—l have had such an experience /twice during the last eight years.; This experience is so vivid that' the 'memory, seems to live on. Two years after leaving Melbourne -. and all our people, I dreamed that I-was in the kitchen ofmy mother-in-1aw.,..-,1 was terribly upset because I had forgotten to,reinein- , her such details as where to find the sugar bin and the tea tin. •Suddenly, . I found it was a dreamland dreamed that I went bff;todßleep. ''' . The ■ other tune "I dreamedv that I was asleep, and that my back was uncovered. I got :iso} cold;;that it; woke me from the inner dream.% Finally, when I awoke, inrreality^l found my husband had taken all the bedclothes and left me practically bare. Neither dream was at all pleMant.;;\-H:" J v;i>y. '