POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 39, 15 February 1941, Page 10

POSTSCRIPTS

BY PERCY FLAGE

Chronicle and Comment

Water, water everywhere gives. Ministers to think. * *- * ' Food (for thought): British eggs for German Hamm. . * * ♦ There is always a lot of cackling in a mare's nest. * # * Ngahauranga Gorge—"The 'ole, in the read-" - ' .. PARADE. I * # • Camou: Many a husband, knowing nothing about music, learns he can produce real harmony in the home by playing second-fiddle. - * . * ... # .. MALAPROPAGANDA. v Dear Percy Tlage^Re your Gorgonzola item—Ma Malaprop suggests to Melisande that she must not - confuse Limberger and Lindbergh, comparisons being always odourous. Wishing., you all the best, . • ..- > FELIX LEO. • I « * * ■.■'... - i RETORT FEMININE. . r An Oslo girl sitting in the lounge of a hotel was approached by a German officer asking her to dance. She refused, and shortly afterwards he returned and spoke in rather a threatening tone. ■ "Is it because I am a German?" he inquired. "Oh, no," she said, smiling sweetly, "not at all. It is merely because lam a Norwegian." PETERBOROUGH. » * * QUEER WORLD. In many South American movie houses, when patrons do not like a picture, the film is stopped at once and another started. When patrons want to see a scene again it is run over and over again until they are satisfied. One of the most magnificent gestures of hospitality in history was made^in 1898 by Abdul Hamid" 11, Sultan of Turkey, when he built a palace in Hereke for the express purpose of entertaining Kaiser Wilhelm, who was to stop there on his way to Palestine. His visit lasted only three hours. The palace was never used again. Ada Leonard, strip-tease dancer, sought divorce from her. husband because her attorney explained:. "She recants *Jie fact that her husband u.oesn't. resent the fact that she is doing this kind of work. Is- that Clear?" " ' . • ..•;,:; — : * • • THE PARROT DIED- . '■ Nazis dining at a restaurant in Paris the other day were startled to hear, a shrill voice from the proprietor's quarters shriek: "Down with the Germans!" Angrily they sought out the miscreant—and found him to be a parrot. ■ • The proprietor was accused of. teaching the bird those seditious words. He protested his innocence. "That parrot has been saying the same thing ever since I bought him twenty years ago," he explained. "You mean he learned it during the last war?" said the leader of the indignant Nazis. "No—during the war- of 1870,"1 was the surprising reply- . "Listen ,for a minute, and you will see I am speaking the truth." .• ..'.,"■ The Nazis listened. "Down with Bismarck!" cried the parrot. '"''"'" V' His owner was pardoned; but the Germans are a.humourless race, and the feathered patriot was sentenced to death for his crime against their grandfathers! t * * . SCHOOL'S- IN. Do you know that-— ■.■:."-.■ - • (1) The average man consumes-in a lifetime food and water about 1400 times his own weight, or about 20,000 pounds? (2) All cattle driven through, the streets of Wallaceburg (Ontario) in future must carry red tail-lights at night? (3) Damme'is the name of a village a few miles from Bruges? (4) Pinks which grow on the MenI dip Hills will nourish nowhere else in the British Isles and are used in making scents? (5) At least a quarter of England has changed hands in the last two decades? (6) In Egypt archaeologists dug up honey thousands of years old still good •to eat? (It had been used for embalming!) (7) "Umbrella" comes from an Italian word meaning "little shade"? (8) A gianf palm, believed to be 15,000 years old, has just been replanted at Tomborine Mountain, near Brisbane, Queensland? (9) During hurricanes coconut trees may bend till tops touch the ground, yet they never snap off? (10) Nero employed slaves to carry snow and ice from the mountains so that his, foods and wines might be cooled for festive banquets? « ♦ . « ■' BATTLESHIP HYMN. Sir,—ln view, of the fact that H.M.S. Malaya is so much in the news, would you please publish these verses, which are inscribed on the right-hand side oi " the door of the chapel on this ship. Here in a quiet room, . Pause for a space, And in the deepening gloom With hands before thy face ; Pray for God's grace. Let no unholy thought Enter thy musing mind; " . . ' . Things that the world hath wrought, Unclean, untrue, unkind, Leave them behind. Pray for the strength of God, Strength to obey His plan, Rise from thy knees less clod/ More of a' man., ~..-.. (Contributed by "Reader.") ' : * * ..*•:.■;:'■ "WATER MUSIC." "London Lass" writes: — Dear Percy Flage,—l readY with amusement that paragraph in C6lumn 8 regarding a stroll through the Gardens, among the asthmas, etc. It recalled a passage from "Water Music," a most readable book by Sir. J. . C. Squire. Ho had been pondering , his childhood's appreciation of the' sound of words, apart from their meaning or context: Here is the passage, for our readers' edification: Had I heard the word, "aniline then, it would probably have enchanted my not-quite-angelic but receptive ear. For a lovely word it. is, and so are many whose sounds do no.t quite reach us because of intercepting associations. Long ago I noted how ugly in themselves were some of the con-, secrated names of poets,. and how exquisite the names of many of the most dreadful diseases. What a "crested and resounding name" would ..have Sir Erysipelas, stout -and . greybearded compeer of Sir Isumbras at the Ford. What an Amazon Queen Pyorrhea would make, and how delicate and sad and Maeterlinckian.a girl, nightgowned and candle-lit in a turret, | the forsaken Princess Anaemia. . .