POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 40, 17 February 1941, Page 6

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronizle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGE

Oh to be in Wellington, now that autumn's there. * * * Warning to burglars and thieves: Do * not rush your "fences." # * * Mussolini (some years ago): "If I advance, follow me; if I retreat, kill me. ..." ; * ♦■■»'■ Clearly the R.A.F. boys are striving > to live up to the high plane to which - Milch, Goering's off-sider, rocketed them. # * • 2 Add war scares: We await, with some perturbation, a report that San Marino is preparing , to throw its full weight against An- > dorra. . » * * i GOOD ADVICE. ; A wise old owl lived in an oak; The more he saw the less he spoke. 5 The less he spoke the more he heard, 1 Soldiers should imitate that old bird. * This verse was written up Etaples \ Station, France, in the Great War, - 1914-18. ♦ ♦ • THE TWICER. 5 He made out he was keen to do his 1 bit until he was called up, then he 1 went to a peel board on the ground of a conscious object, but they cut his s tail short by turning a deaf ear to it. t Now he thinks he is holding his end 3 up and is strutting about in the King's a colours as if he was Lord Haw-haw. { ERIN-GO-BRAGH. l P.S.—I had this from an Irish friend i of mine. * * ♦ s i FLANDIN. 1 Flandin, who is rocking on his high I heels in Vichy, hardly differs from the' 3 political gangster Laval in diplomatic ' unpleasantness. 1 Flandin sent a telegram of congratu--2 lation to Hitler after the Munich "masterpiece." 1 In 1938, after Mr. Eden had resigned - from the Chamberlain Government, • Flandin advocated a Four-Power Pact i and a free hand for Germany in 1 Eastern Europe. France, he said, " should drop her foreign commitments J and retire behind the Maginot Line. He is 6ft 4in in height, and before ' the war loved to wear English clothes. ■He will, presumably, continue to ' appease and appease. i * * ♦ t HEARD THESE? i We lift these from the "Egyptian J Mail," forwarded by Gyppo, one of - our tough New Zealanders busy on the f Middle East front. "My children," wrote a school teacher, evacuated from London, "are wild little creatures, 80 per cent, of whom have been through the Battle of London. But they have the Cockney air of defiance. Yesterday we came across the line: 'Oh, to be in England!' I waited for someone to go on, but there was no sign. Then I said: 'This is the first line of a famous poem. Do you know who wrote it?' 'Hitler,' shouted someone. There was a wild yell of joy from the whole room." The news of : the great store of booty and guns which the Greeks have cap- » tured from the Italians has remind- • ed an old soldier of a joke that was ; current then among the Germans after i Caporetto, where the Italians lost 1500 » guns.. "Have you heard," they would ■ say, "that Krupps's arms factory is ■ closing down?" If you asked the usual question "Why?" they replied: "Oh, i we can't compete with the Italians — i they're giving their guns away!" ; * * * ■ TUNNEL INVASION. ; / ! The German News Agency has been ' suggesting that the British are afraid that a German army may pop up suddenly out of the earth from a tunnel built under the Channel by Dr. Todt, who was responsible for the Siegfried Line. It is hot precisely claimed that arrangements for such a visit are in hand, but it is added that a little affair of that kind would be well within the powers of. Dr. Todt and his men, comments "Over Dover." That is a proposition which would have startled the great Sir Edward Watkin, who, for all his belief in the real Channel tunnel scheme, had some notion of its magnitude in terms of. time, money, and cubic yards of excavation. Nor is it by any means certain that, having constructed the tunnel, Hitler and his legions would' find invasion under the sea any easier than over the sea. And since it is rather the fashion to compare Hitler with Napoleon, it may be remembered that when Lord Goschen, opposing the construction of a tunnel, declared: "If there had been a Channel tunnel in Napoleon's time he would not have died at St. Helena," he received the retort: "No, he would have died in the tunnel." * # ♦ RAIN. Rain, rain! Through dim, blurred pane One peers to view the silent lane Where children stayed to romp and play The whole noon long but yesterday. Drip, drip! Where, oft, they skip A puddle grows and sparrows dip. Fair blossoms, torn from yonder bough, Forgotten, lie, bespattered now. Splash, splash, how wind does lash The rain beneath the window sash! Cheerless, seems the place. Without There's nought of human-kind about. Drear, drear, and lonesome, here! Such stormy days when none comes near One longs to greet the sun anew And waits for Youth's gay laughter, too. Sunshine, the day turns fine. Out in the lane there's every sign! Come children —soon does one declare '•What noisy rascals frolic there!" F.E.M—Si Lower Hutt. * , ♦■ ♦ THREE SUNDAYS A WEEK. Did you know that in Palestine there are three Sundays? every week? We didn't, until a frien^ Hroke the news to us—news which . *to him from a soldier friend in * tine. Here is the gist of his story. On the Christian Sunday all the shops kept by Christians are closed, but the others are open for business. On Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, the Jewish places of business close their doors. Friday is the Moslem day of prayer, when the faithful go to the mosque, and little work is done. Life in Palestine is further complicated, by the fact that there are five Calendars in use. The Gregorian calendar is used by Western Europeans in Palestine, but the Eastern Churches and their members observe the Julian calendar, which is thirteen days behind the Gregorian. Next there is the Moslem calendar counting from the Hegira, or flight of Mahomet, whose year 4s eleven or twelve days shorter than that of the Europeans. The Jewish yeir consists sometimes of twelve months, sometimes thirteen. The fifth calendar in use is that of the Copts. Of course, all of these calendars commence at dif» ferent nerinriß of the year. - ' •