POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 24, 29 January 1942, Page 6

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGE

Rommel seems to be a stormy petrol hunter with pincers. * * »

Our last line of delence: The Refusiliers.

Erin-go-Bragh: War news is all and sundry telling all and sundry all and sundry about all and sundry. * •» #

Nothing was left to chance in the following advertisement in a Pretoria newspaper: "Wanted for a Medical Doctor's Consulting Room: A Lady Clerkess."

Mr. Attlee, Lord Privy Seal: I do not think it is possible to define "an appropriate time," beyond saying that "an appropriate time" is a time that is appropriate. * # * ASTRONOMICAL UNIT. "Harihaha."—Now we know why there's such an awful, winter in Europe this winter, and such a winter here this summer. The astronomers have found that the sun is further away than it was supposed to be. * # * DIVINER INDEED. An amateur water diviner in an Australian regiment in Egypt was demonstrating his prowess before a somewhat sceptical audience when the rod suddenly sprang out of his hand and gave "a series of hops" on the ground. Excavation unearthed a large consignment of bottled* beer that had presumably been buried 'in 1916 end forgotten. * * * A JAPAN-EASY ONE. The late Mr. E. A. Worthy, classical master at Christ's College, had a great reputation as a punster. Challenged to find a pun for Japanese, he promptly remarked, "My dear fellow, you do give a chap-an-easy one." It seems asif the critics today are complaining that people in high places have given the Jap-an-easy one in the Pacific. SALAMANCA. * # * * DUTCH COURAGE. Nazi authorities have sent the following official notice to editors of newspapers in the Netherlands, according to Dutch sources in London: "Severe action will be taken unless the practice stops of publishing a whole page of pictures of dogs on the main news pages when Hitler meets Mussolini or Horthy (Hungary), or when the German army has made sensational advances on the Eastern Front." * * * "MAD TORPEDO." Russian Stormovik dive-bombers engaged in bombing German tanks are using a type of projectile which the Germans nicknamed "the mad torpedo." It leaves a fiery trail after being dropped, and smashes through armour, and sets the tank on fire. According to the Moscow radio, when a bomb from a Stormovik strikes a tank "it is a common experience for the tank to burst like a balloon." Armoured trains are also doing effective work among German tanks, so it is said. Their shells "cut through the steel like board, and then explode inside." Wasn't it Beaverbrook who declared that the Russians were the greatest mechanicians in the world?

POCKET RADIO. British ships are now being supplied with a new safety device which, it is hoped, will be the means of saving many lives. It has already been used in emergency and proved its worth. It is a new type of "suitcase" radio transmitter, small, waterproof, buoyant, and of the simplest possible design. It can be flung overboard in a second and worked by any member of the crew. In the past many seamen's lives have been lost because, after being torpedoed, they drifted in their boats for weeks, unable to make their plight known to any craft at a distance. The new transmitter can be thrown into the sea in a trice, and then floats until picked up. With this in their possession, the survivors of a torpedoed ship can send out a stream of SOS calls to a distance of 200 miles. It operates on the pressure of a button. This floating radio transmitter recently saved the lives of seventeen men, whose signals were picked up by a destroyer ninety miles away.

MORNING TEA MONOLOGUE. I'm tied a bit. The other day As down the street I walked me way I sorta smelt silk stockin's which Sent me 'cart rise to an 'igh pitch. I rushed inside the shop an' there Was wimmin, scrappin' for a pair Like 'Itler's pantzers. Did I weight? I diddint, seem' I was late. Into the spray I crashed'-n-'tore An' finished flat out on the floor, The which 'ad never come to me, But that dame will be upper tree Gettin' all ready for a flop When I can land 'er on the 'op.

I've gotta say me legs-'n'-arms Ain't not so good for wars a larms Than they was once. An' do you guess I'd love to join E.P. an' S? It's true. Them queer in centuries Can splutter in the dark an' fiz. But give me watery sand, ole dear, An' none won't 'a've no thing to fear. That done I 'urry out to find Them folk what won't pull down the blind, Riskin' to getta bomb one night; Wouldn't I put them jokers right, An' let the Essem do the rest . . . 'Aye you 'card of the ole mare's nest? * * * A SEDDONIAN NOTE. j Tom L. Mills: Who remembers a big j black charger Premier Seddon rode I through the city streets and out to Island Bay and round the coast back to the stables via Evans and Oriental Bays? As his political opponents could not shake up his liver enough and the Big Fellow hated walking for hiking's sake, his M.O. ordered horseback exercise. It took some mount to carry 18st of the Politico and this was found in The General, 16-17 hands, with a white blaze on his face. He was a splendid walker and gave the Premier just the exercise he needed. What became of The General? I got the answer here in Feilding the other day from my butcher, a Wellingtonian. As. is frequently the case when I am about, Mr. Seddon as a topic cropped up. Said the butcher: "Do you remember Mr. Seddon on that big horse?" A middle-aged Maori who was in the shop replied: "I remember it well." I asked: "What became of it?" and to my surprise got the reply from the butcher: "After the Boer War the Government sold its large accumulation of horses. The General was amongst them and the animals, for which large prices were paid by the Defence Department, went so cheap at the sale that I secured The General for seven quid!" By this time The General was full-aged, but the butcher rode him around Wellington—"And I never had an easier mount or a better stepper." Later, The General was put out to grass, but did not last long, going the way of all [horseflesh