POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 48, 26 February 1942, Page 6

POSTSCRIPTS

BY PERCY FLAGE

Chronicle and Comment

Theme song: "On the Beach at Bali Bali."

About the only successful substitute for brains is heavy silence.

One of Mussolini's greatest problems must be to keep his armies supplied with "flight commanders." * * #

Harold Nicolson (iivreference to the House of Commons): There are times when the Chamber seems no more than an aquarium in which fish float and bubble but do not fight. , *" • . • i« LIMERICK. May I suggest?— A German whose name was yon Fritz Said: "Prison camp's just like der Ritz. Each morning I dine Off food vich is fine, But if I tell the truth, I get fitz." •J.G.A. * # * j NOMENCLATURE. ' An acceptor for the Champagne [Stakes at Dunedin, a Salmagundi I youngster, is without a name. Let us j assist the owner with RISSOLE, an I appropriate "sevener" that has goni begging up to the present. . , K. * " * * PARTING NOTE. I I've had a nasty shock, dear Flo, j And now I must bid you goodbye. j I'll find it very hard to go, ! For we were true loves, you and I. But really it's no longer wise, ! If I'm to keep my bachelor vow . . . Today I learned, with sad surprise, You've been three weeks a widow nowi O.W.W. * * * i "UMBRELLA." [ Correction of February 21 issue of "School's In," No. 10, which reads: "Umbrella" comes from an Italian word meaning "little \ spade," etc. My fast-diminishing memory of Italian 'and Latin is that the word in Italian is "ombrella," a shade (not spade), i.e., "umbrageous" as the shade of a tree, and is derived direct from the Latin "umbra," a shade. R. W. de MONTALK. Otaki. Probably it was our pencil script which made "shade" into "spade." * * * ■ GHOSTS WATCH. General Graziani (heard of him?) found a golden coin of the Roman Empire in the desert sands of Libya. He promptly sent it to Mussolini as a sign that his master had achieved sovereignty over regions that the Caesars had ruled. The coin has an even wider significance. When the Imperial troops first captured Tobruk they found the Italians had embodied two old Roman forts in their line of defences. Other older ruins have since been uncovered —and used. Cyrenaica, a part of Libya, was colonised by the I Greeks before 600 8.C., and it was a fruitful and flourishing region then. Unlike Graziani, who cemented over the Arab ,they : -fostered irrigation and husbandry. There is one question about the country that still i puzzles historians. Its most prized projduct was the silphium, or laserpitium, I which was valued for its fruit, stalk, leaf, and juice. No one knows exactly what that plant was. * «■ * MEET COXSWAIN BLOGG. A commonplace name, but what a record! His full name is Henry George Blogg. He is the 65-year-old coxswain of the famous Cromer lifeboat, and recently has received his fourth silver medal from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. It is his eleventh award. He holds also three gold medals of the Lifeboat Institution—the "Lifeboat V.C."-—an award from the R.S.P.C.A.. the 0.8.E.. George Cross, and the B.E.M. The latest award was for the rescue of 44 men from a stranded steamer. At the first attempt Blogg was flung into the water with four of his crew, one of whom afterwards died. Coxswain Blogg was rescued and sent to hospital. He left his bed at 3 a.m. to complete the rescue. A newspaperman several days later found Blogg repairing his crab pots. "The crew have earned their bronze medal," he said. 'Since the war they have rendered four magnificent service?. As to my medals," he added with a chuckle, "you can collect them for salvage if xou like. It isn't a question of medals/but of men. This country has the men." '

MORNING TEA MONOLOGUE. Who said as someone said larst week ' That I was bubblin' an' a squeak, Becos our Singlepore 'as gorn To other 'ands-'n'-feet? I scorn Them dirty nicks outer the Yeast— 'Taint football, dear, to say the least. Wouldn't they get some 'ei'ty cracks If they ran into our All Blacks? Them yeller boys can be 'ot-'n'-strong. An' so far now'days can't go wrong. But though our Alleys 'aye black eyes To Churchill an' to my surprise They'll pull their sox up with a bang, And "orrerscope all 'Itler's gang. So keep your chin up. Look at mine? Am I the lass to wail-'n-wine Like an ole dog what brays the moon? Not me. I tell you late-'n'-soon We'll 'aye our Diggers fightin' fit As Mr. Kipperlin' 'as writ In the larst war, though 'c, I've 'card, 'An' Queen Vie. never parst no word. The Winser's Widder was the name 'E gave 'er, while she lothed the same. 'Owever. both 'as gorn their ways To 'appier lans with 'appier days, Where ,they 'aye made it up, I s'pose... Look at that man's temarta nose. «- * *■ 1 CAMOUFLAGED H.Q. ' Which stands for Hitler's headquarters at the Eastern front. Slovak's War Minister, Marshal Kwaternik, paints the picture. "I met the "Fuhrer in an encampment surrounded by barbed wire and camouflaged so as to be completely invisible from the air. . . . The camp bristled with AA. guns and was guarded by a double line of sentries of , [Hitler's bodyguard of S.S. troops. .

In the centre of the camp was Hitler's panzer tram; around it a number, of single-storey buildings. . . . There are two big rooms, known as 'Eastern Room' and 'Western Room.' The former contains large-scale maps of the Russian front, the latter maps of Western Europe and the British Isles. . . •" The Fuhrer's permanent staff was housed round the panzer train. Field-Marshal Wilhelm yon Keitel and Hitler's chief military adjutants, General Alfred Jodl and Colonel Rudolf Schmidt, have 'permanent apartments. As in Berlin, Hitler is a late riser. Often, in the afternoon, he walks into the West Room and stares at the maps of the British Isles. Nobody is allowed to interrupt these solitary meditations. When the Fuhrer "goes west,'.' the room is barred to all military advisers.

[It was reported later on that Kwaternik had embarrassed the Nazis with his description of Hitler's H.Q.]