POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 85, 7 October 1943, Page 4

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGE

Man in Court: I tried to. act as a y peacemaker, but I was hit on the jaw; land fell flat out. j ■■.*.'■ ..;- * ' ;■. .* '■ ■ ■:•■: ; Goebbels: "The whole Reich and its largest cities are within the reach of enemy planes. Nobody underestimates the imminence of danger." ♦ » * Heinrich Himmler, who looks more like a country schoolmaster than a killer, never goes without a bulletproof vest. He needs it. - . * * . ♦ HEARD THIS ONE?. A man had just left work, and dived into the nearest pub for a quick one. Addressing a stranger in the bar, he said: "Has it been raining long, mister?" "I don't know, I've only lived here • three months." s H.B.C. * ■» ■ ■ # '..*■■ THREE YEARS? Dear Flage,—Your correspondent "Leo" (Saturday night) seems to have been waiting for those dig-for-victory weekends. We gave that 1874 record a scare, and having got off on the right foot for October, we aim to fix it good and proper. Anyhow, Leo ought to know, now that the elections are over, and National Continuance is still in our midst, that it will be wet for another three years at least. —An ardent admirer of your column, —PTE. BILLYCAN. '# * .*. ON THE JOB. Saddest censorship story of the war comes from U.S.A., where no news of a two-weeks' tour of war industries by President Roosevelt was released i till it was all over. At one factory the President shook hands with, a workman. "When he got home and told his wife she only said: "You've been drinking again!" "Wait till-you read the papers," retorted the aggrieved husband. But, of course, next morning nothing was printed about the President's visit. The censor was on the job, and the wife, of course, wouldn't believe it was the news that was "bottled up." « •» * , CLOSE TOUCH. It has been disclosed only a few weeks ago that Winston Churchill narrowly escaped being killed during the London blitz of November, 1940. The Prime Minister was dining at No. 10 Downing Street, his official London residence, with Sir Archibald Sinclair, Minister of Air, and Brendan Bracken, Minister of Information. A bomb' fell in the Treasury building, next door, demolishing it and killing 12 persons. Though the dining-room chandelier dropped right into the centre of the Prime Minister's table, Churchill and his Cabinet members did not retire. * * . * THE.BEAUTIFUL (?) RAIN. Said poet once—was he insane, Or had he some base end to gain?— "How beautiful is the rain!" * In fairness, praps, this does contain Of truth the semblance of a grain; But when it pours with might and. main For months on end, do we complain?! We do—we d n and blast the raint —C.L. * «, *. SORT OF ZEBRA. Lord Louis Mountbatten's specialtyis combined operations.. As chief (since the spring of 1942) of Britain's "butcher and bolt" commandos, he has been, as he once put it, "a sort of zebra—one-third sailor, one-third soldier, and one-third airman." Last month he was given by Churchill,and Roosevelt a new set of stripes and a new job: supreme Allied commander in south-east Asia. Lean and tall—he is six feet four —he is no clever guesser. He has been in the Royal Navy since he was 13, fought his first battle at 16, and, despite the fact that he is the King's second cousin, emerged at the end of the war as a sub-lieutenant. In the world War 11 he has been in command of two destroyers, the Kelly and the Javelin, both shot from under him, but only after.he had twice brought the Kelly limping back to port (the Javelin once).