POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 126, 30 May 1944, Page 4

POSTSCRIPTS

BY PERCY FLAGE

Chronicle and Comment

Every normal day the English G.P.O. deals with 15,000,000 letters and 500,000 parcels. * * * . ~ A Scots Calvinist has produced the . perfect comment on fuel economy: "Many are cauld, but few frozen." . ■ *. * ' * The Axis gentlemen who, met in Tokio to discuss ways and means of strengthening their ties may find them very much tied up. *.' ..'...* -■ *. ' Golf is a game in which a ball 1* inches in diameter is placed on a bail 8000 miles in diameter. The object is to hit the small ball, but not the larger one. * * * ' INFORMATION. t Dear Percy Flage—We are always very interested in your Column » . in the "Evening Post." I am writing to ask-you to solve a card problem for us. If when playing a no-trump . hand in 500, can your opponent play . the joker when holding suit cards. Will be watching your column tor a reply-Thanking y°«.., Nq . TRUMP » No. Must follow suit. ■ * * * . SCOTCH OR SCOTTISH? "I risk the wrath of some Caledonian stern and wild," so wrote a London "Morning Post" columnist when he settled this question thus: "The answer is easy; always—or nearly always— write Scottish or Scots and Scotsman or Scot. These are the correct forms, except when ordering the wine of the country, then use 'Scotch.' "Against this J. M. Barrie, Doctor of Literature, Edinburgh, used both words, .Scotchmen" and "Scotch." The word Scotch, however, has been debased somewhat, helped downhill by Aberdeen and Jewish stories. For example: Ikey refuses his small son sixpence to go to the pictures. Rachel: Oh! Give him the sixpence, Ikey, dont be so "Scotch." "ROSENEATH." ' * * * "HARD UPS." "Many peers are so 'hard up' that they simply cannot afford to attend Lords' debates," said Lord Cranborne .. in the House of Lords recently. ' There can be no question of paying them salaries because that is quite contrary to tradition." (Cheers.) Lord Cranborne suggested the payment of bare out-of-pocket expenses and the granting of railway passes to enable them to perform their Parliamentary duties. He offered to bring the matter to the notice of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and hoped it might receive a sympathetic response, if and when considered elsewhere. *** . . TRAINEE. In metrical muster, In glistening guise, A training craft cluster Is taking the skies. Like hierogram symbols, Like crotchets in grey, . Like silverplate thimbles, I watch them away. A circuit, a landing, A circuit, and then It's in the commanding Of boys who are men. Mere eighteen-year-older. But oh, I would borrow The set of their shoulders, These wings of tomorrow. Keen eyes and a grin, All trouble forsaking, The courage to win, And a world in the making. -—Joyce Dingwell. * * # CRICKET VERSUS SOCCER. "Cricket has a spiritual quality which Soccer lacks," writes the. Archdeacon of Ipswich, the Venerable E. R. Buckley, who played cricket till he was 65, in an article in the "Diocesan Magazine." "Cricket brings out some of the best qualities of Englishmen," he says, "necessitating individual effort and initiative and encouraging a man to work freely for his side, whereas Soccer players primarily aire cogs in a machine—a characteristic which would be admirable for the national game of a collective State." Referring to spectators, he says: "A Tottenham Hotspur player told me that if a Soccer player was a bit off his game the crowd was merciless. At the Oval or at Headingley there is more applause for Surrey men and Yorkshire men than for their opponents, but there are no jeers if a man is bowled first ball or misses a catch."