The FUN CABINET

Northern Advocate, 7 December 1935, Page 1 (Supplement)

The FUN CABINET

By the Private D. i— '

The Inside Story

CONSIDERING that since the depression mania we have been, cut and adjusted and relieved in innumerable barbarous ways, and that now prices for our butter and wool have ceased to be undercut, we are surely

due for a period of convalescence. The recovery tonic should be much more palatable to take, even though it may still contain a fair dose of castor oil, which may make us disgorge taxes and levies for the common good. Consequently, with our condition as it is, it is most necessary for the nation to be given the right atmosphere, and to this end I suggest the constitution of a Cabinet of Fun. Of course, alternatively, it could be a Royal Commission or a Board, just as the public taste desires, so long as the final finding is fun. # * * * AMONG the most important portfolios would be those of the Minis-ter-in-Charge of the Production of Laughing Gas; the Minister of Comic Cuts; the Minister of Political Cartoons* (this post would be well fitted for a man who could always laugh at his own jokes); the Minister-in-Charge of the- Department of Humorous Affairs (not to be confused with the Minister of Railways); the Minister of Amusing Customs, and the Minister of Internal Complaints. # * * * 'THEN there would require to be * ministers who would play a negative part, controlling wireless crooners, bagpipe music, the pessimistic outlook of millionaires, and horses which invariably run below form when carrying the public money. . ’♦ . ❖ # * WITHOUT much amendment of Standing Orders, Parliamentary sessions could easily be converted into national fun festivals, something on the' lines of the Savage clubs which are already scattered throughout the Dominion. Instead of the present dreary stonewalling tactics, the Opposition could outlaugh the introduction of unpopular legislation, so that members who are paid to do so, would require at least to keep awake in ordei to lend their giggles. This would undoubtedly restore confidence in laughing stock on the exchange and a boom of humour would immediately follow throughout, the country, it is to be hoped without a boomerang effect. * * * -5 V FINDER such a benevolent rule, pessimists would be severely taxed, and under that heading of course come bachelors, men, who in this country of equal opportunity, fail to have confidence in their own ability to woo or to win. * * * * WANTED. Urgently, definition of the word “confiscate.” The other day, when giving judgement in a case which involved a breach of the licensing laws, the Whdngarei magistrate instructed the police to return a beer keg but confiscate the contents. The problem which is exercising the minds of many Whangarei people is: “What does confiscate actually mean?” Does it matter where the beer is poured, down a sink or down a throat? I have a grim suspicion that the police regulations insist that the liquid must be destroyed, but would this be construed as legally performed if the contents of the barrel were poured into a sink, down the spout and out into another receptacle? After all, the beer would have been poured down the sink, and even if the drainage was not in perfect working order, surely the requirements of the law would have been fulfilled!

THE older you grow, the wiser you * become. You know that in school you are always taught that pouring oil on troubled waters has a calming effect. Even some of my nautical friends have proved the efficiency of this in some of their solo cruises across the Pacific, and this is now being definitely proved in the Mediterranean, where the threat of lack of oil is causing no small storm in an off cup. The Italians are naturally very fond of their oil. They practically wash in the olive variety, while the Black Shirts, in the early years of their power’, fully realised the efficacy of castor oil as a political purgative.

It' «:• V <l' VHHEN a motorist was before the ” Whangarei Court for allowing two passengers to travel on his motor truck with their feet on the running board, I became aware of an alarming

regulation which will drive me to a still stricter diet of lemon juice and toast. The law states definitely that no occupant of a motor vehicle must protrude over the side of the body (car’s body, I mean). In my case, “I protrude over the body of my baby car, and it appears that the superfluous bulges might yet bring me before the bar of justice. In view of this possibility other bars must necessarily be barred. * * * * I have just read a most interesting book, “Russia’s Iron Age,” by W. H. Chamberlin. The author says that, the main source of humour in the Soviet Union is the übiquitous, everchanging anecdote, or satirical anecdote, which is never written down, for obvious prudential reasons, but which passes with amazing speed from person to person to person and from city to city by word of mouth and then dies away—something our commercial travellers’ tales I should imagine. * * * * STALIN’S six major conditions for the successful operation of the state industries have been parodied in an imaginary “Six conditions for the intelligentsia.” These are as follows: “Don’t think. If you must think don’t talk to yourself. If you must talk to yourself, don’t talk to others. If you must talk to others, don’t write. If you must write, don’t print. If you must print, deny it the next day.” The latter condition is very reminiscent of the policy adopted by some local speakers. * * * * FOOD plays a considerable part of the jokes of more modern vintage. Mr. Chamberlin says. So two Russians discuss who is the greater man, Hoover or Stalin. “Hoover taught the American’s not to drink,” argued one of them. “That is nothing,” is the reply; “Stalin taught the Russians not to eat.”