THE SEVEN AGES OF RADIO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20137, 24 December 1928, Page 7 (Supplement)

THE SEVEN AGES OF RADIO.

All the world's an earth And all the men and women but receivers. They havo their whiskers and their cardiac valves. Somo are dull emitters, and some loud speakers. . . . In his craze for wireless man shows many symptoms His lils being seven seizures. At first the infant Laughing at the Uncles when he should 1)0 solemn, And dozing when they broadcast funny stories;

But all alert fur news of presents Concealed in cupboards and disposed in

dustbins. Then the eager schoolboy with his pen ki:iie

Constructing super sets from corned beef tins, And clocks, and scraps of wire, and nails and bits of string, Getting better signals than his father from a set ho bought And paid large sums for. Then we have the lover, Sighing like a siphon at a woeful balla 1, Sung by some fat tenor in his shirtsleeves. Next comes the hunter full of strange call signs, And lies of having got Madrid on but one valve, Who tills the tortured air with oscillation, Until he gets assaulted by some neighbour. Comes now the critic, carrying a fountain pen, He never tells us what his ideal programme is Because he hates all programmes, but he writes Long letters to the papers, pointing out what fools There are at 2LO, and how absurd Are all the lectures, plays, and songs and orchestras He has to listen to, although, in sooth, He seldom buys a license. The sixth age shifts -To the stout and slippered father of a family Who's fond ot wireless, and doesn't care a hang Who knows it. He finds his pipe, and steals some matches From the secret store his wife hides in the kitchen, Adjusts his earphones, hears the general news, Makes a deep depression in his easy chair, And rises lamentations to high Heaven When some clumsy fathead slums a door, or drops a boot,

Or coughs, and makes u vow that interferes With tho reception. Lust scene of all That ends litis strange but truthful broadcast, With batteries run down, sans filament, sans earth, Sans aerial, sans everything. But who can tell'! Our other waves may be picked up by those Composed themselves of ether. Wo may yet tune in To Daventry from Heaven, for Death is Life Transmitted on a different wave-length. The iStation closes down , . . Good-night. GOOD-night.