LOCAL GOSSIP

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21763, 31 March 1934, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP

BY MKRCUTIO

Commenting on the fact that the epilogue, postscript, addendum, or whatever you like to call it—perhaps apology would do —to one oi his plays has been refused the hospitality of the air hecause to a radio inspector it seemed controversial, Mr. Bernard Shaw says that except for the time signals and the weather report everything on the wireless is controversial. Why except the time signals and the weather report, anyway? Superficially the time signal should be wholly innocent, but it is not necessarily so at all. Take the hypothetical but by no means impossible case of the man with the watch he swears by; you know the kind —never varied ten seconds in the last 15 years, except, of course, that night after the smoke concert when he forgot to wind it. Why, he cannot imagine, but other people can. Anyhow, take this chap hearing a time signal, and finding that it. disagrees with his watch to the extent of five minutes. Have you not all the elements of a very live controversy there Y

As for the weather reports being non-controversial, the very idea is ridiculous. What more common topic of conversation, discussion and argument is there the weather, past, present and to come? How, then, can the forecast that goes over the air escape the risk of being controversial ? The clerk

of the weather predicts a fine 'spell. The listener who knows there is rain in the / offing because his corns are hurting is immediately cast into one of those black rages the radio censorship is particularly intended to prevent. This is only one of the instances in which the weather report could be controversial to the verge of homicide Actually, the only way to be certain nothing controversial

was going over the air would be to stop " broadcasting altogether. And sometimes one is tempted to think this would be no bad thins

If everyone were thoroughly honest

about the business, it would be admitted that the ban on controversial / topics for broadcasting is meant to keen political propaganda and controversy off the air. How far this is successfully done may be a matter of opinion. There are indications, too, that the authorities want to keep broadcasting free of religious controversy. Again how far they succeed may be open to argument. Mr. Shaw, for instance, says that church services are highly controversial. Quite right. Take even that- assertion to be found in some forms of service, to the effect that we are all miserable sinners. At first glance one might imagine such a statement could be accepted by everyone. Yet there are people who would be prepared to dispute it. So the summing up is that if j there be a sufficiently wide and reasonably intelligent appreciation of what controversy and the material for controversy really are, the attempt to keep broadcasts: wholly non-contentious is

like trying to sweep back the Atlantic

with a broom. Does the ban on controverry have no success then? Well, it's hardly as bad as that. At least politics and undisguised propaganda are reasonably well kept off the air; and for such a mercv we should be profoundly thankful • *

The walnut harvest at Akaroa has begun and the sound of the threshing of the trees can be heard in all parts of the district. Yes, and the harvest o£ t.h« chestnut is in full swing, too, attd the sound of the flogging of the ancient and hoary ones can be heard in clubs, b'irs and other places where men foregather. But then chestnuts are ripe .and in season all the year round.

Tn Christchurch, where they are experiencing something like an epidemic of measles. somebody has raised, or revived. question whether onions are a specific against this fever and spots misadventure' of childhood. As usual in these cases it seems impossible to eet any measure of agreement about it. You may remember that the established saying "an apple a day keeps the -doctor away " has sometimes been amplified by " an onion a day keeps everyone away." A trifle vulgar perhaps, but very expressive; and if there could be any* assurance that an onion or even half a dozen onions a day would keep measles away, then one would be prepared to administer the remedy to all likely to meet infectiou. Unless, of course, one belonged to that very determined section of the populace who would prefer the measles to the onions.

1 Butter used to be considered a suave end soothing substance; sometimes it was considered too much so, being made the synonym for flattery and insincerity. It has had that meaning long enough, though in the days gone by the observant Maori found another •' image to convey the same meaning. For when Hone Heke was taking the first steps on that course which eventually led to war. he described the Treaty of Waitangi. about which he had once been enthusiastic, as " all soap." But that is by the way. In spite of its reputation butter seems to be a gritty enough subject these days, and has anything but a soothing effect on people on both sides of the world. That is only another sign of the topsy turviness of the world in which we live today. It is rather unfortunate, though, for this country that the commodity on which it decided years ago to go nap -- should fall into this kind of disfavour. Why on earth didn't New Zealand decide to specialise in jam or chickens' livers or something for which nobody has yet demanded a quota? But no, it had to be butter, and in consequence there have followed all the alarms and difficulties of the day.

Armour plate for .Mayors may'be a rnmmonplace in the United .States, so the enterprising salesman who urged its beauty and utility on the Mayor of Wellington was probably unconscious of the surprise he created, ft is an irresistible blend of the medieval and the modern, using the mail order system to j/ush the sale of steel mail. The armourers of the middle ages were never so cn'terprising as that; or if they were, no/record of it has survived. The sales letter also extols the merits of fin armoured tractor tank for municipal use. It remarks that bodies can be armour-plated without sacrificing beauty to'safety; but this refers to the tractor-tanks, not to the Mayors. It is a pity there was not similar reassurance on the other head. For it is not every New Zealand Mayor who cotdd afford to add armour plate to his other All figures would not stand it. One wonders, incidentally, why the Mayor'of Wellington should have been singled out for this delicate approach. True, it has sometimes been remarked that, along with the municipal milk supply down there, a certain amount of trade in; bootleg milk has developed, but nobody has ever suggested the business has grown into anything like a Chicago racket. Kven if it did, the Mayor would, hardly ride uersonnllv against the bootleggers. He would send an inspector, who would not bo supplied with armour or a tractor tank. Why should he be!"' No threats the bootleggers could make against the inspector's safety would intimidate the Mayor. New Zealand Mayors generally ■would he likely to admit the need for steel armour. They would doubtless agree that, once installed, a Mayor needs only to develop a good thick akin an>i he can carry on reasonably fcell in this country.