MARGINAL NOTES

Southland Times, Issue 22766, 17 December 1935, Page 8

MARGINAL NOTES

Before the Nawab of Pataudi, who is to captain the All-India cricket team in England next year, can play in any of the Test matches he will have to obtain the consent of the British Board of Control. A cricketer is always eligible to play for the country of his birth. But it is laid down in the Imperial Cricket Conference rules that Any player who has once played in a Test match for any country shall not afterwards be eligible to play in a Test match against that country without the consent of its board of control. The Nawab, of course, represented England in Australia in 1932-33, and again at Home last year. In this case the permission of the board will be a welcome formality. The Nawab’s batting should go far to provide, the stability previous Indian teams have lacked. Choice names for the flotilla leader and eight destroyers which have just been ordered may place the Admiralty in something of a dilemma. If the practice of naming new flotillas in alphabetical order is followed, the new boats will all bear the initial letter “I.” There are many famous men-of-war names from which to choose. Illustrious, Inconstant, Imperieuse, Indefatigable, Inflexible, Invincible, Intrepid are some of them. The difficulty, however, will be to find, a suitable cognomen for the flotilla leader, which, in accordance with precedent, should commemorate an admiral. _To the best of my knowledge no distinguished British naval officer has borne a name commencing with “I.” The _ difficulty may be overcome by adopting “J ’ as the initial letter of the new flotilki._ in which case Jervis would be the obvious choice. During the war an Admiralty official —incidentally he was an enthusiastic botanist—found an easy way. out in giving names to the Fleet minesweepers. He called the first Arabis, and took the names of the others, nearly a hundred in all, from a seedman’s catalogue. It is not surprising that the Arabis class became unofficially known in the Navy as the “herbaceous border” type. Gastromic mirages such as those experienced by the Public School Expedition to Newfoundland this year are the common lot of explorers. Mr Dennis Clarke in his “Public. School Explorers in Newfoundland,” vftiich appeared last month describes how some members of the expedition offered as much as five shillings for a twopenny bar of chocolate. Others spent their time drawing up the menu of their firs£ civilized meal. Surgeon Cmdr. Murray Levick, leader of the expedition, recalled that the subject of food became practically the sole topic of conversation of Scott’s Antarctic expedition of 1911-1913, of which he was a member. With five others, Dr Levick was shut in a cavity in the ice for seven months. Seals were their food. They were very badly in need of sugar and other carbohydrates. In Dr Levick’s case this longing took the form of dreaming that: He was walking down the main street of a town in which every single shop displayed a windowful of cakes, tarts, and other sweetmeats. Unfortunately, this happened always after closing time, and his frantic attempts to knock up the shopkeepers were of no avail. It scarcely requires a Freud to interpret this tantalizing nightmare*