For Motoring Fans.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 January 1931, Page 4 (Supplement)

For Motoring Fans.

“A casual glance round London’s shop windows suggests that we have all become motoring fans,” says a writer in the London Daily Mail. “One Bond Street window twinkles with a hundred coloured lights which illuminate mascots made from, specially hardened glass and claimed to be almost unbreakable. The light in each mascot can be switched into four, different coulours. Another'mascot is dart-shaped, the nickel plated frame enclosing club or regimeptai colours. Women who study the chic appearance of their car will appreciate the new radiator muff shown by a Conduit Street firm. It can be obtained in bright, contrasting colours to match the car. Easy-fitting driving gloves have pockets, fastened with zippers, in their big gauntlets. These accommodate ohe’s handkerchief, lip-stick, or other small accessories. The telescopic umbrella with which we are all familiar as an accessory to the handbag is now also a fitting for the car. Chromium plated clips are attached to the interior of the saloon, holding the urri.brella in place.” <• ’ : Posted Her Umbrella.

Hurrying to the General Post Office at Nottingham to post & letter, a dear old, absent-minded lady got parcels-in hen hands a trifle' mixed —and posted her umbrella, states a correspondent. She walked home carrying the letter, and concluded that-she had dropped her • umbrella en route. The umbrella had instead become wedged in the letter chute. For the next few days hundreds of letters fell into the half-opened umbrella and were diverted on to the floor. There they remained unnoticed until officials, after receiving dozens of notices from irate business men, complain,.ing of orders that had gone astray, triad© an investigation. "We suspected another stolen mail 'bag at first,” an official said. “Now we are searching for the old lady, who perhaps has parked her letter in the hallstand!” Bridal Tradition.

fashion changes again. The shower bouquet, so large and sweeping that »you hardly saw the bride behind it, was followed by the tight round posy (states an English writer). Now we are told that at some smart weddings the flowers are to take another form. Lady (Ursula Chetwynd-Talbot, whose marriage to Mr. Hector Stewart took plays on. November 8, was a bouquetless bride, but wore a spray t>f red roses on the ehoulder of her white chiffon wedding dress, with which she wore a lace veil belonging to her grandmother. Lady Ursula made a further departure from bridal tradition by dispensing with the usual wreath. Her only attendant, Her step-brother, Master Kim Penenyer, wore a red velvet Romney suit. A Strauss Ball.

A Strauss ball, at which the great ■Strauss’ son will conduct the orchestra and play all his father’s mojt famous waltzes, will be one of this season’s events in London (states a correspondent). Dressed in Viennese dresses of 1873, Lady Londonderry and her two daughters, Lady Maureen Stanley and Lady Margaret Stewart, will lead the first-waltz. All the guests, in fact, will wear fr<x*ks of- the same period and there is to be a “tote,” -on which guests may lay wagers as to the num her of people present. From Easel to Lathe.

There is? one would think, nothing complicated about an ordinary chisel. Yet according to an engineering expert it takes a woman nearly six months to learn the use of one, while a young boy can do so in a few weeks, states the Daily Mail. Despite this handicap, many women are becoming expert engineers. Among the students taking an engineering course in London at present there are two women air-pilots, two ’schoolteachers, eight secretaries, and a woman artist who has forsaken the easel for a lathe “because there is more money in engineering than there is in 'art.” Most of these women are studying to acquire the necessary practical knowledge for the Government posts open to women, such as factory and sanitary inspectorships. Avenue of Cherry Trees.

An Englishwoman writing in a London journal says that there is a. delightful touch of the fairy tale about the avenue of cherry trees to be planted along the Kingston by-pass road, each tree of which will be named after a child. Two of, the trees have already been chosen for two very fairy-tale young people, the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose, who will doubtless come and see them next spring when they are in full bloom. The Duchess of York, patroness of the Roads Beautifying Association, is then to be asked to take part in a little dedication ceremony.