CURRENT COMMENT

Taranaki Daily News, 7 September 1935, Page 13 (Supplement)

CURRENT COMMENT

OTHER POINTS OF VIEW

(By

M.O.S.)

So it’s oil off, is it? « * * * The whole business reminds me most forcibly of the time when I was shooting green guinea-pigs with the emperor of Catarrhistan. One evening when we were reclining on our divans, peacefully puffing at our doodahs after a hard day’s sport when we had bagged no less than three guinea-pigs as well as an ogpu and a couple of beaters who had \ failed to beat it fast enough, up came a party of Europeans and Americans announcing that they were going to civilise us. The Americans proposed to do it by letting us give them an oil concession. The emperor, whose name was Oysters the 14th, declined to grant the request, explaining quite barbarously that he thought if he gave them an inch they would take a well.' Shocked at the ignorance of a savage who could thus misquote a proverb, the Americans shouted that the true saying was that if we didn’t give them an inch they would kick up ’ell. Taking advantage of our confusion at this, the Europeans fell on us nooth and tail and began to civilise us in the usual way by putting trousers, on us and teaching us to pay taxes on land to which we in our stupidity thought we had obtained, an indefeasible right from our forefathers the chimpanzees. As I was already wearing both a haggis and a sporran, and Oysters, who was inclined to be plump, was decently encased in a howdah, we were extremely annoyed; but resistance was useless and rather than bite the dust we bit our lips and submitted to trousers and exploitation with a good gracious, and are now extremely respectable and very miserable indeed. # # . *■ Paradise. (“Inglewood has all the facilities of a city except trams,” said a speaker last week.) When they have trams at Inglewood The world will be so bright and clear That larks will sing as now they could If rain would give them half a chance. Oh everyone will sing and dance, My neighbours and my cheques be good, And O Belinda do not fear— I cannot marry you this year But I will toe the line my dear When they have trams at Inglewood. When Opunake has a Tube, When someone manages to muster The cash to build a railway Tube That underground with roaring throaty Will dash like blazes to Te Roti, Then Huey Long that bouncing boob Will stop his endless filibuster And Mussolini’s brag and bluster No more with threats of arms will fluster The simple Abyssinian rube.. When aeroplanes as big a bore As bumble bees or politicians From every paddock drone and soar, When submarines go up and down The Patea river foul and brown, In Stratford town the visitor Will find-.the Council turned logicians, Homes numbered right in their positions, And at the Hawera competitions No one will sing “Excelsior.” When they have trams at Inglewood The Democrats will tell us how They’ll make their airy pledges good. And Mr. Coates will go a-Maying And Mr. Forbes will still be saying We’ve left the slump’s dark hairy wood. i O every sword will be a plough And beer be half as dear as now And nobody will milk the cow When they have trams at Inglewood! * # * Not for a king’s ransom, though, would I have been away from civilisation this week and missed Sir Alfred Ransom’s notable reply to Mr. Savage. Mr. Savage, you will remember, outlined his policy during the Address in Reply debate, and then Sir Alfred absolutely wiped the floor with him by saying that Labour had “no policy whatever.” . As a matter of fact, I expect that there’s really no such thing as the Labour party either, and no such thing as a voter, and no such thing as ipecacuanha and no such thing as beer. Which makes this a very piteous and illusory sort of world to live in, and I am going to take my imaginary nose for a short imaginary walk to smell the imaginary brewery for a moment, of sincere and sorrowful but totally imaginary regret. « # # « But while I agree with Sir Alfred that nothing which exists exists (don’t imagine for a moment that I’m stammering) I must say that I wish the radio were a less convincing illusion. For by my teeth ladies and gentlemen (if such you be) I am moved to strange and exuberant ferocity by a radio which croons and howls at me before breakfast in the morning so that I can no longer dream and snore in comfort or waken and listen in peace to the birds till long after it is time I should have been up and away, a radio that booms and screeches all day and lies in wait for me when I come home weary in the evening and screams aloud at me I that if I look under the second-best bed in the back bedroom I will get the surprise of my life. And, above all, do I loathe, detest and utterly abominate the broadcast of the community sing from Wellington. It makes me bite the crockery and throw the chairs about. On Wednesday I was so furious that I cut a dice of Belinda and asked the bread to pass me the butter. It is no use telling me to switch the dam thing off, for I tell you that .when I hear that appalling caterwauling I am paralysed with horror. And in any case, it is not for me to switch it off, but for the Broadcasting Board, whose salaries I pay, to provide me with a programme I enjoy. Do you, does anybody except the very, very deaf, enjoy that wailing of ghouls from the Wellington town hall? Let them sing, let them chortle, let them stand on their heads and kick their heels like a lot of waltzing wild people if they want to, but don’t force me to listen to the noise they make. I’ve not the slightest objection to wild asses braying on the plains of Syria, I simply adore the bagpipes (as did the judge at the Hawera competitions) when they’re played in Scotland—and I’m in New Zealand—and I don’t care tuppence if all the cats of Taranaki yowl by the light of the moon as long as I can’t hear them. But when the cats start ’owling on my roof, I ups and ’eaves a brick at them I does; and that’s what I’ll do to the radio one of these fine Wednesdays, re it had better look out.