THE PASSING HOUR

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18888, 14 October 1929, Page 12

THE PASSING HOUR

London Still Full in August. It has always struck me as a complete fallacy that August is alwavs regarded as the empty month of the yea. in London. If you dine and da ace in its restaurants you will find them hardly less crowded than usual, though thtf observant may detect a large number of Americans among them. Theatres certainly do not regard August as a completely slump month; managements even produce new plays despite this legend of the town's desertion. I had come to London unexpectedly last August and I tried a dozen hotels before I was able to secure a room. They were all packed out. No, it is not August, but September that is the really empty month in the year. During August people are constantly • returning to London for a few days on their way from Cowes and the Continent to Scotland and the country, but in September they are scattered until the autumn, and theatres and restaurants bear evidence of their absence. September is the month to be away. A Race for Popularity. The holiday season is likely to be a race between Deauville, Antibes and the Lido for the wealth and celebrity of London, Paris and New York. Last year the rocks at Antibes nearly succeeded in establishing a monopoly of both, but this year there seems to be a revival of popularity for Deauville and the Lido. That professional stimulator of jaded resorts, Miss Elsa Maxwell, the American, has, I hear, once again been employed by the Italian resort to bring all the society at her disposal—and she has a great deal of it—to that strip of sand and hotels beyond Venice. For the past two summer seasons Miss Maxwell has been de-

(Written for the “ Star ” by “ LOOK-AROUND.”)

Fannie, the Granny,” and the Kinde Dragon.

voting her inexhaustible energies upon Monte Carlo’ summer plage, but not, 1 believe, with her accustomed success. This puzzles me, because Monte Carlo I have found in summer, with its luxurious bathing resort, even more attractive than in winter. No doubt fickle fashion, tired of overcrowding elsewhere, will shortly descend to enjoy its charms.

Late one evening, recently, I found myself in the- Elizabethan surroundings of a little dancing resort in St Martin's Lane known as the Kinde Dragon, and I also found myself sitting next that amazing American “ flapper,” Miss Fannie Ward, who admits to being sixty and more, but looks—-and I am not Miss Ward's publicity agent—thirty and less. She jumped up on the piano and sang burlesques of popular songs with all that vitality that her daughter, Lady Plunket, puts into her exhibition .dances. Somebody tried to argue that Miss Ward was English by birth, though to hear her speak should be sufficient evidence of her origin. Her accent is inherent. However, as an American dramatic critic once congratulated her on her American accent, believing she was English, others must suffer the same delusion as to her original nationality. I imagine this mistaken idea must arise from the fact that her first husband was a South African diamond merchant, Mr Joe Lewis. Nobody enjoys jokes against herself better than Miss Ward, and 1 always like that old American tag: “■ Don’t hit that little girl, stranger, it might be Fannie Ward.” ■ (Anglo-American N.S. Copyright.)