under currents

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 18024, 20 May 1930, Page 6

under currents

HERE, THERE & EVERYWHERE, *

(By “Gleaner.”)

THE PRINCE’S HOLIDAY. In his African expedition the Prince of Wales seems almost- to have achieved his ambition of a holiday of free adventure—as much of it, at any rate, as the most resolute of royal personages can command. The ties and formalities of royal life make a coil most difficult to shuffle off, and the Prince is to be congratulated on having for a time achieved something like the freedom of a commoner. The preference which he has shown for the camera over the rifle confirms a suspicion one has always felt that to lay the quarry suddenly in the dust with a deadly shot is almost anticlimax to an exciting hunt. The securing of pictures demands every ounce as .much courage and rather more skill, and it leaves in the hunter’s hands something more interesting than a lifeless hide.

A NEW ATLANTIC RECORD. In the midst of political excitement Germany has reason for satisfaction in the performance of the North German Lloyd liner Europa. On her maiden voyage the Europa crossed the Atlantic from Cherbourg to New York in .4 days 17 hours 6 minutes. This was IS minutes less than the time of the Bremen on her fastest run. Germany’s new Atlantic record is the more striking because it was attained against adverse weather. Her challenge to the maritime world is made the stronger by the fusion of the North German Lloyd Company with the HamburgAmerika. They keep their identities but renounce all efforts for priority and will work in unison. There is no disputing their expressed belief that thereby they are doing the best for German shipping, the whole German economy, and the Fatherland at large. An excellent example of successful rationalisation. Another German project, for an airship service between Europe and the United States, has a hacking of American capital.. Airships larger than the Graf Zeppelin are to be built in both countries. • All the capital has been subscribed, but no decision has been reached as to th# start of the service.

• • • • HOT OR GOLD? At last someone is being hold enough to point out that the traditional cold bath of the Englishman is going (or has gone) out of fashion, and that more and more Englishman prefer their baths to be warm. There has for some time been a suspicion that the Englishman went in for cold baths •less because he liked them as much a* he pretended than because there wa3 not much choice. The extreme difficulty in getting a warm bath at any time in the day in the great houses of mid-Victorian England has been recorded amusingly by Lord Ernest Hamilton, albeit with gruesome details, of the “ succession of sepulchral rumblings . . • succeeded by the appearance of a small geyser of rustcoloured water, heavily charged with dead earwigs and bluebottles. This continued for a couple of minutes or so and then entirely ceased. The only perceptible difference between the hot water and the cold lay in its colour and the cargo of defunct life which the former bore on its bosom. Both were stone cold.” But there can be little doubt that, since modern plumbing has made warm water for baths a simpled affair, the Englisman has been more and more tempted to 11 take the chill off,” at least in winter. It is true that he has not always been entirely candid in the matter, and that he has gone on boasting of “ cold ” or “ practically cold ” baths some time after he has made the turning of the hot-water tap a matter of course. But our critics would say that this is a national characteristic.

THE SMELLIES,

“ Now set the' teeth and stretch the nostrils “ wide,” for the “ smellies ’*• are on the way. In all scientific matters precision is important, and it is as well to fix in the mind the words in which the newly granted patent in America announces to the world its latest treat. What has now been invented is nothing less than “an apparatus for supplying an olfactory impression in conjunction with a motion picture impression.” Well may the American Press hail the new device with the cry “ Perfumed Pictures permeate program,” for ayone who pauses to enumerate to himself how many things there are in the world that smell strongly, and who reflects that whatever exists can be Aimed, will realise that life is to be lived more intensely than before. Every branch of a great industry will profit. The favourite drama of high life in large and splendid halls will take on a new lease of life when Lucullan banquets can ba smelt, even if the day is still distant when a further invention makes tha illusion of the film really complete by providing real food for the audience. A popular class of film, that dealing with wild animals, has not found talking apparatus of any great advantage. But, with a careful selection of wild animals and a little skill in putting the audience downwind, unforgettable experiences should be created. Each new Invention creates a new profession, and parents who hitherto have paid little heed to their children’s power of smell will do well to consider wether the profession of the sniffer is not bound to grow. The film is being used more and more for education, both historical and geographical, and, while the ordinary producer will be able to manage the burning cakes in the Alfred scene the seasick horses in the tale of the Norman Conquest, he will want help in a good many passages of history. Still more skilled will be the blender’s are who uses smells symbolically. We may expect the “ close-ups ” and “ fadeouts ” of happy lovers to be panied by the scent of the more obvious flowers, particularly roses. It will be a mark of talent in the Director ol' Olfaction, whose name will be added to the already considerable list of memorable persons with which a film begins, to introduce, quite artlessly, his onion smell just before the most emotional passages. Many a lovers’ parting will be staged in a kitchen garden. But if the smellies develop on the lines of the talkies and the silent films, and megalomania breaks out among the big noses of the profession, a reckless race will begin to see who can produce, regardless of cost, the most vivid, arresting, overpowering, ami tremendous steneb-