THE HONGKONG • TELEGRAPH,
THURSDAY,
AUGUST
4, 1938.
S
the
OMETHING Uke a reign of terror provatis in household; Father has 10- discovered his hobby.
"Terror" may be an over- statement, since I overheard Miss Eight-Year-Old say Master Six-Year-Old:
to
"Do you think he is really nwfully cross about his silly old saw, or is he just showing of?"
Showing off Tint is all that the Righteous Wrath of an of- fended Parent means to the modern generation.
And then she added, more as R matter of information than of concern:
"Did we ever dig it up after that treasure-hunt?"
How, I ask you, can a man really do justice to carpentry as a hubby, when his family buries his Si W, and. most probably, baiser and chisels as
Well?
That is why the Jove of out Tumlly Olympus han been
thundering
and
lightnin Bround the house for the past 24 Because I de- hours.
[3
elded. having free week-end, to revive, in face of violent oppos- from chose who have to do the cleuning - up, my hobby of Making Thinga
tilo
"Spond my time in a dock choir thinking of Something Really Energolic.”
ANYTHING
BUT-
Collapsible tables, for instance. Most Ingent- ous, but liable to col- lupse by accident rather than design. And, of course, painting them A DIL Alapdash. I admit. but colour- ful. Indeed, when visitors go Inte room in which I anz The one
Allowed Lo please myself, they Blude their eyes, and murmur politenessses+ about Courageous colours
S I cannot tools
the or
flead
p suppose
I
brushes, I shall Julye to find a new hobby fu
ek-end. Or, more likely. I end all my time lylig fra as deck air thinking at Something Really Energetic.
And no one who knows me will dare to suggest gardening. Or golf. or tilking, or canoeing, or any of the other nothing-Ilke-It-old
diversions of my more bols- man Lerous friends.
The
distinction which I one share with Bernard Shaw is his recreation, quoted in Who's Who "Anything except sport,"
But in my zest for carpentry. I um in good company.
When my friend Professor Lancelot Hogben is not Indulging his main hobby of writing best- sellers on science, be makes furni- ture.
And very modern furniture it is He furnished his cottage in Devon and a bungalow in his private Wood with I-dusks, cabinets. chairs, tabtes and so on.
WILS
M
OST of them he had made, elegantly, in an hour or so, because it so much carpentry an not ructural engineering. Ile ตั้งแน่ discovered that sugar-boxes were mass-produced in dead accurate MIZAS. So it was a cuse of a few alls, three-plywood and mathe- matics.
Because in his schooldays he was made to chase a parcel of air wrapped up in leather" round a football pitch, he, too, incorrigibly, belongs to the Shavian category of
anything but sport.”
Professor J. B. 8. Haldane classi. fles his hobby as "gardening," but he has another which might be de scribed as "being bitten by bed 1.
met him at the Royal Society
N.Y.K.
*Cargo only.
one evening, wandering round with an intense look on his face and a In the pull- pill-box on his arm.
Bux
kid
WAR
a bug which he assiduously trying to coax to bite
On my arm. In a misguided ex- periment, it produced an inston- taneous blister: on his, none at all. And he explained that he had spent his holidays endeavouring to get bitten, sleeping in bug-riddon hovels in the Balkans, the Near Bast, Russia, Spain and elsewhere, but never once finding a breed of bug which would take to him. Nuw Maybe he is going off to Mexico.
bug-baiting" whil end there. it la a moot point a. to whether that should be classed Duny thing but sport."
s
ዘ. .
Hors
11
WELLA
DI 10 Prague for the meeting of the Ex International PEN. Chil induiging in one of his greatest babbles, one which has taken him ortuous journeys and the work, the fostering of PKN., of which
the he Is
international president.
But it is part of his bigger hobby of meeting people, arguing with them, provoking them and convert- ing them to his all-prevalling par- pose of international co-operation. Sometimes he will adjourn the argument, to the room which he has had specially equipped at the bottom of his garden for table- tennis.
At the age of 71, he has a youth- ful zest for table-tennis. I wonder if we should blackball him on those grounds from our "Anything But Sport Club
One person who most certainly Every qualines is Osbert Sitwell. week-end 18 a busy one for him, and his hobby Prophecy and waiting for the end."
Presumably he makes a pro- phecy and waits all week-end for the end. And when he wakes up on Monday and refutes his own prophecy, he sits down and makes another one. Anyway. It is better than cheating yourself at patience cards.
Brother Sachevereli Sitwell in- dulges in model acroplanes, plats
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regionaux, improvisation and the bull-ring."
One week-end I went down with Lo Ilarric Sir James the late
nkitties indulge his secret vice with A. P. Herbert in the alley of a riverside pub at Hammer-
smith.
ULIAN HUXLEY has one hobby which is after his
own heart-bird-watch- Ing.
But he is addicted to another. So are Lady Astor and charades. her week-end parties at Cliveden. But one of the principal week- end hobbies of scientists is crimc.
One Sunday I was visiting a dis- tinguished scientist, who shall be numeloss. We were out walking, deep in discussion of a new dis- covery, when he suddenly stopped beside a tangled brake of bushes, looked around cautiously and in a That's sald, whisper stagey where I buried last Sunday's body.
Just as though it were a roast joint which had gone bad,
"
Every Sunday morning, & turned out, he committed an imaginary
OUR
BRITISH
12
113
[16
030
ACROSS
1 The end can be made to separate
(6).
4 Given apparently approving of
debt (8).
The sound of backward spirits (4).
10 This saintly day comes in July
(8). 12 Hungarian
5).
musical composer
13 Hard up and with debts too (9).
15 A constellation (3)
10 Relation (3).
17 Not even chance? (4).
10 A light musical note? (3).
21 Is this to come out (3).
24 European captial (4).
25 Useful to a ship even
headed (5).
20 A Hitle blow (a).
20
If be-
Plenty suggestling something
a cakewalk (D),
32 Praise (5).
13 "Did slope" (anag.) (8),
34 Occupation for a royal gradunie.
In the kitchen (0)
35 Unmelodious instruction to the orchestra to hurry up and start (8).
30 An exx is enough clue by the
look of it (0).
DOWN
1 Pudding that suggests selling
n lot of flah cheap (8).
2 "She hurts" (onng.) (0),
Anchormous number do not
do so much reckoning (9).
5 Found in Jong-bottled wino (0).
0 A 'Varslty dön perhaps (5).
7 Former in former days (6)
10
murder in the best "thriller" tra- dition and spent the rest of the day convicting himself.
"Better'n crosswords." he sured me.
D8-
The Atheneum Club is full of potential murderers, detectives and Апа the
"Hanging Judges."
bishops are no exceptions.
One evening, after dinner there.
a group which included a famous medical knight, a physiologist, a psychologist, a pathologist, a bar- rister,. n chemist, and myself, ap- pointed ourselves judge, jury and executioners of certain public enemies, beyond
law but morally criminal.
the
And the expert knowledge of each of the specialists was pooled to dispose of them in such a way have that murder would never been suspected, much less, accord- Ing to the lawyer, detected.
They were all "thriller fans" determined to out-do their favaur- ite authors.
W
HICH is an idea- If that saw is not resur- rected within the next few hours, 1 shall commit an imaginary murder and confound myself with my own clucs-The Deck-Chair Murder,
But, In the meantime, I make n resolution for the week-end in which I hope you all can join My recreation is going to be "Any- thing but-WORK."
CROSSWORDS
B Leave off (6).
11 This old deity was a head and
nothing more (6).
14 This is Hindustani (4)
17 The tail of this bird is op- parently an attraction to others
(6).
18 He makes dear dopes or road
speed (9).
20 A northern girl (4).
22 Irritation at inactivity perhaps
(8).
23 A dimeult time for driving a
car (0).
20 Wager about everything for the
dance (6).
27 Highwayman of old (0).
30 Material for the military doubt-
less (5).
131 Just what is wanted (5),
YESTERDAY'S SOLUTION OUTOFSIGHT GRUB GNA LEMOS A LANGE PRACTICAL [£ ■T_ERRAE" L LABTWORD RADIO
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18 ■■ EN Å HURE HORNAGBARCAB ES OUT THE ORIOL UNFEELINGTMROGUE SUD ME FE EAST HEADHUNTER
Eminent Victorian Sportsmen, A modern hotel fresco-from John Fothergill's new book, "Confessions of an Innkeeper," (Chatio anil Windus, 88. ed.),
THE BEST
THRILLER YET
ERE is the best news for many months for delec- tive story lovers. Michael Innes. going on
from Rood to better, has put himself. with his third book, Lament for a Maker. (Gollancz, 79. Od.), right among the masters.
It is the sort of novel you can rend with joy, even if you do not give a hoot for who killed whom. Which means that the clues are not just loose enda slicking out, but a cunningly integrated part of a story that. above all, has character and substanICE.
Dis narrators give you the strange
Music Hall
UALIFIED doubly by expert- ence and resourceful research, M. Willson Disher has given us by far the best book on the British inuste-hall yet Written--Winkles (Batsford, Champagne
and
123. Od.)
Harmonic rallies in taverns were the origins of this peculintly national and strongly democratic form of entertain- ment. The great Grimaldi in his last days would be carried pick-a-back into a bar-parlour to regule the customern with his old clown songs, Supper room", nuch as Evans's in Covent Garden
Club), were another step towards the pechtly built theatre, first of which in Landon was the Canterbury.
The chairman." waiters with Iraya of drinks and a pot-house flavour per- alsted in the old "Mogul" the Middle- ax, now the Winter Garden Theatre), The Pavilion and the Oxford, untli respectability and tone" raised the status of variety, thanks to Charles Morton, Sir Oswald Stoll and the "family" atmosphere they created.
Mr
Disher cover the vast field thoroughly, especially the personality alde, from Sam Cowell to Billy Ben Hetl, and records many odd facis, For example, I knew that Little Tich had six fingern on each hand, but not that Georgo Black used to turn the handle of a roundabout, or that Harry Champion wrote "Me Old Brown Son" at hun father's funerati
An astonishing profusion of illustra- tons-performers, ald songs. aki volume's perlaps SCCDCS-15
the greatest virtue; nad that is not to book decry the lively writing of n which neither over-idealises nor murulisco, In fact, the reader is at the muste-hall with the author all the thae.
r. L. M.
SPAIN plain
N exhaustive and well-docu-
Amented survey of the Spanish
situation 15
by the provided Duchess of Atholl in Searchlight un Spain (Penguin Books, Ga.).
It is much more than an account of the war, for the author goes back to the causes of the present bloodshed und attempts also to foresee its ulti- mate effects.
In an admirable summing-up, What It Means to Us," the Duchess pleads for full support for the Spanish Gov- ernment and the ending of the 50- called non-intervention which she, along with other realists, agrees ins been a concealed form of intervention in favour of Franca
T
Obviously the work of a motorist with a wide knowledge and ¿ 'pas- Bonnte lave of his country is This England of Ourn, by Harold W. Eley (Newnes, 3s, dc.). A friendly book- not a guide in the usually accepted Rense, but rather reminiscences of Journeys made to the most Interesting corners of the shires.
TELEGRAPH"
WAR MAP
A specially preparod
map of the Northern
War Zone in China.
152 by 11 inches,
printed on art paper.
Price 20 cents Postage extra.
history of a Scoltinti laird, living fear- obsessed-come any mind-in a rat- ricklen ruin of a castle, Death comICA. There are horror and shrewd common sense, lively humour, legend of the grimmer kind and love foredeomed, nil mulating in a grand triple-cross.
Pardon the unwonted enthusiasm. But I 1938 gives us another detective novel ke tila, it will be a remarkable your.
Commendable too in a more single- minded way is Nent Shepherd's Death Walks Soils (Constable, 78. 04.). Cuiet point about this in ita satisfy ingly complete technical details, ex- Leading to a conscientious pinn which comes near to giving the whole thing awny
I ke this new Author's almost exaggrtated fair-mindedness and hope to read more about his engaging Chief Inspector Napper Tantly.
Two reports on simple thrillers Max Saltash continues capably in the early Jotu Buch tradition with a Germany, Inle of plota Inside Nazi Indigo Death (Mielinel Joseph, 7. Gd.). And Italog Drummond on Dart- mour, drier.bed At origianted by Sapper and told by Gerard Palele Hodder and Stoughton, 78 ), 38 pretty well tradistinguishable from the roal thung which we had thought ended by Supper's seath,
T. E, I
German
v. Slay OE on a una
ΟΙ the clashing Czech and German in Bohemia and Moravia would have
the seemed, for ordinary Englishman, an acade- mic study of a remote theme. To-day, unhappily, he knows that It holds imminent dangers for all Europe, and for him, too.
Novels
TN a world of polite, cheerful, kind-hearted and sadly ignor- ant novelists, what a pleasure It is to meet James Hanley again. He may be rude.
Ho may be gloomy. He may be merciless. Bul he knows his stuff.
His how long novel, Hollow Sea (John Lane, 108, Od.), is the terrify ing log of a troopship during the Wor. And he would have been delighted ta hear the sigh of relief that I gave when the men felt those quay-olde cobbles under their feet at last,
The A.10 had sailed in darkne under nested orders. She had embarked soldiers
Unknown Destination.
She was just disembarking them alt Gallipoli when the moon came up and guns spat from unscaleablo cils. (It was the wrong bay, anyhow.)
So she picked up as niany as possible of the wounded and became a hospital ship, a death ship, a pitching und
Until, weeks Inter, lossing asylum. lightened of many of ber burdens. slan reached port.
It is a heart-breaking story, told with remarkable realism, vigour and skili, Too often Mr. Hanley's old fault of affectation pulls you up sharply: in the middin of hammering a brass tack home ho stops for a "Ilterary" recita- tion. But, for all that, Holloto Sea la a terriño tale.
An ex-silor himself, the author is n hume with the erew all the while from the brusque captain, who knows war in madness anyway, to the stolid book-out man, dreaming always of his wife and child back in Rochdale. And the suffering, sweating soldiers packed below? They remain invisible and dumb. Out of sight but never for 'a moment out of mind,
The sense of detaclument, the con- centration of the crow on their work. adds the final touch of conviction to the story. That is why I alghed with relief when the men landet.
As they tumbled ashore, I could feel them thinking, “Why we had to take those poor devils out sound and bring them back shattered, why we had to noso through those minefields and dodge those submarines, heaven-ar, mather, Authority-only immowa. anyhow, the job is done....”
So Elizabeth Wakemann's book. Czechs and Germans (Oxford Univer sity Press. 12s. 6d.), is timely--and valuable na well. Because it main theme is the all-important one that this "Sudeten question" did not be kin with Herr Hitler and Nazi pro- paganda: but goes back before Nazism.R before the founding of the Republic, It lo the newest phase in conflict of centuries between German and Slav "In the bosom of a single State."
On auch a subject, al auch a moment, one can hardly look for Impartiality, even in a book published under the nuspleen" of the Royal Institute of In- ternational Affairs.
Mins Wiskemann is condid.
She does not pretend to be impartial. She does not hide her strong sym- pathies and antipathles, her likes and alikes. She frankly argues the Czech case. not only in this grim Juncture. but through the centuries. Such can- dour, and the effort to be ns fair as muy be to the other alde, are no bad substitute for objectivily in a historian. Anyway, here is a massing of fact about the past and the present of the most easy racial trontier of Europe, compiled with a painstaking Industry which is beyond praise. The facts aro of prime importance: and this is the first English attempt to set them out clearly and in some perspective
FICTION
WV N. E.
But,
AKO Francis Stuart ጊ story, called "The Coloured Dome. A clear, shining. miraculous tale of Ireland. If you happen to have read it, the memory of it will delight you still. When I saw Mr. Stuart's name 'pu the cover of Julle (Collins, 78. ed.), the old excitement rose in me again. And, though there, is nothing miraculous about this novel, I commend it to you as a strangely compelling tale of on- during love.
On her way to England from Afrien, Julle is attracted to Ben Goldberg. « penniless young Jew. Later in London Rho goes to work in his office: he has become a fire assessor-and a criminal. But her love for him holds, even when he is sentenced to fall for seven years,
She will wait for Ben. She may feel a passing sentimental attachment for that Irish poet, Mick. But she and Bell are one another's destiny. So she will walt for him. What else could she do?
It may sound like a fairy tale. Be lleve it or not. Mr. Stuart makes 1 come true.
LIBRARY LIST.
National Provincial, by Lettice Cooper (Gollancz, 83. Gd.). In which you may live for a while the life of a Northern city.
Everslade, by W. B. Maxwell (Hutchinson. 58. Gd.). The third volume in the author's large-scale Betional survey, “Men and Women.
Death Burns the Candle, by Ralph Trevor Wright and Brown, 78. Gd.j. Sacred South Sea pearls. Robbery. Revenge. And Thrills,
FACT
R.P.
Low Again: A Pageant of Politics, by David Low The Gresset Press, Ga). A superb collection of cartoons by Colonel Blimp's creator.
Memories and Reflections, by Ben Tilott John Long, ds.).
Popular edition of the fighting nuto- blography of a Labour veteran.
A History of Cricket, by H. 8. Altham and E. W. Swanton (Allen - and Untoin, 8. Gd.). The Complete Oricketer-in a revised edition.
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