1954-12-01 — Page 4

*

"Page 4

THE CHINA MAIL, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1954.

NATHANIEL · GUBBINS

A

CCORDING to the and runs howling

the papers

house room,

from the

Too scared to fortunate chap restaurant for a

go. home, the goes to a City large helping

fortunate O.A.P. Watchers

wives of our She door'k know anything of ye olde Englysha bolled cod, country of dull about curry either. cooking fire being urged "10 take their husbands round the Continent by preparing a foreign dish for dinner every evening.

One night these fortunate chaps will be in Paris, the next night in Rome, the next in Madrid, and next in Budapest.

TUESDAY: Tho chap arrives home to find him-

elf in on Ballan cafe. wife squeaks matches of Halún opera i she serves spaghes! WHO are the Oz Snoopers of smothered in stale cheese and Britain? Or, to put it on- garlic. He takes one mouthful other way, who are the people through his nose and throat he old-oge pinslan

fumes of garlic sweep who find out how much food

week?

As the

staggers to an armchair wonder the ing through his team it ho

should ring a psychiatrist.

WEDNESDAY: The fortunate chap arrives home to and him- sell in a South

American cate. By now he is not surprised that his wife is dancing the rumba, waggling her body round the

But table.

he is surprised by the chilles on the Indian beans, With his mouth on fire he runs to the kitchen for water,

If gastronomie travelling is so ay there seems no reason at all why they shouldn't go round the whole world in their little flat, producing not only foreign dishes but the atmo aphire of foreign cates und ng chita with song and dance.

1.3ke this.

MONDAY: The fortunate chap arrives home to And him- sell in at Indian restaurant. He is not aware of this at Arst because the place looks thuch the sonic. But he is surprised to nee his wife dressed in a ser wearing enormous earrings an

Aluck paste diamonds

her Dustrits

to

She bows low before him as she brings in the Madras curry. Thinking she has gone perevy

THURSDAY This night the fortunate chap is in Buda pest. As he opens the door his wife is in the middle of a wild Hypsy dance, using tablespoon are castanets, Convinced at last that she is raving mad, he thinks it safer to eat the goulash. But she has overdone the paprika anl red pepper and he is soon pros- trate on the settce yelling for a doctor.

cat every

fathers of Hollywood film stora will wago one day..

They are the forgotten men. Normally you never hear about them un they die, when their nows value as the parent of some glamour ples gots them three-line obituary at the bottom of a column.

Lotus examine the terrible led by the father of a six- times-marthed glamour puss

When Glamour Puas brings home the first bridegroom-to-be Figures supplied in Parlament Pappa may like him or Poppa by Dr Charks Hill gave all the may not. Poppas cannot be ex- detalls in ozs, official word for pected to like everybody their Even These showed that in daughters bring home. ounces,"

the lucky old folk were Foppa thinks his future son- 1034

3.9 in-law a bit of a heel ho keeps aluming

themselves with

10.6 ozzos of quiol about. Maybe he lan sugar, 4.8 zzes of milk, 3 ozzes so bad and perhaps diamour or of butter, of cheese 31.4 azzen of meat and Puss will not be so fidgety and bacon, 3.9 ozzes of eggs, and a temperamental whacking great lump of dell- married. clous margarine amounting to 4.6

OZ79,

up

At first one is inclined to Oz of the think

Bhoops as officious, tweedy women follow- ing old-age pensioners into food their shops and listening to orders, or chocking

the O.A.P.s' shopping bags as they totter to their humble homes, or even bursting into the humble homes with a thunderous "May I come in?" and weighing every thing in the tiny larders with a pair of cules.

The nits down without a Werel FRIDAY: As he leaves the

while his wife (who knows offer thes

The truth is, of course, that fortunate chap asks

are a corps of nothing about India) ieves himself: "Where shall I find the Oz Snoops the right atmosphere wil be

tonight? myself

In Moscow public-spirited men and women created If she sings the Indian

with a crazy wife full of vodka trained as bird watchers before Love Lyrics.

okt-age peritoner offering me toasted meng on a they became

Walchera bayonet? Or in Madrid with a crazy wife armed with a bull- hier's sword forcing me to purple, swallow a plateful of olive oil?

She is just on the line Tes: Than the dust beneath thy feet when he swallows a mouthful of curv, chokes, Rocy

FALCONER'S

Designed to attract-

made to please

EVENING

Beaded

HANDBAGS

from

Belgium

FALCONER'S

ESTABLISHED 1855

Opposite the Coneral Post Office. H.K.

"This

is

Tel: 22143

Their methods are much the same, Just as bird watchers e under cover poling every wor the mother bird brings back to the nest,

the O.A.P. No du watchers alt in concealed obser- vation posts with field glasses, telescopes, and official forms making notes of every oz of food brought hon by the female OA.P.

when

she's

Thero is a wedding. Рорра, beaming with champagne, makes a speech. Then he goes home and thinks thank heaven that's over.

After the honeymoon Popp is invited to the new home the heel. and begins to like

heel he might If he is a rich

But even grow fond of him. just when he is about to touch the rich heel for a few dollars the newspapers are ahlaze with tire divorce of Glamour Puss, and Heel No. 2 appears.

Poppa don't like him much at first, but says nothing. There

second wedding. Poppu. beaming with champagne. makes another speech. Then he

and toes home

thinks thank heaven that's over.

After the second honeymoon Poppe is invited to the seond and begins to like new home Heet No. 2. But just when he is about to touch him for a Jew dellars Glamour Pusa is in the divorES COUT

again and

Heel No. 3 appeara.

Poppa

is a bit caggy about Heel No 3. He doesn't disilke ttim. but he's durned If he's

Tho work is hard und often dangerous, particularly when a going to put himself out to be couple of O.A.P. under obser- pienennt to a third son-in-law, as Heel No. 3 le an

vation live in the top flat of sted foreign count who

aries to

touch

tenement building. Then the Oz Snoopa have

Poppa for a few fire escape ladder and sit on top dollars. But Poppa goes to

to borrow

of it all night in the freezing cold waiting for a curtain to be

supper may not be missed.

19

wedding.

the He drinks the cham- pagne without beaming, makes

45

DA

to

the

"We could if we wished try to imitate. them (the Americans)...... but we should be wrong" says The Archbishop of Canterbury

cam

American

American

Myles

mutic & dances

CARE OF THE YOUNG

World Copyright by arrangement with the Manchester Guardian

WORLD'S STRANGEST STORIES, No. 16

P

THE RIDDLE OF THE

Seven Hunters

By JOHN ROBBINS

LOUGHING through puzzled the world ever There was no sign of life ashore

the waters of the since.

and no answer to a rocket fred from the ship.

Kate

his assistants. Thomas Marshall

slept.

His

wave.

#

of the Archie Lamont, one Outer Hebrides the

rellef party, who died two years ago, belleved that the keepers 750-ton tender Pole First let me tell something of

of this remote place where, the and Captain Harvey of the Hes- Eventually the storm subsided

were washed away by a tidal drawn so that details of a frugal his little speech, and Foes hot Star made her monthly trip of t

No. 4 will

Principal Keeper wondering when Heel

to relieve the keepers

perus ordered a boat away, so of Waller Edebts and hi assistant, that the relieving kteper, Joseph the Hesperus muggested that two Other members of the crew of up. Heel No. 4 turns up almost lonely Flannan

Lighthouse Archibald Macdonald, began a Moore, could land and investi- of the keepers were drowned If you ask: "Why all nigh!?" the answer that O.A.P.s at once. or so it SCOTA --a pluce of ancient legend two-month spell of duty.

trying to save the third in the suffering from insomnia often bewildered Poppa

He hasn't and a modern mystery. The white tower of the Flan-

But no bodies were ever Kale the nows of his

More chambered on to Flon- get up in the middle of the night even read

non Light stands 330 feet high

recovered. 1o make Uremselves a cup of deuglier's test divorce because

McPherson, Neil As

Mor Ishot, one of nan's rocky landing stage and dull

the ship butted the on Ellean If the cocon

uzzs of cocoa it's getting

seven grim, uninhabited pillars climbed the zig-zag path up the steward in the ship for 30 years, But he goes| Atlantic swell there were cpnsumed were not reported to weather reports.

of black rock, known As the 200-foot cliff towards the low headquarters the total figures to the wedding and drinks

aboard In many

he retired in 1959, he said: "My would be wrong and the patient quintilies of champagne.

whose Seven Hunters, that rise steeply white building where the prin came nearest to the truth. When went back to from the Atlantic some 18 mites cipal keeper. James Ducat, an opinion is that the three men work of years rendered useless, ils cups he makes some dirty thoughts

northwest of the Hebridean cracks about marriage and film

another occasion when the island of Lowls.

and Donald McArthur, ate and must have been attending to the gear near the landing stage when Daylight snooping is casler stars, leaving Glamour Puss in

lighthouse was relieved in

they were swept into the seat by except that the observer is mere a fury.

Since 1899 It has flashed A

a wave." very different circumstances friendly warning to the fishing easily, observed, It is then that

calls mingled with the powerful telescopes are used at

....an

occasion that pro- skippery and steamer captains cries of gulls and petrela weav- jong distances. Often daring

But there was no which vided a riddle

has who all the northern seas. Two ing overhead. commandos of the Oz Snoops Poppa is not invited to wed-

brilliant, short flashes every 30 reply troon Fleman's keepere-- will creep under a window with dings Nos. 5 and 6. As he has

seconds that Is Flannan's mes- for the three me, had vanished,

how the fact, That in Bage.

The door of their quarters mystery is written off in the Edinburgh. awung on its hinges. On the official records in table lay a meal that had long "It was concluded that the men the lighthouYO since gone cald; the fire in a mup have left cooking range had burni itself for some purpose or other, prob- But it has not always been a out-and there were signs of ably to secure some gear, ceaseless message.

hurried departure.

and were caught by an unexpec- tedly large roller. Yet the keepers had no boat;

But the Hebrideans, who tell unless they had been picked up many weird legends, are not by a passing ship (a possibility altogether convinced. Their ex- ruled out by the atom) they planations for the Mystery of could not have left Ellean Mor. the

Hunters Seven

are not earthly ones. Moore went back to the Iles- For centuries they have re- look-out on the bridge of a pass- porus, reported to Caplain garded the islands with awe and

a periscope,

up

given

reading Anything about his daughter he doesn't difficult cases even in extremely

name of hla know the listening posis equipped with intest son-in-law. or what he

A

sound amplifiers and tape re- looks like. He has also for. cording machines have been

what the Kotten

first four found effective. Highly trained looked like. Oz Snoops can plece together

And as he gets older this ga snatches of recorded conversa on his mind. He stops strange tion such as "that's the just of men in the street asking them: the fish puste" and "I'm saving #Are you non-in-law of the butter for Sunday breakfast, mine?" "Did you ever marry a dear" and produce a composite girl named Glamour Puss?" But picture with workable statistics when they give him old-fashion- of a week's «lict.

ed looks and may, "Take it Pop," ho knows that if he tasy, doesn't keep quiet somebody will get him ceruined.

"Listening posta certainly sound a bit unsporting," gold a high-up of the O: Snoops 1/es- terday. "But one must get the | facts."

Hong Kong" Poppa's Revenge

THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE

Picture Record

OF HONG KONG EVER PUBLISHED

Depicting Waterfront Scenes, City Scenes, Urban, Scenes, Harbour Scenes, Architecture, Churches, University Buildings, Markets, Features, Chinese Ceremonies, Shipbuilding, Factories, People at Work, People at Play, Arts and Crafts, Sporting Activities, Character Studies, Child Welfare, Chinese New Year

a Hundred Years Ago, in all, over

THE

So Poppa, nearly 90, makes his big decision, He marries a faded glamour puss himselt. The headlines scream. Me 15 news in his own right. And his daughter,

now old

... and hard up, reads about it and says: "So that clo hetl hes Just Alex gotten himself married nows that Mr

when I was going home to look Stzwart, B0-year-old father after him in his last years and James Stewart, the Alm Betor, is to marry a 75-year-old get a lot of useful publieity." Poppa has had his revenge. widow looks to me like the first shot in a VAT of revenge the

of

[World Copyright]

POCKET CARTOON by OSBERT LANCASTER

"Been to any good orgles Lately!"

Routine Trip

Once, for 11 days, no light shone from the tower and the shadow of tragedy passed across Flannan.

It

was during the night of December 15-16, 1900, that

Weird Legends

Ing tramp steamer, straining his Harvey and returned to the as a place of sanctity-not even sen-fog, noticed islet with Mr Macdonald (buoy to be called by name but to be

eyes through that all was dark.

On arrival at Oban, Argyll shire, the master reported to the Northern Lighthouse Board, but the tender Hesperus was already on a routine trip to relieve Flan- nan's three keepers.

master) and Searnen Lamont spoken of OS "the countrie

At one time they would

only and Campbell. All three volun- teered to stay with Moore to vill the islands when the wind

the wind keep the light in operation.

shifted they would was easterly;

Immediately all

All in Order

horre. Before killing wild sheep. and fowl they would pray at the

ruins of a temple believed to have

been built by St Flannart,

The Hesperua battled her way They searched the islet's 40 an Irish saint who lived in the through a gale so fierce that ceres but could find no trees of seventh century. when she reached the islands on the missing men. Nor could

that the Their contention Boxing Day, 1300, it was impos- anything be seen at the bottom three

whisked keepers were sible for a long boat to land. of the black cliffs where the from their rocky post by glant angry, sca thrashed and foamed sea birds inspired a poem of the among the rocks.

THE POOR OLD ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

FACES SOME SEVERE TRIALS

London. RITAIN'S Ministry of has a bad

By LES ARMOUR

In the lighthouse everything was in order; the lamp was primed and the machinery ofled. The last wrliten entrica la the

supernatural by Wilfrid Gibson,

Sinister

log were for December 13, but Flannan retained a sinister re- particulars for December 14 ani putation. Some time after the for the forenoon of December three men disappeared another. 16 were on a

alate for trans- keeper toppled to his death

from ference later to the log.

the lamp balcony, and others were drowned as they But it may drive home the The only clue to the men's tried to stop ashore. fact that the poor old English disappearance if it had any- Today Flannan is not so iso- Scenas, The Colony by Night, Pageantry, Hong Kong Bacation

language is facing some severe thing to do with it at all-was lated from, the world as it was

is fact that gear there is no doubt that they have grammar books ought to be trials these days. The upsurge that for bot, soove the land, radio-telephone with a mainland case of the jitters. The a point.

heaved into the waste basket for comics which Whitehall wizards Are

rely on ex-ing stage had been washed station af Callanish. and that all the "rules" are only pletives instead of words, the way,

TRO kcopera of 1954 often They remember what teachers, rough guides to avoid muddled ascendency of television and the afraid that Englishmen are

ponder on the fate of their pre- sce to forget that com- thinking and muddled talking. forgetting how to use their munication is everybody's biggest

queer Jargon of science, are all Various theories were put for decessors Before Principal language. And they blame problem, Whatever you do for

having their effects.

ward, but there were objections Kooper Eldebert salled the other Teachers, too, often find it

to most of them. A suggestion day for Flannan I asked him for it on the schools."

a living you have to be able to

of foul play that ong of the his theory. talk to somebody and to under easier to lapo into pedantry,

schloves nothing which

keepers had gone mad, killing English literature, they stand somebody.

cept the sometimes desirable effect of putting the kiddies to sleep.

300 Photographs

Finely Reproduced on Art Paper

POPULAR PRICE

$8.50

say, should have "the com-

tral plage" on the school

curriculum, Instead it `sooms

****

:

1

"During the storm of last the two others and then leaping winter I saw wavos Böft high to death from They can only be counteracted to

the cliffs was sweep scross the crano platform he the mainland abore the landing stogo," by a good sift dose, of the ruled out by

Neither was there any said. "I think a wave like that masters from Shakespeare, to polico, to bo shoved away, as some, They also roniambor, somo

Ellot. But somebody will have evidenco to support a view that must have washed the coopera The Ministry's new book to find a way to make the all three had committed suicide, into the pos

But whatever thing not quite so im thing tar more vital that leam unappetisingly entitled, medicine appealing...»

it wde that ing the language bas far,lem to "Language: Some Suggestion for portant as arithmetic

There remained two other ex called Duest, Marshall and Mc- of do with memorising the rules of significant as memorising formal grammer than in maner Teachers of Engilah and Others" And if the Ministry's advico plinalions Offices and the Arthur, so hurriedly from their the rivers of the world. ing the ways in which people may not be big success with is taken to mean that the kiddies men's disappearance must have men will forever remain

secret, of Fiannan's <l towering SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST, LTD | That the bureaucrats should scrow.

have been able to put lot of tejchers "who”, figure, ought to havé a doublé’dbee of, benn' the result of some reciderit, «»tyle" enblithe water that wit that what was good enough for memorising the notes at the The Hebrideana, by, nature, a fund' and fuse over the WAY SUITA

bakeandpa la good bough to skye back off the spurendations superitious, propisngine around thumsage YANG LONG

On Saturday! other people batter the language) Literature teaches the student them the ayuble of trying, of Bhakerskrog CH AES oldato believe, det kupere

right Math, where we startúdiżi natural had fallouth pokinendu

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