1949-01-08 — Page 11

DAB and FLOUNDER

by Walter

Hesperia QUIET PLEASE

A Jumble Sale For

The Peanut Workers

the

KONGWA. TANGANYIKA. At the side of an African road, perched on an Oversens Food Corpn. truck, Mr Jack Pomfret conducted a jumble sale in aid of Tanganyika's Food for Britain campaign among Africans working on pennut plan. For sale he had dresses discarded by British women, shoes, shirts, hats, and even a couple of pairs of nylon stockings. One man eagerly bought a woman's beret for 38. and put it on straightaway with the price ticket still showing. Women, with babies on their backs, smiled widely as their men bid 18s. for pretty dresses sont in by wives of Pomfret's scheme. Mr top-ranking men in this groundnuts bazaar effort yielded £85 which the natives regarded as a for- tyne.

DEFEATED WON

Tennessee YORK: Two NEW town called Defeater! Ind. Difficult In the popular are denly rivals Americo game of basketball, in their first game of the season De- without feated defeated 120cult Anding it dimeult,

WHITE (HOT) CHRISTMAS

PRETORIA: Pretorio-in

so hint 1 WHE the 90's that

the Father Christmas in one city store collapsed twice in a morning. And in Capetown, when Santa Claus, in red coat and white whiskers, leapt into a crowded! room at Robertson, off to anUUNICO a cracker was let

his arrival. The cracker set fire to his whiskers, and Santa, a young furmer named Kuhn, was taken to hospital with severe burit,

FLY FLIES

NEW YORK: House Wien, says a government report, have developed resistance to that wonder pest killer DDT, and now there are just as there As ever in Amerien sany

· were

SPREADING THE NEWS

NEW YORK: In Chariton, Iowa, Hobert Combs, aged 32, was

of his baby boy that he rented

phistered it with this, message--"It's

boy, Robert E. Combs. nine pounds."

JI

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 1949.

A novel sot in the world of science.

THE BOFFIN WHO SCARED

HIS BOSS

by

GEORGE

MALCOLM

THOMSON

NO HIGHWAY. By Nevil polat they have reached. The crisis

Shute. Heinemann. 10. 6d. is right on top of Scott. 315 pagco.

⚫ He pleads

and the scientist who wrote it

11.

He Writes With His Back To The Sea

NE

TEVIL SHUTE -NORWAY, of the constructional scale-working BA Oxon, FRAeS, (left) with onp's hands. He has recently finished a petrol engine. Does it writes his novels with his back. pump water, generate elecificity?

to the sea, in a room lined with No, it just works. books and fishing rods, over a garage. Hia window faces the Hampshire Downs.

At the moment, indeed, he is not routing of living the idyllic daily Pond Hond. For nine months of; the year he constructs a novel, ro« writing once. For three months ho catches up on the commliments his many-sided nature involves him in.

He types from 9.30 a.m. to 1 p.m., covering. two foolscap sheets, single-spaced: perhaps

Last spring he bought a single- 1,500 words. Then he switches, engined monoplans the has held an off the electric fire and strides A Hecence since 1925, but is not an into his compact, red-roofed, experienced pilot). By September It was rebuilt from clevatora to house, Pond Hend. bilerons, and he set off with a friend stuccoed

to "break all records for the slowest flight to Australia. He will be back at Hayling Island next March,

HIS book is an outstand- BUT what reason is there for sup-

13 posing that Honey

right? ing example of efficient

Nobody enn follow his calculations. narration, Mr Shute's So that brings the problem back to attack is crisp and

well- Honey himself. What kind of man organised. He uses language is hoz

Honey believes the Message of with cheese-paring economy; the Pyramids, in spiritualism, in the

for Insinnt returi. His characters are nssembled British Israel

Movement. He is Everybody but the captain decides quickly and plausibly. In eccentric; there are those who use he is mad. The captain know the pilot in the Labrador crash, he does consequence, No Highway de a difent adjective.

Yet on the sole word of this not believe the official explanation. velops specd and tension. It is oddity, it may be Scott's duty to Ye!-only one decision is possible taut, keyed-up; a sound en ground Britain's elvil`olr Deci, at the Reindeer files on.

Only now, with the day's stint the cost of hundreds of thousande How Honey meets two women on gineering job.

done, dare he permit himself to of pounds and at the risk of a blow board who, in different ways, to Britain's prestige.

come interested in the queer lilo

gaze out from the windows of when the routine will re-impose it- alone? Not man. How the aeroplane lands safely his lovely home, down the

Int Gander. And how Honey

to the harbour airfield there. creek, across 1.303 smashes it on the

Chichester. The vision of the How, back in England, Scott

furious aircraft grappling with n

posses- incensed nir line. sca enters and takes designer, and an How even Honey's spiritualism is sion. vindicated.

After only a few pages, it is ap

founded parent that the story is upon one of those simple, but tho powerful themes which form basis of most gripping stories. The reader is introduced to a strange world and novel problems. It is the world of selence, of aircraft search the world, in short, of the Noflun

Weight

IN

MIL

Highway in concerned love, drama, conflet and ger among the Baffins.

One Bolin tells the story,

He is Dr

Scott,

rc-

On Iloney's word quite.

Bo.

15

One Reindeer, after flying hours. had crashed in Labrador. The authorities were satisfed that it had hillside. But Scott, who is struck not satisfied, looks at the accident missing report. The tail plane is

A photo- 11 has never been found.

All these fall into place in the His white yacht Runagate, a six- graph of the wreckage reveals 4

development of a fascinating novel berth schooner, is tied up for the small crack. Fatigue, says Honey.

of a crisis of human judgment winter now, on a mud berth at the Somebody

to Labrador must o

Island- bottom of the lawn. His and examine at wreckage. Some worked out in the setting of techni-

cal research. body? Honey,

Mr Shute moves in that world of class dinghy is laid up, too. The Bolin fnds himself Пying scientifle adventure with

Reindeer assurance rarely surpassed since the THE WORKSHOP with over the Atiantle In

ently Wells thrillers. knows to be the

with

-

LIBRARY LIST

SEEING SAUCERS NICE: A flying saucer has been in impressive lack of melodrama, which it casually emerges) has cx-

newly-appointed ceeded what he sren in the sky and reported by a number of persons

at Nice, Grange head of the Structural Departinent danger miti

Establish- and other places on the Riviera. in the Royal Air-Croft The mucer, Seen at 11.30 (Local time) ment. the awe-inspiring, hush-hush

bulb of institution at Farnborough. 35 1 P. was described

There Scott finds himself the per- light,

to similar yellowish electric bulb, shaped like n disc, plexed overlord of a, bevy of bud- with a luminous tail. It was visible ding Einsteins, elderly and unprac-

research workers. for 0 seconds travelling from east ticni

And, to west. An obrerver stated that particular, of Theodore Honey.

Πολ The trouble with Honey is the saucer emitted a short whistling

course neross the that he is small, ugly and unim- pressive. It is that he has worked sound during its nky,

out (in 70

of

pure pages mathematics) a revolutionary theory of fatigue in aeroplane structures based on nuclear physica.

in

GLORIOUS BEER

JOHANNESBURG: illegally brew-

He is busy trying it out on the ed beer was the only liquid available

Reindeer, Rutland when fre broke out at a native tail-wait of a

atr liner. location near Paarl, Cape Province.most up-to-date British

Alled Tests will go on for months. Ono The fire brigade accordingly

with day, says Honey, the atomic nature portable extinguishers their

of the metal in the tail will change beer and put the fire out.

In consequence, through vibration. the tall will break up.

ANOTHER WORLD CITIZEN

VIENNA: Gustav Krisch, prc- sident of The Austrian League,

He is quite calm so Scolt.

about it. Not

For Scott points out, those Rein- Anti-War deers are lying the Atlantic every When can the break-up ba After 1440 hours of fly-

has

himself day. nominated "World Citizen Three". He has inexpected? formed Garry Davis, Gisela Schluc-ing, answers Honey,

ter and UNO, that he is founding a If that is no, it will not be rate "Universal Unton" for all existing to let the Reindeers ily longer than

FU

h

and future World Citizens.

Robert Combs, aged 32, was so proud

700 hours--which is just about the

Mist an the Waters. Dy F. Creen Mitchel Joseph,

755 pakes You can say that this novel Há“ Udd Man Out and The Night of the Fira rolled into one But we knew already that Creen does that sort of thing wipremaly wait

The Music Makers. Edited by A. L Bacharach Folders, 15. 106 Pages An adorable and pleasantly produced) heat of 39 tives of com posers, that volume of • protected Oucharach. group of four, which Me an adept in the matters, plans to bring to the music-tever's aid and delight

The TraİM. By Vera Paryava Putnam, éd., 252 pages The story of a Russian hospital" train during the wae ngali leier, One of the 2314 Soviet novels wilch can be read with pleasure, for non-ideologicat reasons

Masisge from a Stranger. By Marys Mannes Hamis Hanulton. 9s, 242 pages Many people may be put off by the opening sentence: diad on November 12," 1946 " That with be a pity This is a novel at insight. compassion and power, with a fext trom Conrad: "Tha dead ena live anty with the exact intensity and quality of the tile imparted to them hy the ving

℗ Devil Take the Blue Tail fly. By

Bardian Collancz, Us B4, 1901 Bages A defective story? | Hardly Rather call a thriller, barrawing tis idaay from pwythlaley and ung them to play, with devilish dextente. the reader's neve

VIGNETTES OF LIFE

LIKE TO HAVE YOU DRIVE IT.......... USE IT~- OVER THE WEEK-END.... GO ANYWHERE YOU LIKE. TRY IT OUT UNDER ANYAND EVERY CONDITION.....

W

VODA

ati

ingy be gibberish from start to NEAR by is the boathouse, and

his workshop with its lathe.

For all I know, Mr Shule's science

Arish. But it is gibberish the author invests with on artful authenticity".

which

A new novel which engages the heart and grips the mind,

THE CORNER THAT HELD THEM. By Sylvin Townsend Warner. Chatto and Win- dus. 10s. 6d. 310 pages.'

THE convent at Oby, among the marshes of East Anglia, is not one of the brighter lights of plety book- in medieval England. The

discipline släck, the keeping la

nuns worse; and Sir Ralph, the priest; is in truth no priest at all.

Miss Townsend Warner pursues the fortunes of this undistinguished community through the modest triumphs, jealousies and scandals of 30 years in the 14th century. She unfolds its

SOILS

charm, tale with wit and verisimilitude.

But, my it goes at a mighty slow Chaucer's pace, this chronicle of England. Lacking either. central the character or a central theme, nuns story resembles a very long snake with a very weak spine.

ild' own Yet it has

queer ap- peal. Miss Townsend Warner

15. after all, a woman of talent,

After a simple lunch-he cats

fuss-he anything without

might polter round his six acres, prod the pigs, heckle the hens, scrutinise the fruit trees or vegetable plots. But it's much more likely that he will enter the workshop.

self.

THE PERFECT LIFE?

BUT he will still snatch time for D the annual lazy two-weeks' cruise down West," in Runagateway perhaps to Britiany. Surely thero will be the week-end sailing in the Solent which all the family look forward to.

are

05

For Mrs Norway and their two daughters (18 and 13) fascinated as he by the act of sail- ing a boat, (Because there are no sons, the girls are at co-educational schools),

Mrs Norway, a serene and charm- lng woman, is taking advantage of her husband's absence to etlend hospitals in London. She is taking

medical photography as second-or is it a third?—career,

tip

11

The portrait of a delightful liter many it will seem Yes indeed: to the perfect existence, Nevil Shule Norway himself savours with keen INO relish the happiness of the living- Cel pattern ho has created. Most of his life he has had to do a full day's work before getting home to the Indulgence of novel-

He was a Bon himself; a mathe-

by

tho- Inclination, a matician

by oretical engineer

profession, He spent his vacations from Balliol working for De Havilland, of which he was to become deputy chief en- gineer. He was chief calculator for the company that built R100 side-line and crossed the Atlantic twice in writing. When he gave up his en- gineering to slay at home and write, the great dirigible, representing the company. A clue to the derivation ho christened his new yacht with a Yes; but Nevil deliberato symbolism-for Runagate of No Highway? Shute Norway did not marry an air is the old word for one who escapes

B prison. hostess. lie married a doctor, in 1931, when he was 32.

He was a private in the Suffolk Regiment in 1918. In

he 1931 founded Airspeed, Ltd. In the last war he Way 4 licut.-commander AN,

Now, the Boffin has discovered the

the other end. delight that lies t

Remember When

.

However, let none who dream of emulating the delights of Nevil Shute Norway's daily life forget the iron necessity that imprisons hir

In a room thei from 9.30 to 1, looks Inland: typing for dear life, with his bock to the sea he loves.

·JOSEPH FRY.

Bu KEMP STARRETT

GOSH, PRICES- ÅRE GETTIN TERRIBLE

REMEMBER WHEN THE WAIST- LINE TRIED TO CRAWL DOWN TO THE KNEES.... AND CERTAIN' PEOPLE HAD THEIR OPINION OF GALS THAT SHOKID ?.

— AID THATS MOTHER. NASTY HABIT OF

YOURS...SMOKING! ...

AS I'VE BEEN

TELLING YOU FOR FIFTY

YEARS.*

REMEMBER WREN COUPLES WENT DOWN THE YEARS FIGHTING TO A FINISH S NOT WHY MORE THEY GO TO REVO AND THEN MARRY FORCONE ELSE TO BOW VIFI !

* ITS UNDER TU' SEAT?"

REMEMBER THE DAYS-WHEN; IF YOU SO MUCH AS PEEKED INTO A SHOWROOM OR ASKED WHAT YOUROLD BUS WAS WORTH, A SALESMAN TORE OUT TO YOUR HOUSE, WITH THE LATEST MODEL AND PRACTICALLY OFFERED: TO GNE IT TO YOU...ON UNEASY TERMS, OF COURSE.

WHEN YOU COULD LEAVE A GROCERY STAGGERING UNDER THREE BUCKS WORTH OF FOOD?

I DON'T ∙KNOW WHEN VE'LL GET

"AILY MEAT/"

Ledger Sundiente

REMEMBER WHEN STEN MEAT WAS PRICED 344 AT 344 A POUND. .. AND MEY DIDN'T HAVE ANY?.

"YES

SIR!

REMEMBER WHEN ¡YOU COULD BUY

GAS FOR LLEVEN

| CENTS" A GALLON

AND HO TAX?

IF YOU HAVE A DURABLE MEA- ORY MAYBE YOU CAN RECALL VIBI KİDS USED TO SAY I'YES, SIR' WHEN SPOKEN TO.

REMEMBER WHEN OUR COLLARS FELT LIKE A FOUR: FOOL BOARD FENCE?

AOD REMEMBER WHEN THEY USED TO SING SONGS JIST “HE SAME AS THE

COMPOSERS WROTE "HEAS