1950-06-17 — Page 11

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, JUNE 17, 1950.

ANNE COUPAR samples German housekeeping

Frau Marthe Moll enjoys

her shopping at

DUSSELDORF.

THE happiest hour of Frau Marthe Food is

Moll's day is when she unhooks her big black shopping bag and toils down the sixty-nine stone steps out into

the sunshine to go marketing,

She has to go every day, for she

their

gossip, their

lives, with a hundred other homeless entertainment,

families, in the gigantic air-raid shelter known as Der Bunker, in Munsterstrasse, Dusseldorf.

celly

There is no space in the three small which she, her husband, con,

and

their

daughter, and granddaughter have called source of pride.....”

home for five years to fix a larder.

today.

Each room cesta 45. a week, which accounts for 4s 1d. of the decides and to rent another-even it week's food bills.

they could get it~Just to keep

food in, would cost too much.

But

in the rix-by-four-foot windowless room that is kitchen-

No queues

BRITISH housewife would living-room-bedroom combined, understand when Frau Moll Frau Marthe contrives appetising my that the most satisfactory and attractive meal

thing is the Germau worker

Ja the total paraslice

11

Herr Moll carna 65 marks food (£4 168.) n week as a labourer, absence of queues. With in the Pahlsche-nh! rubber dozen shops offering the same prices, the works, and hands over £4 7. thing at the ne

His son, fram has no need to line up for for the housekeeping. making good money 13

Bonything bullder's labourer, makes his mother's budget up almost £7. Of this, £4 17x. Gd. A week toen on food.

10

a

lovely

least

Some

But in nylons the German and fraulein аго de- have striped sun frau

fashion followers Some termined canoples. carry on under Every second shop, no malter faded of what else it is selling. displays umbrellas. All French and American nylons at are crammed full 12. Gd, to 19s. n pair,

with Looda

The Germans have no uilly prices clearly clothes-scheme: It was tried, was marked, so that not popular, and was dropped no time is wasted Prices of clothes are from three annwering need to five guinean for a suit, or less questions.

Jong coat: summer frocks from The ment stall £2 10, Gloves are expensive,

around 355. Handbags and ac Arst. "Of course,

cheap 4 for a we cannot afford essories are

Jarge leather handbag. .with feshmcat every day"

explains matching belt.

Frau Moil, but

perhaps yea. She

On

His mark

WIT

kalberatena TN the past, the German male litle roll of roasting IN

known by the roll of veal. She watches 2lb. cut off, fat bulging over the back of his and hands over about 4a, 4el, collar. During the war this Then vegetables summer distinguishing mark disappeared spinach is 3d. a 1. a lettuce 7d. In the past year it has gradually curaber Is. Ed., and cauliflower rolled Lach. If the frau could

extravagant, this, very

only plains Frau Moll) 25.

Puts on weight she might share her intereat more equally be- tween fashion and food.

After hesitating between Ger- man and Danish butter, she asks

of Danish, Ib. And four eggs at 3d. each,

for half

Her problem

23.

As the weather la fine, Frau EVEN lb. of potatoes, cheap takes a today at 4d., five bananas at Moll, purse in hand,

Schwannenmarkt. 3d, each, b., of sugar, 17d.. 31b. tram to the

of crisp loaf, 1s. 3d., and it is Chrystal, the invalid daughter, Here, light-packed round

Gower-bedded Little pleasant,

open time to go home, cannot go out to work,

On the way, Frau Moll pauses the stalls "of the Annallese, the orphaned grand- space,

and meal at the sausage

chop for to daughter, drinks a litre of milk grocer, fish, fruit,

pleasurable problem of deciding under two plnts inerchants. n day just

which of the 35 different kind

are

ARE YOU MERELY A

SOAK?

of "wurst"

slim as fast as her

MAN

As it is, mid-morning shop- ping is normally Interrupted housewife while the Germin

resta her feet and samples chocolate layer-cake, pineapple alice, Furat puckler at about 15.

co

thick

DAB and FLOUNDER

--by WALTER

Sir Alfred's

soft pedal

The Furst puckler is sorte- would thing only a German

A mid-morning IT was just a year ago that Sir think of for

It looks like a Rugby

Alfred Munnings startled snack. fcotball, but inside the chocolate The Royal Academy dinner-

layer of cover is a

with an attack on "modern" art. Now, on the eve of another Academy dinner, 1 have news that Sir Alfred's memoirs will be published (by the Muscum Press) in November.

Thimson

Meet the poet of Hangover Square

THE IRON HOOP. By Constantine FitzGibbon, school-friend of his daughter

Cassell, 98, 220 pages.

CCFS ho a meteor or a new star?" That was the question irresistibly prompted by young FitzGibbon's brilliant first novel, The Arabian Bird. After The Iron Hoop It is still an open question..

The reason is not that Filz- Gibbon is temporarily bereft of his astonishingly mature talents, bul that he fs, perversely, up- plying them to tasks for which they are not specially adapted.

lle is the master of the shab- by night club, the shady night bird; the bitter

poet of mean · dawns and hangovers, His mood 19 almost violently contempora-

23.

But The Iron Hoop has no time. Its scene in limbo. It is a table as much as a novel.

In a devastated elty, after t war, FitzGibbon's people crawl about in the ruins, corrupting ere another. Which city? Which war? We are warned not to

Book of the Month

Two choices for May

George Malcolm Thomson hna chosen two books for the month of May. They are:

THE WORLD MY WILDERNESS.

by Rose Macaulay (Collins. B. fid.).

THE BRAVE BULLS, by Tom Lea (Heinemann, 10, Gd.),

ask. "Let me repent oneo more," is an Image of the strength inen admonishes the author, "this draw from disaster and hunilla- city has no nationality and be- ten. longs to no age."

This book is a bold, imposing failure. And a reminder that of the most con- FitzGibbon is one

unusual of young writers.

But, as the render is stantly trying to fit a name and nationality to the city and its inhabitants, there ls an effect like double vision. The cha-

moment racters are, at one creatures of flesh and blood; ni In a sinister the next, actors charade. A charado that is, often, touched with impressive

vision1.

CAPTAIN IN LOVE

Clora.

'MADE. TO ATTRACT”.

Ho swoops down and groups one of Patay's silken ankles, muttering in a thick volco "You're made to attract, aren't you?"

The trouble about this epi- sode is not that It is morally painful, but that it in 'complete- ly ridiculous. Not for a moment can we nco Claude doing any- thing of the kind.

Isabel. his amorous, frivolous wife, seems a more promising

emotional entangle source of ment and crisis. But nol Isabel's kave affair with her husband's drunken, poetry-spouting Irish colleague ends in anti-climax. And one has the impression "that", Janbel is relieved.

As for Clara-and The Lost Travelier

Chura's really book-chie goes on governess to

old Catholic ኣኒ

family Edward, the heir, a disagreeible boy, left in her charge is killed Sumping down from a wall.

ittle

It lo the nearest thing to drama in the whole book, and it pushes Clorn into on engage- ment with Archie, a young pris- 1ocrat, whom she does not love. From this muddie she is saved by foolish worldly wise Innbol. Claude, his head full of "feud-

nonsense, hotly in favour of the marriage.

THE LOST TRAVELLER. By Antonia White, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 10r. 6d. 314 pages.

traveller is still

is not, then, for the display is lost

waiting for the train to of human passions in tense and start. The red carpet is down turbulent career that you will

the

Antonia go to the novel.

station- But n a picture, unhappy, assem- unkind honest of a narrow,

On

A young captain Auna, a walt

platform.

her smart White, in of the oc-

master's uniform, has of the defeated ments a promising group

It is

she will buy lo. marzipan; inside that are rain and the radio-listening publiccupying army falls in love with bied in the nest-class compart- rather special London milieu'

morrow. Choosing a sautuge is Sandman business and Frau Moll sighe as

រ

as she decides t will have

to be knoblauchwurst again, al

| Pd. a

crowded by

The shop was Books and perso

BYHORACE THOROGOOD

on a

Chinese sage, Imperial. She is in England just Medieval

further places the now, working Yuan Hun-tao novel Chia Ping Mel (new voluine of Proust memoirs. edition now from John Lane) high in his Bat of "Books that should be studied by the Com- plete Drinker. Not to know It, he said, "is to be a mere zoak- er and no true druking com- panion."

ing

bow layers of cream and sponge.

Soap in plenty

furniture.

But the "moderna" need not sbake in their shoes. Sir Alfred is letting them off. "It will not be a controversini book," he tells

me, just

of some memories knocking about here and there."

MIE German housewife need THE

never send her uen to the pro-looking. women buy- laundry for lack of soap. Shop savouries-krabben windows filled by a variety of

tollet

soaps and napik at 11d, a minute portion, washing

schnitzel (chopped dazzle her with special displays She knows all the "household Scenehn salmon) ni 7d. a quarter.

brands that are familiar here, They looked doubtfully of a

refuses to have any mcuna

of Deutsch kaviar (black and she

You know those suitcases that Volume 3 of Noel ish-roe) at

25. fid, a quarter. thing to do with soap substitutes

The one thing that is scarce is expand according to the amount Collected Plays Chean, they told me, but better

sak one of stuff you pack into them? Coward's

Includes left for foreign visitors who do Heinemann, shortly) Sirocco. This was failure not know the difference from housewife

good of fully, "what's the That, in effect, is fo be the auto-

ir when produced nt Daly's the real caviar.

el a house to put you can'i | blography of Sir Osbert Sitwell.

The fifth volume Theatre in the early twenties,

But, tuch, these to the Ger-life story is too of publichent in Food is September (Macmillan) under mon are lesser evils. mystery of the their gossip, their entertainment, the title of Noble Essences. Then German shops is who buys their source of pride and satis- all five are to be bound together There were boos, entealis,

into an omnibus volume. displayed. clothes

Gown faction. He any "snapped back the

shops in Die Ko, Dusseldorf's If they are short of money to new ballet based on La Fon- that I expected

shopping buy all they need-the opportu further nationally taine's fable, The Bird Pierced ners." This provoked

street, are full of smart frocks rity and incentive la there to do by an Arrow, for performance tumult.

and footwear. But the clothes a little overtime or an odd job. by the Monte Cario

On his way from stage door you see in the surging crowda Just an hour or two exira-and

are far less one

stenk more

Jinner Company.

to his car, some of these critlen on the pavement

assured. He had to end nay, and the usual footwear is spat at him,

heavy and crepe soled,

-(London Express Service) his mult to be cleaned.

hear that Victor Hugo's grandson, Jean Hugo, hus collaborate with authoress Princess Marthe Bibesco in n

Ballet

The princess used the same theme in her last novel, Prince

and Coward recalls his hostile reception at the end.

belter man-

Who buys?

MINOR A

famous

VIGNETTES OF LIFE

"WAIT A.

MINUTE... I'LL DO

THAT./"

Osbert's

of before and during tho

War: nation living among the ribble travelling companiona for ut ali gallery of slightly of the Iron Hoop (a vast area Claude Batchelor, Isabel, hla tired portraits, as a balf-shrink-

surely, the

Lost

these

Traveller

of blitzed elty). The captain can pretty wife; Clara, their daugh- ing response to life-in

Anna comfort, affection, ter, and the others. offer

At any moment, even, marriage (he is unhappy with his wife). But when the whistle will blow. erisic

comes

her she chooses

At any moment? Who could honestly swear, when page 314 ju reached, that he heard it, that the journey was necessary-or even that there was a journey at all?

own

respects The arrives somewhere. MASCARADE. By Gabriel Chevallier, Secker and Warburg, 98. 6d. 240 pages.

people. Anna's brother is involved in a plot to overthrow the occupy ing authority. 11 is a prepost erous plot, a frall web of hope spun by a fraudulent, charming Antonia White has modelled dreamer called the Hero. It ends people, with some subtlety, with in failure, yet somehow it has some reverity; she has painted undermined the morale of the scenes in clear, often humorous, conquerors and sown the seeds colours. But is there movement; faintly bitter tang: the crafts

manship is solid, o national revival among the is there excitement; is there a defeated.

there swirling to climax?

The story les as peaceful as

not the bawdy, exu- THIS is

berant Chevallier of Cloche- merle. He Is quivier here, more economical; his fun has a

One-way Street, first of the four stories, tell how

Jean- every now and Marie Dubois becomes a col-

4

Anna joins the conspirators in time to see the collapse of the porridge, and

White takes a laborator while still honcally plat, to realise that she loves the then Antonla

and half-hearted stir at it with a considering himself

patriot, Hiero-and that he is a liar and long spot. Claude Batchelor, a when he is shot by the Maquia

coward. The Captainsgrace, middle-aged schoolmaster, fuse his inst

with words, uttered more or legs in disgrace. Underneath this half-hearted y, snobbish, smug a convert to complete conviction are "Long melodrama is a deeper intuition; Roman Catholicism, yet feeling live France!"

A dexterous study in the convert, he is not of the Iron Hoop as something that, as n

of occupied persisting, even beautiful, with quite. "top-drawer-Claude moral atmosphere"

love to Pasty Cohen, France. power over the Imagination. It makes

Is

Altogether they will run about 700,000 words. But make no mistake, that will not be the the opus. Sir Osbert end of warns that he will re-open the sullense later on to pack more into it,

to

home,

"I'LL PAY FOR.

IT NEXT MONTH, DADDY.. OR MAYBE

IN AUGUST....

99

"Father's Day'

BY, KEMP STARRETT,

оомоо

+

EVER NOTICE HOW FATHER AS SOON AS HE GETS COMFORTABLE, IS BLACKMAILED INTO GETTING UP AND HELPING WITH THE CHORES.

A ล

YOU MIGHT EVEN LET THE GUY TRY TO PROVE HIS CLAIM THAT MEN ARE ME BETTER, COOKS. (WAIT'LL BE HAS TO MOP UP).

ON FATHER'S DAY HE SHOULD. BE ALLOWED TO STOCZE AS LONE AS HE LIKES AFTER. DINNER...

FATHER JUST MANAGES TO CLAW HIS WAY OUT FROM UNDER THE CHRISTMAS AND EASTER BILLS WHEN ALONG COME SOME MORE GIFTS WE'LL BET

HE'LL HAVE TO PAY FOR.

HABITUAL POSE OF THE

AVERAGE

FATHERZ KOORDING TO

BOTA BACHELOR.}

AD FATHER

Ledger Syndicate

THERE ARE TIMES EVEN ON FATHER'S DAY, WAICH REMIND A MAN HOW ONCE HE CONSIDERED REMAINING A BACHELOR..

IF WE INVITE TIEM THEY'LL STAY 'TIL ALL HOURS...

"TIL ALL OIRS IS DRUNK UP

WAP HEA,

HER?

FATHER'S DAY IS ONE DAY HE SHOULD BE

·ALLORED UKS PET JOKE.

"LOOK/I'M RUNNING THIS DEPARTMENT... YOU RUN ALONG AN CLEAN UP TH GARAGE OR CELLAR.

OR

SOMETI

6.9

NO DAY IS FATHER'S DAY WHEN HE VENT-

URES AN OPINION

ABOUT

RAISING THE SPROUT.

EVERY SIDDAY IS FATHER'S DAY TO PROVE BES COM- PLITELY TAMED.