The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 5, Issue 4 (August 1, 1930)
Non-Sensical Notions And Other Idiocy
Non-Sensical Notions And Other Idiocy
Weather or No.
It is unwise, dear reader, to vocalise to a vegetarian on the vitaministic virtues of the gentle giblet; it is unsafe to broadcast on the farinaceous fertility of the faithful filbert to a “beefologist”; it is suicidal to spill the beans on the Tyranny of Time to the spouse of the house in the grey dawn of the subsequent morn; but it is always safe to swap weather retorts, discuss meteorological metamorphosis, and put the nips into Nature with anyone you meet except the meteorologist, who not unreasonably resents any extemporaneous expression of opinion on the sacred subjects of hyperborean hysteria and the ethics of the elements. All other topics become stale with greater celerity than a decadent duck egg, but the weather as material for padding the forms of speech is imperishable. It is a fact, dear reader, that there is more weather to the liquid ounce in this land of “speedom” than there are chins on a Chinchilla; the weather is more universal than Esperanto or lumbago; meteorology and psychology are “twinologies”; they either synchronise salubriously under the greenwood tree or they camp under a gamp, and simultaneously simulate a sea-soaked sock; for it is the weather which puts the “sigh” in psychology and the “fizz” into physiology, in terms of its temperature; when Nature hits the mat, human nature whips the cat, but when the elements don the garments of sunshine and salubrity man bursts with benevolence and goes among the people crying: “Aye, verily, brethren and sistern, is not the day a ‘humdazzler,’ a veritable cough-drop, in fact the cat's whiskers?” And the populace answer unto him as one man, saying: “Sure baby,” “Betcher,” and the atmosphere buzzes with the bacteria of hysteria and the vitamins of victory; men go forth among the people spreading good cheer and sales-talk, and prosperity lies upon the land; people even contract matrimony with naught but optimism to support their faith in the future. Dear reader, dead silence often is safer than lively speech, but in the most debilitated situation it is safe to aver that it was a fine winter last summer, or to venture a guess as to what day summer will fall on during the current year.
Thus this climatic clatter — these meteorological mutterings.
The Augurs of August.
Despite the high cost of giving and the daily “keep-onomy” I would remind you that spring is about to spring; that August augurs of Brussels sprouts and hustled shouts; that the earth is breaking into whispers and whiskers; the bird is on the wing and the onion on the spring.
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In fact—
Half the world is blithely bounding,
Wayward worms their songs are sounding,
Whilst upon the turf they're pounding,
With their tails.
Slimy slugs are slowly slogging,
Season's seedlings dourly dogging,
Whilst the hedgehog goes a'hogging,
After snails.
Lilting larks are lightly larking,
Where the wary worms are parking,
Even trees their barks are barking,
Season's cheer.
Cats are clamorously calling,
Midnight melodies appalling,
Bird and beast and biped's bawling,
Spring is here.
Ev'ry little bud is budding,
Bouncing baby spuds are spudding,
Infant onions start their thudding
In a ring.
Brussels sprouts are spryly sprouting,
Touts upon the turf are touting,
Even Scots and Jews are “shouting”
It is Spring.
But if, doubting reader, in this august month of August, Spring fails to leap and the Blows have it, do not blame us, who merely accept the official version that Spring has registered in the visitor's book.
The Lady of the Laugh.
In the spring man flirts with happiness, always providing that he recognises the Lady of the Laugh when he meets her. “But what is Happiness, Daddy?” Is it perchance indicated by the lambent laugh, can it be related to the inherent inanity of humanity; is it a mere vacuous vibrating of the vocals? Or is it like quick-silver which, according to Cornelius, is something that “when you put your finger on it, it ain't there?” Methinks Cornelius “clicked.” In proof, dear reader, a horse-stinger or jockey (as you like it) was asked in what order of sequence and frequence a horse incited his extremities to action — whether the starboard stilts synchronised, or whether the whole bunch registered equinoxially; the horse-stinger replied in the “nagative,” remarking that a horse never gives his undercarriage a thought, and that if he did he would become so fetlocked that he would fall on his neck and bust his handicap.
Horse-sense and Happiness.
Of all the girls whom I love best
The girls whom I would fain caress,
Of Wealth or Power, to share my nest,
I'd choose the wench named Happiness.
She's ever glad to do a “turn,“
But once her pleading you suppress,
Or bluntly her advances “spurn,“
Well—that's the end of Happiness.
She'll call at any vagrant hour,
And if you leave the door ajar,
She'll enter your domestic bower,
And take you simply as you are.
Of all the girls I've ever known,
The one whom I would fain caress,
And ask to share my lot alone—
Her maiden name is Happiness.
Some say that Happiness has packed her port’ and taken a week's wages in lieu. If such is true, perhaps it is that we have failed to woo; perhaps she has been gassed by gasolene; perchance she prefers lace and lavender and sits with the old folks at home. Who knows?
Happiness, kind reader, is not always the spouse of Success. Success is often too busy playing sales on the cash register; Success sometimes wears a pint hat on a quart head, thus restricting the flow of imagination to the brain; success is too often the union of L.S.D. with E.G.O., resulting in N.I.L. The union of “dough” and delight is successful only if the ceremony is conducted by the Reverend Hugh Manity.
It is bad business to confuse Success with Excess.
The Plundertaker.
Dear reader, the march of progress has speeded into a gallop, but Happiness is no Olympic gamester. Man moves with such suddenness that he leaves his future behind him, and the present is the spot marked “nix” in the extreme background of the panorama. He has got a toe-hold on Time and a “Seizers on Science.” He has heaved Happiness over the ropes; he is a pulverulent projectile perforating the panorama; he is the prize pest of Nature's garden; if he had more legs and held his head in the horizontal he would be treated with insecticide. In Nature's scheme of give-and-take he is the prize plundertaker. And as my friend Sing Low remarks, “Whaffor.”
Rather let us broadcast with Old Ma Kai Ham:
“Here let me loaf abed beneath the bough,
A thermos flask, a thriller—it's a wow,
Beside me cooking in the kitchenette,
The breakfast, this is paradise enow.”
Railway Rondos.
We will now close the meeting, happy reader, with a round of rondos on the railway. Considering that our train of thought has followed the lines of Happiness, and that this magazine, like its readers, is devoted to the railway, it is flitting that we should flit with the Iron Duke along the only permanent way:—
Oh, I crave the peace of the long steel track,
With an air cushion tucked in the small of my back,
With the landscape unfolding like film on a reel,
And a stop now and then for a rattling meal.
Oh, I crave for the comfort and ease for the brain,
That's waiting, yes waiting, for me in the train.
No dust in the glottis, no corners to cut,
No racketing road-hogs, no tyres to go “phut,“
No cramp in the crumpets, no pain in the dome,
No feeling that fain would I rather be home,
But absolute peace in the body and brain,
That's waiting, yes waiting, for me in the train.
The Iron Duke's a friend whom I loved in my youth,
And he still claims my love and affection forsooth,
There's something about him so sturdy yet trim,
That—hang it—I simply can't help loving Him.
Our National Game.
(Rly. Publicity photos.)
Incidents in the recent football match between Wellington and Great Britain (won by Wellington by 12 points to 8). (1) J. C. Morley (Great Britain) about to score, C. D. Aarvold (Great Britain) in support. F. S. Ransom and L. K. Heazelwood (Wellington) are the other players in the picture. (2) P. F. Murray (Great Britain) about to pass to H. M. Bowcott (Great Britain). (3) J. C. Morley (Great Britain) breaks through—M. F. Nicholls (about to tackle) and F. S. Ransom (Wellington) in close pursuit. (4) R. S. Spong (Great Britain) works the blind side.