Men Only January 1958: Ads, Correspondence, Life's a Laugh & Crossword.

Correspondence

Letters on all topics of interest to men will be particularly welcome.

Men and Manners. - Regarding J. Wentworth Day's article on the decline of good manners, how right he is!  As manager of a very busy hotel in the North I see it daily - so much so that I have put up a notice:  Gentlemen remove their hats - others are asked to!  But I don't quite agree with Mr. Day's reason for why men walk outside ladies.  Originally this was not to protect them from vehicles splashing mud but from the slops thrown out from upper windows.  (The habit is illustrated in one of Hogarth's pictures.)   Just one more point:  among the men who do carry gloves, few know really how to.  They should be carried with the fingers to the back - not to the front like a bunch of bananas. - John G. Showers (Rodley, Leeds.)

Girls of Brazil. - Your article entitled "The Girls of Turkey" prompts me to write and tell you about the girls of Brazil, one of whom I married after emigrating.  Brazil, I think one can claim, has the most beautiful girls of all - for here is a mixing of the world;s races, and if you want a girl with a dash of Japanese or, say, Syrian blood (not too much but just a little), you can take your choice.  Or perhaps you prefer something Italian with a hint of Polish, Hungarian, or German.  Or even a lovely brown-skinned girl, with a suntan that doesn't fade in winter.  They are all to be found in Brazil.  Just one word of warning - Brazil's marriage law has no divorce as we know it, and in case of legal separation the wife is entitled to half her husband's wealth! - W.R. (Cuiaba, Mato Grosso, Brazil).

Financial Column. - In a recent issue F. Wray was asking what a really good citizen should do with a couple of quid.  Should he (1) buy National  Savings Certificates and thus get interest paid to him by the Government; or (2) buy fags and booze to the value of  40s., thus making a free gift to the State 0f 30s.?  The answer is obviously the former.  Buy £2 worth of Savings Certificates and at the end of ten years you'll be lucky is you can buy half the quantity of fags and booze for the 50s., thus making a gift to the Government of 45s.  By doing this you will also enable the Government to make 11/4 % per annum for itself on your £2.  And with your sip of booze you can toast all governments and wish them to the nether regions where they, like your single cheroot, will go up in smoke. - P.R. James (Portslade, Sussex).

Anti-Shave Wanted. - We read that the medical profession are to study ways and means of encouraging the growth of hair on bald pates.  In these wonderful days of scientific development, when one begins to think that nothing is impossible, it seems very likely that the remedy they seek will soon be forthcoming.  Is it too much to hope that some of our really brainy people might get together to find out how to do the reverse - i.e. stop the whiskers growing on our chins? - E.J. Tibbitts (Sevenoaks, Kent).

Life's A Laugh

In Times Square you can buy a cruet in the form of 

Marilyn Monroe (recumbent) with removable pepper and salt units.

                                                        Sir Huge Casson.

Two old college classmates met, after many years, in a bar.

They hoisted a few together, and then one of them noticed the time.

"Holy smoke!  Doesn't your wife raise the dickens when you stay out late like this?" he asked.

"No," his friend replied.  "I'm not married." - "Not married!" exclaimed the first man.

"Then why do you stay out late like this?"

                                                          "The Tender Trap."

NEXT MONTH: "STICK WITH ME, PILOT!": Thrilling Real-life Drama in Blazing Plane, by Glenn Infield.

Do not rely on always being able to find a copy of MEN ONLY displayed on a counter.

If you are not a subscriber, the only way to make sure of it is to place a regular order with your newsagent.

DO THIS CROSSWORD AND WIN A FIVER

We invite you to complete this crossword puzzle and send it to: The Competition Editor, MEN ONLY Tower House, Southampton Street, London W.C.2.  We offer prizes of £5 each for the first three correct solutions opened in this office after closing date, which is January 14th 1958

Clues Across

1.    The wrinkles that make news? (9).

8.    He gets half-way along the road at one push (5).

9.    Sounds ominously as though we ought to have a drink first (7).

11.  Won't solve the housing problem (8).

12.  You'll understand when she drops! (5).

13.  Not furious (4).

14.  He's rather inclined to see things that aren't there (9).

15.  Row (4).

17.  Don't allow that tangled beard into the saloon! (5).

19.  A small bed makes a great difference when one doesn't live in a big house (8).

21.  One's position in life may be quite different after this (7).

22.  Try to get a corner in fish? (5).

23.  Blow it if it isn't in a jam! (9).

Clues Down

2.   Avoid going to the extremes of being deluded (5).

3.   Gay young girl who seems to float along? (8).

4.   Just one thing after another (4).

5.   Change into the old girl's garment (5)

6.   Somewhat seedy in the absence of personal transport? (7).

7.   Just room for you if you don't mind squatting on the coverlet (9).

10. Hold-up man at a football match? (9).

12. He can well afford to arrange a curl on top (9).

13. Immoral suggestion for those who can't afford to marry (4, 4).

14. Get Ivor to exhibit high feeling (7).

16. Makes a mark in the money (5)

18. Song Robin (5).

20. Cut down from one of the surplus fire appliances (4).

Published on 15th of month, by Proprietors, C. Arthur Pearson, Ltd., Tower House, Southampton Street, Strand, London, W.C.2.; printed in England by Hazell Watson & Viney Ltd., Aylesbury and Slough.  Sole Agents - Australasia: Gordon & Gotch, Ltd.; South Africa: Central News Agency, Ltd.  Subscription rate, for one year, Inland 27s. 6d., and Abroad, 26s. (Canada, 25s.). Registered at G.P.O. for transmission by Canadian Magazine Post.

Men Only January 1958: What's New Around Town, A Dream of Wine Galore, Answers to Wine Problems, Ads and Quote.

What's New Around Town

"The Rambler" is always on the lookout for that new trend or clever idea which helps to make life easier and brighter.  If you want further details about any of the items mentioned, write to him, ℅ The Editor, MEN ONLY, Tower House, Southampton Street, London W.C.2.  But please do not send money to "The Rambler" except in those particular cases when he expressly invites you to do so.

By "The Rambler"

Good Grape Picking. - It saves you money and adds to your enjoyment of a wine if you can use the vintage date to pick out just the character and quality of the one you want, whether you are ordering it with a meal or putting down a little personal stock.  You can do this with reasonable certainty without years of swotting, providing you have room in your waistcoat pocket for a neat three-inch circle of thin card, which is issued by a leading wine importer.  Two indicator-cards are fitted within this circle, and a quick flick of the finger tells you at a glance what you want to know.  Thus, with the first random shot I confirmed that in 1953 the average Burgundy was soft in nature - a quick-maturing type - and of good quality.  It will make splendid drinking, now and for some time yet.  I turned the card over and flipped again, to note that the 1949 Hock is of generous, "fruity" character and excellent in its quality.  Looking for a Hock of a more balanced and elegant type, I found a good quality within seconds, the 1955 vintage.  Turning the card again, I put myself in the position of a chap looking for a nice Claret which would be a good one to keep as well as being currently enjoyable.  And again, in a moment or two, I found myself choosing between the good, well-balanced 1952 and the rather richer and better 1945.  The dial also takes in Champagnes and Ports.  Anyway, knowing your interest in such matters I have ear-marked on your behalf, from the wine house concerned, a good number of free copies of this useful gadget.  Let me know if you'd like one.

Wineograph. - We wine-lovers are certainly being well looked after these days, for here's yet another aid to good drinking called the "Wineograph" Chart.  Printed in two colours on ruled paper, this is a most thorough and fool-proof guide, a real What's What About Wine - by S.P.E. Simon and S.F. Hallgarten.  Given the type and price and what it's to go with, you can't fail to choose the exactly appropriate bottle.  But you can also work the other way round - starting, for instance, with the food or occasion and working back to the prices of the various wines most suitable.  Or you can follow up a favourite vintage and discover the best circumstances in which to drink it.  In fact, when you've learnt your way about the Wineograph, you will know all the answers and your wine merchant will be delighted to do business with such a knowledgeable chap.  He'll be quite pleased with himself, too, probably, for as likely as not he sold you your "Wineograph" (price 1s.) in the first place.  So if you want one, try your wine merchant first.  If he can't help, try me . . . but when you're sending that 1s. postal order, please leave it blank (i.e. don't make it payable to MEN ONLY or "The Rambler").

Your Newpaper. - From a well-known wine merchant I have received a most interesting little newspaper entitled News from Bordeaux.  For anyone interested in wine drinking this will certainly have a great appeal.  Subjects discussed include dieting through wine, recipes for cooking fish with Bordeaux wines, and the art of wine tasting.  I have been promised a number of copies for readers who are interested but the supply will not be unlimited and applications should be made early.

Home Comforts. -  A new product, the first beer in Britain brewed and packaged especially for home use, will certainly be of interest.  First and most important detail, this is a beer which is good in itself, irrespective of the pack.  It has something of what I would call an "export" flavour, which will widen its popularity further.  The pack is good too, and will solve many problems of supply, storage, bottle-returning, and the like.  There are no "empties" in the accepted sense.  This beer in packed in flat-top cans - of normal grocery-basket type - and is thus handy both in stocking up and in larder-shelf storing.  It will keep in first-class condition for months.  There are two sizes, an 8-oz., half-pint size, at 1s. 5d., and the 12-oz., two-glass size, at 2s. 2d.  A special lining to the can ensures that a good beer gets to you - or to your unexpected quests - in perfect condition.  This new beer is brewed especially for canning, at a new brewery in Scotland.  Details on request.

Long Drink. - There has been a recent popularising of a very lively custom which certainly flourished in Viking days, as also at various periods from the Middle Ages to around the time of our own grandfathers; namely, the drinking of ale-by-the-yard.  A "yard," as its name implies, is a craftily-fashioned glass drinking vessel 36" from tip to base.  For manageability and easy drinking-flow it is very slim and slender for most of its length, with most of the beer content carried in a kind of large thermometer-bulb at the bottom end.  To make its appearance quite clear, imagine a yard-long, graceful trumpet of glass, sprouting from a globe of, say, large cricket-ball size - or small football, if you want that much.  The "yards" come in various capacities.  The traditional one holds 2 1/2 pints, and the record for emptying one of these is held by a welder in Redditch, at 10 seconds!  Then there's a handier 1-pint size; a 1/2-pint; a dainty "one-sixth"; and a miniature which is more for collecting than as a serious drinking-tool.  I expect many readers will be glad to know that these "yards" are being made again - they are hand-made, too, and blown by craftsmen.  Details on request.

Wider Uses. - People are too apt to look upon brandy as being rather a specialist drink, mainly desirable for rounding-off meals.  Yet it's much more versatile.  I am reminded of this fact by seeing that one of the brandy houses recently had occasion to assemble some of the more interesting cocktails and drink recipes which include brandy in their make-up: the noggs, cobblers, fixes, sours, specials, flips, highballs, slings, and the like.  I took the opportunity to record the recipes and can arrange for a copy to be sent to anybody who is interested in trying some additional ways of enjoying brandy.

A Dream of Wine Galore

By H. Warner Allen

"A man who is drunk on wine falls forward on his face, because wine makes his head heavy: a man who is drunk on beer, falls flat on his back, because beer stupefies."  Far be it from me to pronounce between the forward flop of excess and the backward bump!  Aristotle's judgment was recalled to me by the so plainly disinterested warning of an eminent brewer, who feared that if wine were brought into the European free market, it might undermine the national constitution, since wine-producing countries have a very much higher chronic alcoholism rate than Britain as a beer-drinking country.  That is why he was so distressed at the thought of wine becoming a serious competitor to beer.  How sad that such a beautiful dream should have been for him a nightmare!  He must have gone to sleep on undigested statistics from the Prohibition Statistical Bureau; it would have provided with equal cheerfulness figures to prove that beer rots mind and guts.  In France, the trouble is with the departments which drink cider, beer's first cousin, instead of wine; and in all Latin countries where the vine flourishes, it is an accepted axiom that wine is the enemy of intemperance.
But duty-free wine is a pipe-dream, beautiful as the oysters Saki said were more beautiful than any religion.  Blue moons and months of Sundays are more probable.  Yet, supposing for a moment that the brewer's beautiful dream came true, in spite of the impassable barrier of Exchequer and vested interests, would a little competition be bad for tied houses which sometimes, I fear, peddle what in my youth would have been called swipes for schoolboys?  There might come floods of nondescript Midi wines, to be blended with Algerian and a strong dark common Spanish wine into that by no means despicable beverage pinard - thanks to which the French survived the first world war.  We might learn to overcome our prejudice against diluting wine, and water it down a little as a thirst-quencher, though i must admit that I never added a drop of water to the many litres of pinard I drank between 1914 and 1918.  It would make no demands on the palate, but it would at least lay a foundation.  The palate could later be trained to discriminate the common-or-garden from wines of higher degree.
There is no great surplus of wine for export in Italy; and Chianti, Barolo, and the rest would continue to attract those wise epicures who like pasta and olive oil.  Germany again has very little wine looking for a foreign market, and Hocks and Moselles would remain very much as they are, though Steinwein, if prices fell, would appeal to the national taste for a wine into which one can get one's teeth.  Spain and Portugal are not at present even involved in what I call this "dream of wine galore," but if they were, Sherry and Port would still hold their own against any competition, because they are wines that cannot be imitated but only caricatured; and the Portuguese table wines, still something of a novelty, coming over here with the guarantee that only a guaranteed locality can give, would find a wonderful market.
With such an embarrass de richesse the value of a discriminating taste to distinguish between the ordinary, the good, and the best, would be enormously increased.  As things are, the unique fascination of wine is being more and more appreciated, and if only it ceased to be a luxury instead of "a good familiar creature," the order of British wine-drinkers would be multiplied a hundredfold.  Such a consummation seems a good deal farther away than the invasion of the planets by platoons of earth-born scientists - but, treating it as a possibility, the same counsel holds good for the novice in wine-drinking whether of today or tomorrow: find a wise wine merchant of the old school to educate your palate.

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Answers to Wine Problems

Desset Grapes. - Do wine grapes differ in any material respect from the dessert grapes grown in this country in hot houses? - G.T.D. (Gloucester).
A:  Big dessert grapes contain too much water to make a wine worth drinking.  The good wine grape is always small, and an exact record of the colour and size of selected wine grapes as well as of the colour of the wines made from them, registered by the latest processes of colour photography, is to be found in The Noble Grapes and the Great Wines of France, by André L. Simon, with 24 colour photographs by Percy Hennell, recently published by the McGraw-Hill Publishing Company at the price of five guineas.

Lamb's Wool. - Can you help me with advice on the "Elegant Living" of an earlier century?  I wish to make some "Lamb's Wool" for a party with a small number of guests.  I understand the basic ingredients to be strong ale, ginger, spices, and roasted apples.  Can you help me with a more precise recipe and advise me as to what beer at present obtainable would conform most closely to the ale of a more robust age? - J.R.E. (Bridgewater).
A:  You cannot do better than follow the recipe given in the Concise Encyclopaedia of Gastronomy: - "To 1 quart of strong hot ale add the pulp of 6 roasted apples, together with a small quantity of grated nutmeg and ginger, with a sufficient quantity of raw sugar to sweeten it.  Stir the mixture assiduously and let it be served piping hot."  The brown West Indian cane sugar, not coloured beet, is what is needed; and constant tasting should supplement the stirring.  For the beer I should advise consulting the local brewer and asking him for his strongest brew.  The result should put the clock back three hundred years and call up the picture of Pepys on the night of 9th November, 1666, two months after the Great Fire:  "Cards till two in the morning drinking Lamb's Wool."

Madeira. - What exactly is Madeira, and when should it be drunk? - J.L. (Bromsgrove).
A:  There are two types of Madeira - aperitifs such as Special and dessert wines like Bual, Verdelho, Malmsey.  The story goes that in the fifteenth century, a forest fire raged on the island for seven years.  The resultant ash is said to account, even today, for the unusual flavour of the grapes.  Whatever the reason, Madeira gives us some most distinguished wines.

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Opportunity knocks only once, but temptation is far more persistent, alas!  Olin Miller.

Men Only January 1958: Do's and Don'ts for Evenings Out, Ads & Quote

Do's and Don'ts for Evenings Out

By Humphrey Savile

The three phases of a social evening may be described as (1) introductory, (2) initiatory, and (3) ritualistic.  In all three of them your clothes are of the greatest importance.

Phase (1) finds you in a doorway of a room full of unfamiliar faces whose owners' decision as to your acceptability for phase (2) must rest entirely on your appearance.  If they accept you, and you pass on to phase (3), your clothes will have to stand up to the rigours of whatever rite the company has assembled to perform or observe.  It may in every probability be to more complicated a social procedure than a formal banquet with speeches, but anyone who has sat through one of these at their worst will attest to the value of good clothes.

One of the most important things to be ascertained about an evening invitation is whether you are to dress or not, and this is not always apparent from anything written on the card.  I have painful memories, for instance, of going to a strictly lounge-suit party dressed in a dinner jacket.  The invitation had in this case said "informal dress" which, to my pre-war mind meant dinner jackets, and a painful evening in which people ordered drinks off me or handed me their hats, while under the impression that I was part of the catering, has put me wise to that one for all time!

When people say "informal dress" nowadays, they tend to mean very informal indeed.  The dinner suit, which was regarded in the 'twenties and late 'thirties as the uniform of the man under twenty-one or for older men on entirely "stag" occasions, has become the almost universal evening style except when Royalty is present.

When people want you to wear tails, they are nowadays inclined to state quite openly "full evening dress" on the invitation, and if it is a veterans' occasion they may add the word "miniatures" afterwards, indicating that miniatures medals and decorations are to be worn.

Whether you are young or old, unless attending a film premiére, a television show, or event organised primarily for publicity rather than social purposes, I would particularly recommend you to observe the well-known distiller's slogan - "black and white is always right."  Coloured barathea, maroon cummerbunds, contrast lapel facings, and so on are all very well in their way,  but they are better left for show people who use them as part of their "props."  The conventional tail suit is worn with a stiff shirt front and a butterfly-type collar, white waistcoat and white bow.  You can wear diamond studs, platinum studs, or plain gold ones on your shirt, but the proper tail suit is not the garment that should be tricked out with onyx, zircon, and fancy studs of any kind.  Somehow it spoils the appearance of the whole rig.

If you are of the younger generation, you will undoubtedly prefer a dinner jacket.  To you I would comment that I wear little else myself, but claim professional licence.  The journalist is out and about in the evening rather too often to make the complete change into full evening dress, but he may nevertheless recognise that there is a lot of pleasure in doing it property in tails.

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If you have been convicted of a felony you cannot run a public house

but there is no legal bar to your becoming the headmaster of a private school.

                                                                           Michael Stewart, M.P.

Men Only January 1958: Guide to Elegant Living, A Good Idea From France, Ads & Have You Heard This?

Guide to Elegant Living

Readers of MEN ONLY constantly write in for guidance on a very wide range of problems.  Quite a number of these fall under the heading of what we call "Elegant Living."  The answers below touch on some of the themes.  There are many others.  Let us know your problem and we will try to guide you.

Write to: 

"The Advisory Bureau,"

MEN ONLY,

Tower House,

Southampton Street.,

London,

W.C.2.

Straight Tip. - Could you straighten me out on the conventions of tipping in a good restaurant.  Does one tip the head-waiter, the wine-waiter, and the table-waiter individually?  Or does one tip the head-waiter all-inclusively? - P.V. (Amersham)

A: Let one tip cover all, and give it to whoever presents the bill.  Sometimes a head-waiter does this.  More often it is the table-waiter.

Unlikely Chance. - I remember recently reading in your columns about the type of unlikely incident which sometimes involves one in third-party claims . . . as, for instance, when your normally good-tempered dog bites a stranger or some junior member of the family knocks down an old lady with his scooter.  I haven't got the paragraph to hand, but is it true that for 10s. you can have protection against legal liability up to £25,000? - D.A. (London W.C.2).

A: Yes, it is perfectly true.  I am sending you details and shall be glad to send them to anyone else who is interested.  It's precisely because this sort of thing is unlikely that you can insure against it so cheaply.

Wood Weakness. - I have inherited a property in which it is fairly clear there is some form of timber rot established, and I recall that you have mentioned this topic in the past, at a time when I did not need to recall details of your advice.  Can you please re-cap?  - "E" (address given).

A: We'll add to our previous note.  This can be a very serious business property-wise and should be treated as such.  It needs the advice of a specialist in the problem, who will inspect, report, and advise, and also give an estimate for the work necessary.  Name of such a specialist has been forwarded.

Dilemma. - What worries me most when I go to a tailor is the fact that I am so bad at making up my own mind about materials and styles.  The tailor is always most anxious to impress me with the huge stock he carries, but the more rolls of cloth I see, the more difficult it becomes to make a choice.  I wish I could find a tailor who would tell me what is best for me.  Do you have any suggestions?

A: I can understand your dilemma - I often feel the same way.  There in no doubt that some tailors have a greater flair than others for giving the right advice and I am sending you the name of one in your area who is a member of The Federation of Merchant Taylors of Great Britain.  I should be interested to hear how you fare with him.

[Any other readers seeking advice on the choice of a tailor are invited to write to "The Rambler," ℅ MEN ONLY, Tower House, Southampton Street, London, W.C.2. - Ed.]

The following pages on Motoring, Clothes, and Wine form part of our Guide to Elegant Living

A Good Idea from France

By Alan Hess

Each year more and more British motorists take their cars abroad on their holidays and they must frequently be awed by the inordinate length of the Continental heavy trucks and trailers and by the high speeds at which these are driven.  Their length and their speed make these vehicles hazardous to overtake, and because we are a nation of comparative unobtrusive individuals, our own cars are seldom fitted with horns strident enough to make our presence heard by the drivers of such Juggernauts.
The long, straight roads of France should ease the problem for us, but in fact they tend to aggravate it, because when the driver of one of these Continental monsters can see a long clear stretch ahead of him he is inclined to lessen his own driving fatigue by clinging to the crown of the road.
In an effort to cope with this situation, the realistic French have developed an ingenious invention know as the "Depasso" system, comprising a photo-electric cell wired up in such a way that when head-lamps from a following vehicle are flashing either by day or by night, a warning device is operated in the driver's cab and (according to whether or not conditions make it safe to pass) the driver can illuminate a green or red signal on his tail-board.  As an additional precaution, the signal given at the back in reproduced by a light in the driving cab, and the photo-electric sensitivity of the equipment is so contrived that although head-lamps put the system into operation, sunshine or even the brightest reflections have no effect upon it.
Although it is unusual to meet very long or swift loads on British roads, our highways are so twisting that the passing problem is at least as great over here, and the adoption of a similar system on British commercial vehicles would go far towards easing driving tension and reducing accidents.
I suspect, however, there is a subtle legal problem wrapped up in all this.  Would the operation of such a device shift the onus from the overtaker to the driver of the vehicle who has given the "come on" signal?
And talking of long loads, I believe I have unearthed something of a racket.  The Road Traffic Act stipulates the maximum allowable length of vehicles and trailers, and we must all have come upon examples greatly in excess of this.  I believe the law is deliberately flouted by certain operators who, in the long run, find it cheaper to pay a few fines rather than to split the load and face the consequent expense of buying an additional towing vehicle.  I suggest the authorities would do well to look into this matter.

The Town Councillors of Carshalton have definite ideas on road safety, and their Accident Prevention Council announced recently that they propose to produce their own "horrific" posters to frighten people into being more careful.  The Chairman of the Council is reported to have said that his members felt that similar posters issued by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents were "too milk and water" to shake the public out of its apathy.  I can imagine the sort of designs Carshalton may produce - mangled victims, distressed relatives - all the usual paraphernalia of such shock tactics.
It seems strange to me that this problem has never been approached from an altogether different angle.  My own belief is that the greatest factor contributing to road accidents is a subconscious confidence that "it will not happen to me." If a series of really forceful posters could be designed bringing home to every individual motorist that it is, indeed, just as likely to happen to him as to anyone else - forceful enough to shake his humanly natural complacency - then I believe we should be getting somewhere; but until this aspect is brought home to the consciousness of every driver and other road user the accident rate will continue to be alarming.

Based on observations at the 1957 Motor Show, it seems safe to prophesy that an increasing number of new models will henceforth appear with fuel-injection systems replacing carbonation.  Apart from mechanical advantages resulting in greatly increased horse-power, there is another aspect of this change which is not as yet properly appreciated.  Although the carburettor is a small and inoffensive component, the air filter which accompanies it is a large and cumbersome thing the elimination of which would be a joy to the stylists who would be able to lower the bonnet by anything up to eight inches, giving sleeker lines and vastly improved forward visibility.

During the year just ended the British motor industry has enjoyed a great resurgence of prosperity and tremendously increased export business - particularly in America.  It is all the more disappointing, therefore, to have it on the authority of none other than Lord Mills that he whole of the industry's dollar earnings are insufficient to pay for this country's coal imports from the U.S.A.!

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Have You Heard of These?

Passenger Stability. - To minimise sliding by passengers on bench-type front seats during fast cornering the Swaystop upholstered pad has been produced.  Vital statistics: 10 3/4" long, 2" wide, 1" thick.  Fits over back-rest at passenge's hip level.  Materail: washable plastic tartan cloth.  Price: 30s. Manufacturers:  Kenning Man. Co., 103, Dawlish Road, Selly Oak, Birmingham 29.

Cuff Protection. - "Kleensleeves" is the appropriate name for plastic slip-over sleeves, 10" long, fitted with elastic at both ends to protect clothing during emergency tinkerings.  Stow away compactly in cubby-hole.  Price: 3s. 6d. per pair.  Makers: Youngs of Harrow Ltd., 257, Long Elmes, Harrow, Middlesex.

Flag Badges. - An attractive range of miniature flag badges, measuring 2" by 1 1/8" and finished in brilliant colours in the designs of United Kingdom and foreign national emblems or standards, is available for attachment to any part of a car in need of a little decoration.  They have self-adhesive backs, but when removed leave no mark behind and, if warmed before affixing, they can be curved to follow contours as desired.  Price: 2s. each.  Makers: Apol Industrial Development Co., 40, Englands Land, London, N.W.3.

Men Only January 1958: Sharpen Your Wits Quiz Answers.

Sharpen Your Wits - Answers.

1. James Agate
2. Maider Vale
3. Marshal Tito
4. ( b ).
5. ( c ).
6. Immortal.
7. "Under an English heaven."
8. U.S.A.
9. 5 lb.
10. The Press
11. Cos
12. Villon
13. ( a )
14. Yes
15. Gryll Grange, Framley Parsonage.
16. 1871
17. 4.
18. News-Chronicle.
19. Nile, Copenhagen, Trafalgar.
20. 3.

Men Only January 1958: Science At Your Service & Sharpen Your Wits Quiz.

Science At Your Service

The Man Who Changed Your Mind

By John Pfeiffer

An attractive girl hurried down a side street in Vienna and climbed a flight of stairs to a doctor's office.  It was not her first visit.  The small doctor, his pale face contrasting sharply with his thick black beard and dark piercing eyes, listened closely as she told a strange story.  She had stabbing pains in the right side of her face.  Her skin was so sensitive that the lightest touch was enough to make her scream in agony.

But the cause of her disorder was not physical.  It came out after the doctor had asked his shrewd questions.  They brought the disclosure that, some time before, a married man who was a friend of her father had dropped in at the girl's home and begun making ardent advances.  Shocked and angry, she had slapped him hard across the right cheek.  Now her face was hurting in the same place.

The diagnosis:  hysterical pain resulting from feelings of guilt.  She was strongly attracted to that man despite herself, and relief came when she recognised that her pain was a neurotic expression of remorse.

That was more then fifty years ago, and the case stands as a landmark in medical history.  For the doctor was destined to become one of the greatest healers of all time - and to rank with Darwin and Einstein as a shaper of world thought.  Today a tablet, put up two years ago, marks the site of his former office and home:  "In This House Lived and Worked Professor Sigmund Freud, the Founder of Psycho-analysis."

Freud pioneered in exploring the human mind.  He probed deep into the Unconscious.  He became convinced that sex is king of the Unconscious, that out most important sexual drives remain hidden and disguised.  The girl's case was the first detailed account to be published about the new treatment called psycho-analysis.  But at the time of her visits, Freud at 44 was a comparative unknown, not always able to support his wife and six children comfortably, and still groping towards his ultimate discoveries.

1956 was Freud's centenary.  He was born 100 years earlier in Freiburg, Moravia, then part of Austria, the eldest of eight children and his mother's favourite (she called him "my golden Sigi").  His father was an unsuccessful Jewish wool merchant, and the Freuds soon had to leave town because business was slumping and anti-Semitism rising.  The family settled in Vienna.

Freud never felt strongly attracted to medicine.  His "original purpose" was to do scientific research, and necessary courses could be obtained only by enrolling for a medical degree at the the University of Vienna.  But by the time of his graduation in 1881, Freud felt he could never earn enough money as a laboratory scientist.  He settled temporarily for being a physician.

The 26-year-old doctor was so pathetically poor and in debt that his daily budget allowed only three shillings for meals and eightpence of cigars, "a scandalous amount."  Invited to visit wealthy friends he had to borrow a colleague's overcoat because his own was full of holes.

It was at this time Freud fell in love - at first sight - with Martha Bernays who had come to visit his sisters.  He was a passionately jealous suitor, and did not simmer down until he could afford to wed Martha four years later.  Immediately, he set out to win a reputation for himself.  Perhaps he was in too much of a hurry.  For Freud made the serious blunder of going all out for a "magical" new pain-killer extracted from coca leaves, without sufficient clinical tests.  Convinced the substance was harmless, he recommended it to his patients and the medical profession.

The substance was the narcotic cocaine.  And soon reports were rife that a number of patients, including one of Freud's best friends, had become addicts.

Did this tragic experience have anything to do with turning Freud away from conventional medicine?  Certainly the first hints of psycho-analysis can be traced to this period, when Freud, who had specialised in neurology, recognised that most of his patients were afflicted with mysterious nervous disorders which neither he nor any other physician could really heal.  An entirely new technique was imperative.

An important step in the gradual evolution of this technique arose from a case treated, with the aid of hypnosis, by a close friend, Dr. Josef Breuer.  The patient told Dr. Breuer she had been sitting at her sick father's bedside and fell asleep, with her arm hanging over the back of the chair.  When she awoke, the arm felt paralysed, and she had been unable to move it ever since.  Dr. Breuer was amazed to note that while the hypnotised girl was telling this story, the paralysis disappeared.

To explore the connection between memories and neuroses, Freud also tried hypnotising his patients.  (The analyst's couch is an inheritance from those days.)  Some cases were improved but, in others, symptoms had a way of coming back.

Still searching, he arrived at a completely radical concept in 1892.  The clue came when he interrupted a woman patient to ask a question, and she scolded him for breaking her chain of thought.  He took the hint.  From then on, he made increasing use of the famous "free association" approach, in which the patient is encouraged to talk continuously and say whatever comes into his mind.

But his most sensational and controversial conclusion was yet to come.  This was that sex was at the root of neurotic troubles.  Freud, a child of the Victorian Age, resisted the notion for years.  He had been genuinely shocked the first time a gynaecologist asked him to treat an emotionally disturbed patient, with the casual remark that only a healthy sex life could cure her.  He had heard similar remarks earlier form Dr. Breuer and the great French neurologist and hypnotist, Jean Charcot.  But, despite his embarrassment, Freud followed up such insights regarding sex and neurosis, while others never did.

Thus he became the first to conquer a vast new world of the mind.  Imagine a massive iceberg floating on some troubled sea.  The part above the surface represents the conscious mind.  But Freud concluded this was only a fraction of the whole.  To him, the invisible bulk of the ice-mountain represented the Unconscious, the source of primitive cravings and wishes.  Thus he believed we literally do not know our own minds:  that all of us, ailing and healthy, are driven by powerful hidden urges.

Such urges, he said, were primarily sexual, a point he summarised in one of his most famous statements:  "No neurosis is possible with a normal sex life."  He also found that our basic behaviour patterns, the expressions of our desires, were formed at an age when we could do nothing about it;  that we are what we are because of things that happened in early childhood.

These ideas shocked the world.  People dominated by Victorian attitudes considered the open discussion of sex outrageous.  At one medical meeting, Freud was interrupted repeatedly by hoots and derisive laughter.  Some critics regarded psycho-analysis as "pornography," and much worse.  But Freud kept on writing and treating.

But, while Freud lived to see his ideas accepted, his last years were not happy ones.  He was permitted to leave Vienna when Hitler moved in, only after American and English analysts had raised thousands of pounds to pay a "debt" which the Nazis claimed was due to them.  The Nazis banned psycho-analysis, and burned his books; and, in 1939, Freud died of cancer of the jaw - an exile in a house in Hampstead, London.

But it was merely the exile and death of the man.  His scientific spirit has found a home everywhere and remains immortal.

- o - 0 - o -

Sharpen Your Wits

1. Whose nine-volume autobiography has the title Ego ?
2. Which London district commemorates in its name a British victory over the French in July 1906?
3. Which European politician was born as Josip Broz?
4. Is a "theic" a) an actor in heavy tragedy, b) an excessive tea-drinker, or c) a long-headed Irishman?
5. Does "sus. per coll." mean a) the meeting is adjourned, b) payment by the column, or c) the person was hanged?
6. Were Swift's Struldbrugs - immature, immobile, immortal, impartial, or impecunious?
7. What are the final four words of Rupert Brooke's sonnet, The Soldier?
8. In which country are an elephant and a donkey emblems of the two political parties?
9. Would you say four pints of water weighed 2 lb., 5 lb. or 8 lb.?
10. What has often been called the Forth Estate?
11. Which island in the AEgean Sea had given its name to a lettuce?
12. "But where are the snows of yesteryear?"  Which French poet asked this question?
13. If you witnessed "auscultation" would you see a) a doctor with a stethoscope, b) a conjurer with a pack of cards, or c) a matador with a bull?
14. Will the year 2000 be a leap year?
15. Which two of these novels did Jane Austin NOT write - Mansfield Park, Gryll Grange, Pride and Prejudice, Framley Parsonage, Sense and Sensibility?
16. In which year did Stanley find Livingstone?
17. How many pennies once equalled one groat?
18. Which newspaper took over the Daily Dispatch in 1955?
19. Which battles do the three stripes on a sailor's collar commemorate?
20. What is a quarter of the number which is six less than twice a third of twenty-seven?

Answers tomorrow.

Men Only January 1958: Junkanoos & Subscription Details.

Junkanoos

By Richard Kent

Every country in the world has its own particular way of celebrating the New Year, but nowhere in there anything stranger and more stirring than the Junkanoos - the masked, costumed natives who in the Bahama Islands greet each New Year with a frantic mixture of barbaric dancing, music and uninhibited "self-expression."

Traditionally this wild explosion of animal spirits was a Christmas festival, and from three o'clock in the morning until daylight the streets of Nassau, that pleasant sub-tropical town which the capital of the Bahamas, shook with the frenzied stamp of feet as thousands of natives whirled, ran, and jumped in the darkness, their weird antics only partly visible in the pale, smoky glare or the old-fashioned oil-lamps lining the pavements.  But the celebration was transferred to New Year's Day when the Church authorities on the island protested that the Junkanoos not only disturbed their Christmas services but also provided a distinctly pagan counter-attraction to which many islanders were all too susceptible.

To see the Junkanoos in action is a "must" for every visitor to the Bahamas, for the festival is one of the most fantastic survivals of heathen ceremonial in the world, with its roots sunk deep in Africa.  African rhythms and tribal customs were brought to the islands by the Negro slaves imported two centuries ago to work the pineapple and cotton plantations, and although the Junkanoos of today are a hundred odd years from slavery, and several generation of their ancestors were born in the Bahamas, the New Year Festivities in Nassau still have a close affinity with the tribal dances of Africa.  There are the same stamping, stalking, hip-shaking movements, the same intricately woven dance patterns, the same motif of sound monotonously repeated but never failing to stimulate the most phlegmatic spectator with a curiously fundamental stirring of the emotions.  And the smart thing in Nassau it to go to a New Year's Eve dinner and ball at one of the island's many luxury hotels and then go down to Bay Street, the principal thoroughfare, to watch the masqueraders.

The celebration reaches its climax around four in the morning, when Bay Street has become a seething river of colour and noise, the wheeling, shouting crowds weaving their complicated dance, bending double until their faces reach their knees, flailing the air with hooked arms and turning and whirling with feverish agility and speed.

From each outlying native village the Junkanoos stream into the town until the heaving mass of masqueraders are seen writhing like serpents in a snake-pit in the lime-green light of the street lamps shining through the almond trees on the pavements.  Some arrive singly, others in groups of three or four, still others in loosely organised bands of twenty or thirty.  And as the street fills, the Junkanoos begin the swift, twitching movement which is half dance, half rapid, nervous walk.  Up and down the street they surge with frenetic energy, turn, and roar back again.  Then, without any noticeable organisation, the mob splits into two groups, which, standing a hundred yards apart, lurch towards each other in a series of intricate marches and counter-marches until they finally mingle in wild confusion.

This is repeated until the pace slackens through sheer exhaustion and the Junkanoos stand limply motionless, the stillness broken only by an occasional flurry of drum-beats or the pathetic murmur of a single cow-bell.  Then they start all over again, and the entire performance is repeated until the eerie light of the sub-tropical dawn suddenly seeps along the street, and the Junkanoos begin drifting back to the villages.

It is a spine-chilling experience to stand on the pavement in Bay Street and watch the Junkanoos at the height of their frenzy.  The costumes alone are worth going a long way to see, for in addition to such figures as harlequins, clowns, soldiers, sailors, and knights in shining armour, there are dogs, cats, bulls, goats, gruesomely realistic skeletons and monstrously ill-shaped horned figures obviously inspired by some tribal memory of Africa.

The Devil is always represented by at least one sprightly sinister figure in red or black, his long, forked tail draped casually over one arm.  By comparison, what has come to be regarded as the conventional costume of the Junkanoo is almost humdrum.  This is a billowing one-piece outfit of brightly patterned cotton, shaped like a boiler suit and topped off by a tall dunces's cap, which is completely covered with long, narrow strips of coloured tissue paper which flutter like ostrich feathers at the slightest movement.

Every Junkanoo carries a tin horn a yard long, painted blue or green or gold, a home-made goatskin drum, or a cow-bell, while another traditional noise-maker is an empty jam tin contained a handful of pebbles, which adds its own distinctive note to the primitive symphony.

Grotesque masks of papier maché, or of painted wire mesh - which are cooler, facilitate breathing, and are somehow more sinister than ordinary masks - are an essential part of every Junkanoo's equipment, for anonymity is, of course, indispensable.  And fireworks are also an important ingredient of the festivities, and the pop and sizzle of rockets, the sudden flare of roman candles, and the splutter and bang of giant fire-crackers add a piquant flavour to the proceedings, impregnating the air with the tart, surprisingly attractive odour of gunpowder.

The native police force, officered by Englishmen, always turns out in strength to be ready for things getting out of hand, the chief danger being an occasional sudden fight in which razors, broken whisky bottles, and the raw, sharp edge of a conch shell are favourite weapons.  I have seen a razor flash in the darkness as a Junkanoo's arm swept upward in a cruel arc and curved swiftly down to bury itself in another Junkanoo's back.  And one year a masquerader, inflamed by the cheap, red rum he had used to fortify himself before and during the festival, bit off another Junkanoo's ear.

The business of controlling this jamboree is also complicated by the fact that each year there is at least one Junkanoo wearing an accurate copy of the police commandant's uniform, complete with cork helmet, white gloves, and sword, so that in the half light no one can be certain who are genuine police officers and who are masqueraders.

- o - 0 - o -

LAST-MINUTE CHRISTMAS GIFTS

There's still time to send your friends the ideal Christmas gift. . .  a year's subscription for MEN ONLY.

All through the year they'll thank you and applaud your acumen in sending the brightest, most masculine of all magazines.

But hurry!  You must send now to make sure that first copies arrive in time for Christmas.

Simply send your friends' names and addresses, together with your own, and remittance* to cover each subscription to:

Subscription Manager (G.3), 

George Newnes, Ltd.,

Tower House,

Southampton Street,

Stand,

London,

W.C.2.

An attractive Christmas Greetings Card will be sent in your name to announce each gift.

*Rates (including postage) for one year (12 issues):

U.K., £1. 7s. 6d.; Overseas, £I. 6s.; Canada, £i. 5s.; U.S., $3.75.

Men Only January 1958: People in the News & Quotes.

People in the News

By George Houghton

Illustrations by the Author

PABLO RUIZ PICASSO, most discussed painter of our time, reaches his seventy-sixth birthday as this issue goes to press.  I have no news of abatement, either in his vigour, or controversial attitude towards art and the world in general.  Now living in a villa near Cannes, he has made his base a crucible for perpetual disagreement and explosive artistry.  Picasso boasts that more people hate his paintings than those of any artist, alive or dead.  Yet, there are those who admire him to idolatry.  No living painter commands such high prices.

A month after the Liberation of Paris, one or two Royal Air Force officers, based at Versailles, came into the French capital to seek out the "characters" who had been lost to us since the German Occupation.  Ours was an unusual unit.  At the headquarters there were LIONEL HEALD (later to become Sir Lionel, Attorney-General); FRANCIS KING, a master at Winchester; LOEL GUINNESS, and others . . . interested in the cultural side of things.

We ferreted out personalities.  In a street off the Boul' Mich' we found RAYMOND DUNCAN, brother of the famous Isidora; unsuccessfully, we searched for GERTRUDE STEIN.  Then, three of us went to the studio in the Rue des Grands-Augustins, where we were told Picasso had spent most of the Occupation, quietly painting, oblivious to war itself.  We learnt that he was considered a non-militant member of the Resistance.  In some inexplicable way he had avoided arrest.  We were received cordially, as if he quite expected to be a showpiece.  I recall that one of the first things he said was that his grandfather had been educated in England.  This was news to us.

Although Picasso had spent at least three years in Paris, we had the impression of a man recently returned from a sunshine holiday.  He looked sun bronzed and well.  There was a lady there, a couple of small dogs, and a great deal of disorderly litter.  We were served coffee, which in those days was a great treat.

The Picasso studio in the Rue des Grands-Augustins was more of a workshop.  There were nick-hacks, a heap of modelling clay, carpentry, and the model of a bull's head, ingeniously fashioned from a bicycle saddle, handle-bars for horns, and two tennis balls for bulging eyes.

On leaving, the artist gave us postcard photographs of his large Guernica picture.  We were told that these had been printed as souvenirs for German officers when they visited him!  Once, when asked what he would do if the Nazis arrested him, he said: "If they stop me painting, I shall draw on toilet paper, or with spit on the walls of my cell."

Although Picasso was born in Malaga, he has spent most of his life in France.  There is more chance of his friends in Valauris, in the Midi, remembering his birthday, than his ain folk in Southern Spain.  His family were angered when the painter adopted "Picasso," his mother's name, letting the rather more commonplace "Ruiz" fade into oblivion.  Like most Spaniards, Picasso has an extended full name: Pablo Diego Jose Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santisima Trinidad Ruiz Picasso.  Yes - all that!

Almost as a birthday present, he learns that a small cubist picture he painted on a canvas no larger than a child's exercise book, has just sold for £1,750. . . . 

In violent contrast, my pavement-artist friend JOE LEE earns thirty bob - that is, on a really good day, when the sun is shining and folk are generous.

Joe has practised his art for more than thirty years.  He used to "pitch" at Hyde Park Corner, but you'll find him in Trafalgar Square nowadays, outside the National Gallery.  Like all conscientious artists, he takes a pride in his work, and to put down good "patterns" you must have smooth York paving-stones to work on.  There are but few left in the London streets these days.  The best ones are by the Athenaeum club and on the top side of Trafalgar Square.

Joe Lee is a true Romany, and proud of his relationship with the famous GYPSY ROSE LEE.  He claims to be the only artist in the tribe.  A widely travelled man, he has the distinction of having "pitched" on the Paris boulevards, by special permission; and also in Amsterdam, near the Rembrandt statue.

Rembrandt is Joe's great hero, and the master's well-known works are usually the subjects you will see in Trafalgar Square.  But, on one memorable occasion, Joe added a new subject to his gallery.  At the beginning of a football season he drew a player scoring a goal, and underneath he lettered, "Bolton for the Cup."  Each day he repeated the sketch, and as the cup-ties were played, the businessmen who passed Joe's pitch took and added interest in the pavement tip.  By the time the Final was reached the regular patrons were showing considerable appreciation.  The forecast was correct.  In three days Joe's takings in pennies, sixpences, and shillings, amounted to £60.

Once in a while pavement artists have a windfall, as in the case of the chap whose regular pitch was near the Victoria and Albert Museum.  One of his "regulars" died, leaving him £200.

Each pavement artist has his special approach.  Joe's neighbour outside the National Gallery believes in pulling at the heart-stings.  He exhibits the picture of a dog.  There is a For Sale notice round the dog's neck, and the caption says "Blimey! No one loves me."

THERE are artists for whom London and England hath no charms.  One is JOHN NAPPER, who has painted THE QUEEN, and also produced a most satisfying portrait of LADY CHURCHILL.  John has fled to the Dordogne region of France.  He is disheartened with life in England.  Like many, he felt strongly about the Suez affair.

But it doesn't apply to STANLEY SPENCER, who is happy enough to live in Cookham - where he was born.

Stanley Spencer, almost as violent a centre of controversy as Picasso himself, was born sixty-six years ago, one of a family of eleven brothers and sisters.  He is what the French call un numéro, a role which amuses him.  He is a tiny chap, and like Phil May, Foujita, Bert Thomas, and some other artists, Stanley wears his hair with a forehead fringe, a style which enhances his youthful appearance.

Some time ago the streets of Cookham echoed to the constant sound of a motor horn.  This came from the Spencer juggernaut, and one of the village sights was to see Stanley's car dashing about - without a driver.  At least, that was how it seemed, for when the diminutive artist attempted to put his foot on the accelerator he simply vanished from view!

I asked Stanley Spencer if he is working hard.  "Unfortunately no," he said.  "It isn't that I go out much.  In fact, my friends say I'm a spider, and only dart out of my web at Cookham when I want something, like more paints and canvas.  But for some reason or other I can't work for more than a couple of hours a day. . . . "

"I think you have your studio overheated," said a model.

"Perhaps that's it," said Stanley, blinking and ruffling his mop of hair, more than ever like a schoolboy.

A MAN who likes working in the heat is ALBERT SCHWEITZER, Doctor of Medicine, Philosophy, Theology, and Music.

Eighty-three this month, he now returns to the Lambarene jungle to resume his work of healing in French Equatorial Africa.  This has been a longer stay in Europe than usual.

From an American journalist who recently visited Lambarene, I have had a description of Schweitzer's astonishing home on the Equator.

At the end of the First World War, when Albert Schweitzer returned to the tropical hospital he had built with his own hands, he found it completely destroyed by white ants.  The work was restarted.  Now, there are fifty buildings, including an asylum.  Before Schweitzer came, mad people in the Lambarene jungle were burnt or drowned.

The house in which Schweitzer lives is built on a knoll and is called "Adolinanongo," meaning "looking out over peoples."  His most prized possession is a fine piano, a gift from the Paris Bach Society.  It is lined with zinc as a protection against termites!

Lambarene is in the very heart of a humid swamp.  Until Schweitzer settled there, no doctor lived within six hundred miles.  The hospital settlement in on the fetid banks of the Ogowe River, rightly described as the worst climate in the world.  Yet, Schweitzer leaves a pleasant house in Alsace to continue his great work.  His fine hands turn again from manuscripts and piano keys. . . to resume the task of a healer.

HANDS of an artist; hands of a healer; strong, sensitive hands . . . They always tell a story.  Of those hands I know - their study is my hobby - one of the finest pairs belongs to a professional sportsman.  In this case, they are constantly on view and belong to JOE DAVIS, master of the games of billiards and snooker.  Mr. Davis is busy - at the height of his professional season.  It suits him to "work" in the winter and "have plenty of free time during nice summer days for golf and gardening."  At fifty-six Joe has been for many years on the top rung of his particular ladder.  He was undefeated Snooker Champion for a quarter of a century; he has scored a billiards break of more than 2,000 . . .  Yet, I learn to my surprise, that this perfectionist still practises for hours every day!

I asked Joe to name his most memorable game.  Without hesitation he recalled the match with Tom Newman, whom he beat for the Billiards Championship in 1928.  A less pleasant memory was what Joe calls his "tragic experience."  A favourite cue, originally bought for 7s. 6d., was stolen on the eve of an important match!

- o- 0 - 0 -

My husband and I have very different interests.

He loves jazz, which I don't care for, but I love my husband,

so we compromise.

AUDREY HEPBURN

Can a person catch cold by kissing? someone asks. Yes,

and it's a most delightful way.

"GRIT."

Men Only January 1958: Myrtle Speaking. Play the Game & Quotations.

Myrtle Speaking

Play the Game

By George Maracco

Drawings by Edgar Norfield

When this wire came from my cousin Vernon I rally was thrilled to the marrow.

(Myrtle speaking.)

Because I hadn't seen Vernon for years and years.  I mean not since we were both only so high and used to play mothers and fathers behind the woodshed.  Such happy days!

But I remembered him quite vividly.  I mean one does.  I remembered he had a tangle of rather straw like hair, the filthiest knees, and a face only Giles could love.

And this telegram said he'd be arriving eleven-twenty Saturday morning and could I possibly meet him in at Euston.

My dean, when I collected Vernon at the barrier he hadn't changed a bit.  I mean in principle.  I mean the only noticeable alteration was that he'd grown approximately seven sizes larger.  Darling, he was huge!

"Hi! Cousin Myrtle!" he called out, in case I overlooked him.  "I'm heah!"

"Why-why, Vernon," I squeaked.  "You look wonderful.  So big - so strong - so - "

The great clumsy didn't even give me a chance to finish.  He just grabbed the old torso and lifted me up, kissed neahly all my lipstick off, and then dropped me again.  Fortunately I landed on my feet.

"How lovely of you to come down to London specially to see little me, darling," I chattered.

"Well, not specially, not actually," he said, grinning like an ape.  "Matter of fact, I'm heah for our match."

"Match?"  I queried.

"Our ruggah match.  Old Jacobeans versus Frigglington Rovers," he explained, winding a frightful woollen scarf thing round and round his neck.  My deah, yards and yards of it.  Even then the ends were touching the platform.

"Oh!" was all I could find to say.

The he embraced me again.  "I say, Cousin Myrtle, you look a pip!  Jolly smart!"

"What, in this old rag!"  I shrugged.  Actually, darling, I was wearing a new coat I'd got from Deirdre's on appro, but I could hardly tell Vernon it would be going back on Monday.

My deah, strawberry pink with a beavah cape collar.  Frightfully swell but distinctly not my price.

"Fancy! Our club colours, too," he crowed.  Then he took my tiny hands in his great paws.  "I say!  You are coming to see us play?  I mean you simply must come."

"Must I?" I bleated, sounding like death.  Because, darling, I prefer parlour pastimes to watching quantities of male persons prancing about after a ball in the fresh air.  Particularly on a bitterly cold December afternoon.

"But of course," he insisted.  "All our chaps' women will be theah."  Then Vernon screwed up his awful cartoon face.  "You'd be rather a feathah in my cap.  Especially in our colours."  He added:  "Besides, I haven't got a girl."

"Then I'll come, deah," I promised him.  "Of course I'll come."

"I say, that's jolly sporting," he said.  "That's terribly white of you."  And he took m arm and marched off with me.  "Lunch appeahs to be indicated.  A couple of tankards of brown and a few pork pies and Frigglington will nevah know what hit' em!"

Oh, well, when a girl's been alternating between cauliflower cheese and spaghetti for nearly a week, even pork pies make a welcome change.

"That's bettah!" beamed Vernon when we'd finished.  "Shall we get the car?"

"Car?" I echoed.  "But you've just arrived by train.  Remembah?"

"Your car," he said.  "Did you park it far away?"

"I - I - I don't possess a car," I told him.

"You don't?" he demanded.  Rather horrified at the ideah.  "But - oh!  I'm afraid I'm getting you slightly confused with Cousin Brenda.  She has a Daimler."

"Yes, but only one of the smaller types," I sneered.  "Brenda also has a cast in one eye and fifty-two-inch hips."

"Granted, granted,"  he hastened to agree.  "Let us charter a taxi. . . .  Taxi!"

My deah, what seemed like hours later the cab person decanted us outside this sports ground.

"Twelve-and-six," he announced.

"Blimey, fields!  This must be that rural England they talk about on the telly."

"I say, just look at the time!" yelped Vernon.  "I must dash off to change!  Pay the drivah, Cousin Myrtle, will you?  I'll see you before we kick off."

"Oh, well," I thought, breaking into the money I was saving up for my telephone account - darling, I've been cut off for an entire week - "I can get it back from Vernon after the match."

Then I limped along into this football arena or whatevah one calls it.  My deah, limped is distinctly the word, because the heels of my shoes were so high and spiky you could have knitted a jumpah with them.

And then I saw Vernon galloping ovah the grass to meet me.  I mean in this shocking pink sweatah thing and zebra-crossing stockings and the tiniest little short trousahs.  Honestly, darling, I neahly had to avert my eyes.  I mean Vernon's a big boy now.

And then I saw Vernon galloping over the grass to meet me.

"Just time to introduce you to the chaps," he bawled at me.  Then he grabbed my hand and started galloping back with me.  I mean ovah to all these othah male persons in shocking pink sweatahs and little panties.

Theah were a few females, too, in dreadful tweed skirts and duffel coats.  But hardly my type.

My deah, you should have seen those young Old Jacobeans gather round Vernon's cousin.  For one awful moment I rahly thought they were gong to hoist me should-high.  Unfortunately, theah wasn't time.

"Come on, you chaps," urged Vernon.  "Come on, Poingdestre - put her down, Liversidge - hurry, fellows.  Frigglington's already on the field!"

"Put her down, Liversidge."

"Okay, shippah," they chorused.  Then they all raced on to join the othah team.

And then someone misguidedly blew a whistle.

My deah!  Sheer pandemonium!  I mean all these ruggah persons started rushing about in every conceivable direction.  I mean they certainly had a rather egg-shaped football thing, but they appeahed to be kicking it about quite regardless.

But it's all so utterly futile!  First they'd all canter frantically this way, then that way, and then they'd get tired and put their arms round one anothah and start playing ring o'roses.  But, darling, I ask you!

And then Vernon hid the ball undah his arm and ran away with it.  I mean rahly!  All the othahs chased after him, because naturally they wanted to play with it, too.  My deah, he went like a mad thing and didn't stop until he was right behind the goal-posts.  I thought it was frightfly unsporting.

Everyyone roared at him, and no wondah.  He should have been sent home. I felt quite ashamed of being his cousin.  Until it appeahed they were applauding him.  I thought: for what?

"Lovely try!"  shrieked a spectator into my ear.

"He tried all right," I snapped.  "Fortunately he didn't succeed owing to loss of breath.  Do you realise he neahly made off with the ball?"

Howevah, by then anothah Old Jacobean stood the ball on the ground and took a terrific running kick at the thing.

"Goal!" yelled everybody.  "Well placed, Fruity."

"Foul!"  I shouted at the top of my voice.  "It's a foul goal.  He's kicked it ovah the goal-posts."  I mean it was ridiculous.

And then someone coughed gently behind me.

"I beg your pardon," a sort of deep baritone voice murmured.  "I see you are a stranger to our national game?"

"I - er -," I said haltingly, fluttering my mascara.  My deah, so tall, so handsome, so unruggerish, rahly.

"Perhaps I might be permitted to act as your mentor?  To explain the intricacies?  The rules and so on?"

"We-e-ell," I said shyly.  "I mean I'd love to learn.  I mean if you could help me to - to understand?"

Darling, I didn't have a chance.  But it's so wonderful when one meets a man who rahly can improve one's knowledge, don't you think?  And so masterful, too.  He just took my elbow and before I could put up the slightest struggle, theah we were nice and cosy in the back of his Sunbeam in the car park.

He explained almost everything.  Anyway, everything he could think of.  And suddenly I realised it was dark.  But definitely dark!

"Oh, my god!"  I squeaked.  "Whatevah will have happened to my cousin Vernon?" 

"I imagine he sheered off about three hours ago," murmured the Old Jacobean's club secretary.  "Wheah were we?"

"You were what you called selling me the dummy, darling," I reminded him.

- o - 0 - o 

The best time to make friends is before you need them

ETHEL BARRYMORE.

I believe in the gallantry of women.  There are street accidents, fires, shipwrecks, air raids, railway disasters in 

which I would rather have a cool, level-headed, plucky, and preferably pretty girl 

(because that cheers everybody up) beside me than the average,

unimaginative man who cannot act without orders from above.

HYLTON CLEAVER.