May 10

I Received recently a letter from a reader in Ngaraunga who asked me if I had not noticed that the quality of glass they put into mirrors these days was not as good as it used to be and that the outline of the face reflected in it is a lot fuzzier than it used to be. I am glad that someone else has noticed this, which I take to be just a symptom of the subtle slackening of modern standards. For instance the hills these days are a lot steeper, and they seem to have a way of stretching out distances between places that were a few minutes walk apart ten or twenty years ago. Another thing, clothes seem to shrink a lot more than they used to, especially round the middle. They seem to be building staircases in houses a lot steeper than they used to. And something should be done about the breweries, their beer isn't a fraction as good as it was a few years ago, and they have done something to it so that you can't drink as much as formerly.

May 11

Last week I was standing under the two trees I like to think of as an orchard, when an over-ripe peach fell onto my head. Perhaps Newton's thoughts would not have turned to gravity if he had been hit by a peach, instead of an apple. After I had wiped most of the mess from my hair I noticed that the stone of the peach, despite the deep ridges in it, had fallen completely clear of the fruit.

Unless one has struggled to get rid of the flsh clinging to a plum stone, which is smooth, this fact may not seem so strange, but when one tries to assign an explanation for this sort of thing it becomes difficult. Why did the peach develop the deep ridges on its stone and the plum stay smooth. If the ridges in the peach stone serve any purpose why hasn't someone explained it before now ?

What sort of emotional stress must the young nectarine undergo in trying to decide whether to have a smooth stone or a wrinkled one ? These are grave problems and an explanation of them would probably greatly ease the difficulties of the young fruit at an important stage of their lives.

May 13

Although Gulliver may have had difficulty in deciding which end of an egg should be broken when involved in his dispute with the Lilliputians and the Blefescutions, I am not sure that his answer that they should be opened in the middle, was a satisfactory answer to the question. Although the end of the egg that is chosen may not be so important, there is a lot that can be told from the way that a person goes about opening a boiled egg.

I had a friend, a quiet retiring type who used to attack the egg with a truly amazing verve. With one clean swipe he would lift off the top half inch of shell and scrape out the intact severed section. There is another method which is much in favour which involves a careful and thorough tapping of the top of the shell with a spoon, and then lifting the whole lot off. Others pick the fractured shell off carefully piece by piece leaving the flesh of the egg intact.

This is a subject which Emily Post seems to have carefully avoided, perhaps for good reason. I am sure that in the hands of a psychologist much could be made of this variation in practice. It would be interesting, for instance, to know how Hitler used to open his eggs. Maybe it is by studying these little things that we can learn more of how man's character is developed. My own practice is to drop the egg onto the floor and see whether it bounces. It never has yet, but I am still hopeful.