... The Passing Hour Comments and Asides By A. G. Macdonell SENDING an official of the Foreign Office to Russia was at least a move in some sort of a direction, and perhaps the incomprehensible deadlock may at last be resolved. By the time this appears, Mr. William Strang will be in Moscow, and presumably we shall hear something definite in a day or two. It certainly will be high time. The mystery ...

... Gardener's Chronicle June Gala By R. C. Jenkinson Irises and Others LAST week I made a verbal sketch, with plan, of an iris garden. Now for a few names of plants to go into it. I think it best to select one variety in each colour section and concentrate on it. There is only one excuse for having two varieties which are very similar, and that is difference in time of flowering. Among the taller ...

... Next Monday Educational Ballets will be welcomed back at Covent Garden after their long winter tour of Australia. Irina Baronova herself returned via America, where her parents live, and she and her husband, Gerry Sevastianov, one of the company's three directors, arrived in London on Thursday night, just in time for Baronova to appear at the Roval Aeademv of Dancing Ball at Grosvennr House. ...

... 44 Hotel du Nord French Realism Scores Again at the Paris Cinema Hotel du Nord is the new film at the Paris Cinema. It is produced by Marcel Carne, from a story by Eugene Dabit, and is a tale of love in a poverty-ridden quarter of Paris. With the French flair for detail of a kind that is not considered box-office in America, the film reconstructs the atmosphere of despair mixed with devil may ...

... The Lady Brigid Guinness Debutante of 1939 Lady Brigid Guinness, nineteen this year, is the youngest of the three daughters of the Earl and Countess of Iveagh, and was presented at a March Court by her mother. Her parents own Elveden Hall, in Suffolk, Pyrford Court, near Woking, a London house in St. James's Square, a place in Co. Dublin, and a house in Dublin as well, so her debutante setting ...

... THE Royal Ocean Racing Club began their 1939 season with races to the Weser and the Solent, instead of the more usual Heligoland and Maas races, and the new events proved equally popular, both to the large and small classes, attracting together forty-three entries. There was the usual German and Dutch entry for the big class, such well-known ocean racers as Zeearend, Helgoland, Roland von ...

... Astai re- Rogers Film with a Sad Ending The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle VERNON CASTLE (Fred Astaire), a slap-stick come dian, and Irene Foote (Ginger Rogers), a dance-mad girl, decide to team up in New York as dance partners. The inev itable happens. Irene Foote becomes Irene Castle, and, after many vicissitudes, in which the scene moves from New York to Paris, the partnership has a ...

... Members of the Royal Family appeared on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to watch the Duke of Gloucester take the salute on the return to the Palace after the Trooping the Colour. H.R.H. the DUCHESS OF KENT spent most of the time explaining to her two children PRINCE EDWARD and PRINCESS ALEXANDRA, what was going on, and in keeping them quiet, just like any young mother. The occasion was QUEEN ...

... IN my opinion, one of the hallmarks of a great tennis player is her ability to come back after a long absence from the game. Because Dorothy Round, now Mrs. Little, is rapidly succeed ing in doing this she only confirms my opinion that she is the best English player since Mrs. Godfree and Mrs. Holcroft Watson. I had the pleasure of playing against Dorothy in the semi-final round of the Priory ...

... J 0*f I . TV ON DAY next, June 19, is joy- day for balletomanes, for it is the opening night of the season of Russian Ballet at Covent Garden pre sented by Educa tional Ballets, Ltd., with the London Philharmonic Or chestra. The reper toire includes many [Continued opposite. established favour ites, and three new productions. The first of these, Lich- ine's Le Fils Pro- digue, to music by ...

... EVENING BLOUSES Fresh and crisp and charming for summer evenings, the new blouse- and-skirt dresses are enjoying an enormous success. This one has a tremendously wi e black skirt flowing from a tiny waist, with an ethereal blouse of white embroidered muslin. ANDALUSIAN DANCER Here is one of the newest evening silhouettes. Balenciaga made this dress with a tight black ottoman silk bodice and a ...

... THE FOOD OF LOVE. A MUSIC ARTICLE BY EDWIN EVANS. THE weather is nearly always kind to Glynde bourne, but this year it made a special effort to give the Opera an auspicious send-off. The operas chosen for the two opening nights were the brightest of the Mozart comedies Le Nozze di Fi garo and the only tragedy in the repertoire, Verdi's Macbeth, both of which were performed with that easy ...