... PAGEANTRY AT OLYMPIA On December 17 the twenty-second season of Bertram Mills's Circus opened at Olympia. From the grand opening parade to the finale there is presented a spectacular variety of animal, aerial, tumbling, and clowning acts with such speed that the three hours are never allowed to drag. Before and after the shows, and during the interval, there is a fun-fair adjoining the ...

... The Book of the Golden Retriever, by W. M. Charlesworth Fletcher and Son, Norwich). No one has had longer experience of the golden retriever than Mrs. Charlesworth, and she has given us an excellent monograph on the breed. It is practical and informa tive throughout, and contains much helpful advice on breeding to type. The chapter on kennels and house training is very useful, as is that on ...

... Part-Time Farmer, by C. N. j Barclay (Sijton Praed, Ltd. 15s.). I This little book will encourage a I lot of people to try to make their I country dreams a reality, for the I author is far too optimistic. He I deals only with smallholdings, not I farms, and though there is much of ,il good sense we doubt if a large jj garden and an acre of orchard will make a net profit of £200 a year, even ...

... Whitehall 1212, by Richard I Harrison (Jarrolds 15 s.). Crime I from a different angle. Here is a j history of London's police force I and an account of the work which falls to the City Police, Port of I London Authority, Railway, :fl B.O.A.C. police, including a vivid I description of the Yard as nerve- I centre for detection of crime. From B organisation the author turns to I the practical ...

... Biography and Autobiography Last Viceroy Rear-Admiral the Earl Mountbatten of Burma, by Ray Murphy Jarrolds 21s.). The author, an American, explains how he was tempted to write this biography. The exceptional person ality and governing abilities of the Earl, Mr. Murphy decides, could only have been produced by the British Empire, and in a study of this career he hopes to reveal a form of ...

... The Official Report of the London Olympic Games (World Sports 5 s.). Athletes all over the world will welcome the publication of the British Olympic Association's Official Report of the 1948 Olympic Games. It contains complete re ports of every section of the Games, specialist articles and photographs illustrating each series of events; some of the pictures are coloured. ...

... Herefordshire, by H. L. V. Fletcher (Hale 15 s.). Another volume in the series of county books. Conversational in tone, the book contains much detailed local tradition and history. The author describes Herefordshire as above all a county of villages the black-and-white farmhouses and cottages of these villages and the broad and speedy Wye draining through rich agricultural land are well ...

... Woodpigeon Shooting (Imperial Chemical Industries Game Services Advisory Leaflet 21) This booklet, obtainable from l.C.I. Game Ser vices, Fordingbridge, is in great demand, and a fourth and revised edition has now been issued. It contains much valuable information on hides and where to place them, and the use of decoys. ...

... Queer Horses and Queer People, by C. G. Fitch Hurst and Blackett 16s.). This is one of those chatty autobiographies and contains a wealth of anecdotes about human and equine characters encountered by the author at home and overseas, covering experiences in France in the first World War, in Ireland and New Zealand, and while hunting, racing and playing polo. ...

... The Golden Year, by R. M. Lockley (H. F. and G. Witherby 10s. (id.). The author, who in a previous book dealt with co-operative farming, uses his powers of vivid description to write of a year on the farm on the Welsh peninsula which he took on alone after the participants in the co operative effort had split up. Written as a diary, the book contains pen pictures of farm life throughout the ...

... Hollywood, Mistletoe and ii is* 11 May Freda Bruce Loekliart A FILM critic at the Christmas table is liable, I fear, to cut a Scrooge-like figure. Our normal weekly fare is so very un-Christmasy. A never-ending succession of juvenile and other delinquents, of types who need no mistletoe to make them kiss mechanically, the stream of murderers, bandits, psychiatrists and their patients who ...

... At The Theatre Miss Mabel (lluclicss) Anllioiir fookmnn IF we did not know better we should be tempted to speak of Mr. R. C. SherrifF's new play as a delightful instance of beginner's luck. Every thing falls in remarkably well with everything else, apparently by a series of happy accidents. This impression has in fact needed a great deal of care and cunning to create, but there it is. Mr. ...