* * * * * It is hoped that Mr. AUGUSTUS JOHN will be able to accompany Lord BEAVERBROOK to Canada this summer, so that his lordship may gratify his lifelong ambition to be painted by Mr. JOHN, with the primeval backwoods for a setting, in the character of a _coureur-des-bois_, of the type immortalized by Sir GILBERT PARKER in _Pierre_. * * * * * As far as can be ascertained, Mr. BERNARD SHAW intends to devote the holidays to verifying the report of his namesake, Mr. TOM SHAW (with whom he has been stupidly confused), on the Bolshevik _regime_. He will probably enter Russia secretly, accompanied by a mixed party of vegetarian Fabians disguised as Muscovites, so that in the event of being denounced as Boorjoos they may hope to pass for returning Dukhobors, or, in case of detection, for an amateur theatrical company touring with _Labour's Love's Lost_. * * * * * We understand that Lords LONSDALE and BIRKENHEAD are making arrangements for a joint trip to Cuba, in order to investigate personally the condition and prospects of the Havana leaf industry. It will not be surprising if this visit bears fruit in the shape of the eighteen-inch super-cigar which sporting men have been for so long demanding. * * * * * ON THE EATING OF ASPARAGUS. There were twenty-three ways of eating asparagus known to the ancients. Of these the best known method was to suspend it on pulleys about three feet from the ground and "approach the green" on one's back along the floor; but it was discontinued about the middle of the fourth century, and no new method worthy of serious consideration was subsequently evolved, till the August or September of 1875, when a Mr. Gunter-Brown wrote a letter to the _A.A.R._ (_The Asparagus Absorbers' Review and Gross Feeders' Gazette_), saying that he had patented a scheme more cleanly and less unsightly than the practice of tilting the head backward at an angle of forty-five degrees and lowering the asparagus into the expectant face, which is shown by statistics to have been the mode usually adopted at that time. Mr. Gunter-Brown's apparatus, necessary to the method he advocated, consisted of a silver or plated tube, into which each branch of asparagus, except the last inch, was placed, and so drawn into the mouth by suction, the eater grasping the last uneatable inch, together with the butt end of the tube, in the palm of his hand. Asparagus branches being of variable girth, a rubber washer inserted in the end of the tube furthest from the eater's mouth helped to cause a vacuum.