No. 533: The winners

Trevor Grove reports : Walter Mitty never got round to being a Robin Day or a David Frost; competitors were invited to let the Mitty in them run riot in an excerpt from their most devastating interview with a public personage of the day. Sadly, though there were any num- ber of devastating, incisive encounters to choose from, none reached the awesome heights of personal extravagance that one associates with the Master himself. A common tendency to allow the whole thing to get quite out of hand and develop into unedifying farce too often

robbed a promising situation of its full, awful potential. Brian Allg,ar, for • instance, started- off with a pleasantly ominous situation:

ME According to your official biography, you created the Universe in just under a week. Can you substantiate this remarkable claim?

HIM (evasively) Well, 1 may have exaggerated slightly . .

. . . but allowed it to peter out in rather feeble blasphemies. And the old joke of the inter- viewer so loquacious that he allows his eminent victim not a word was not only overdone but also missed the paint of the competition en- tirely. Out of several above-average entries, however, Edward Samson's was the best and wins four guineas: 'Robin is covering Powell's Asian Flu. In colour. There's nothing of current interest; so I'm interviewing you. Wit-for-chat, you might say. You don't mind David?'

'Not yet.'

'After all, there's a minority opinion of one that you're a Public Personage. And the Lord Chief Justice wasn't available. Tell me, do you feel you're getting too big for the small screen? Not enough headroom?' certainly have other ambitions.'

'A free-lance Ombudsman, perhaps?'

'I've got a gift for probing.'

'Or a salary for nosing?'

7 do get to the bottom of things.'

'Some say you have. You're still young; too -young really. Wouldn't you like to do some- things constructive? 'Help us out of the eco- nomic freeze? De-Frost us. A happy thought.'

'1 could pull a few chestnuts out of the fire.' 'Better than those old joke-books, eh? Briefly, are you booked for Softly, Softly? . .

Three guineas to John Digby : . . Right, mon Gdneral, let's forget about you as Joan of Arc, Louis Quatorze, Napoleon rolled into—'

'I assert my right to be me, Charles de Gaulle.' 'Certainly, mon General, that's just what I'm after. The real you. Charles de Gaulle—en

pantoufles.'

'I never wear them. They are for the little feet of little men.'

'Splendid! The personal stuff. So you've got

big feet.' •

It is not what I meant. My feet are of minor-

importance.'

'On the contrary, mon General, they indicate a man of balance.'

'That, I am confident of.'

'Surely. The feet are, so to speak, one with the head . .

And three guineas also to E. C. Jenkins, who, the more observant amongst this week's readers may recall, also set the competi- tion....

ME Would you say you are a modest man, Prime Minister?

PM It may be found at the end of the day . . . 11E Ah yes, then! Suppose when you leave this vale of tears some bright new Hochhuth puts you in a play . . . say, The Miracle Worker . . . what dreadful conspiracies might he accuse you of?

PM When . . . and I accept the 'when' . . .

I leave this vale of tears; as you put it,.I trust our people will have less cause.'

for tears than under a Tory government.

ME There will be many a dry to in the land on that occasion. But back to our Hochhuth. Have you any secrets tucked away in some Zurich bank? There's Rhodesia and Viet- nam and the Pound . . . and George, and . . .

PM If I could get a word in . . .

ME Sorry, Harold. Tetnpus fugit . . . I've saved you from yourself. You were splendid.