DIARY
Reading what I had written last Sun- day on the Fulham by-election, one of my nearest and dearest said that it was 'all right' but contained 'too much about rail- way stations'. I was, and remain, uncon- trite — though I carelessly placed West Kensington on the Piccadilly line instead of the Richmond branch of the District line. (Barons Court is of course on both lines.) A constituency served by six underground stations is different, even in London: peo- ple are for ever on the move. The other feature which most observers seemed to miss was The Vineyard in Hurlingham Road. This house, originally Tudor, now looking more c. 1800, was bought by Lord Beaverbrook just after the first world war. In it he entertained Lloyd George, Bonar Law and A. J. Balfour. Beaverbrook was very fond of this house, in which he plotted the downfall of the Lloyd George coali- tion. He eventually gave it to his sister. In 1961, when I first met the old monster, I was with the Sunday Express and Labour member for Hurlingham on the Fulham Borough Council. Beaverbrook was going on about Bonar Law and mentioned The Vineyard, which he described as 'a little jewel of a house'. 'I now represent your sister on the Fulham Council,' I said. Beaverbrook was clearly displeased at this notion. `Ya do nothing of the kind,' he replied. 'She is a strong Conservative.'
In polite society you do not say that you are prettier, richer, braver, more intelli- gent, a better writer or a more moral person than others. That counts as boast- ing, even showing off. But it is becoming acceptable to claim exceptional industry. The claim is made through a horrible word, `workaholic'. 'Of course I'm a workaholic, never stop,' someone will say at three in the afternoon, contemplating the choice of cognac and armagnac. Miss Anna Win- tour, the new editor of Vogue, is, I see, described as a workaholic in last Sunday's Observer magazine. I once met Miss Win- tour in the company of Mr Christopher Hitchens. She struck me as a perfectly nice girl, though little out of the ordinary. This silly boasting, like most modern foolish- ness, comes from America. I suggest a long rest, and a moratorium on 'workaholic'.
We shall soon be running out of periods about which to become nostalgic. I use the word in its modern, debased sense, of nostalgia as the artificial re-creation of a period for usually commercial purposes. It strictly means a deep longing for a place, a place-in-the-past, more profound than homesickness, comparable to the Welsh hiraeth. The television companies, particu-
ALAN WATKI NS
larly the BBC, are generally praised for the exact attention to detail in exercises of this kind. When it comes to suspenders, tartan or RAF ties, Fair Isle pullovers or packets of Gold Flake they are no doubt top of the class — though I did once detect a bottle of Gordon's gin with a metal screw top, unknown in the 1940s. But they have sharper eyes than ears. The dialogue is invariably anachronistic when it modifies or adds to the original book. Thus, in the recent Miss Marple, a small boy said: `Good, isn't it?' and used 'nicking' for `stealing'. Someone else said 'Why not?'. `Why not?' turned up again, several times, in the expanded adapation of Mr Kingsley Amis's That Uncertain Feeling. A lady with pretensions to gentility also said: 'Oh shit, I'm not going to dress up.' Such persons did not say 'Oh shit' in Swansea in 1954.
When, a few months ago, Mr Dai Llewellyn refused to take a police drinking test because it involved sticking a needle into him, I had every sympathy. I likewise have an aversion to needles. A few years ago I was troubled, or more than troubled, by gout — no laughing matter. I later discovered, through self-diagnosis, that the two separate bouts which I suffered were brought on by an excess, as to the first, of strawberries and, as to the second, of tomato juice during a period of Lenten abstinence. At the time, the doctor whom I consulted was baffled. He prescribed a blood test and made an appointment with a clinic, laboratory or whatever in the Harley Street area which seemed to specialise in such testing. Presenting myself shortly after two, I was told that 'the nurse' was `still at lunch' but that Mr So-and-so would attend to me. This young man had clearly just departed licensed premises. He made several ineffectual lunges at my bare arm, saying in his own defence: 'You have very odd veins.' My veins,' I replied, with as much sternness as I could summon in the discomfort, even pain, in which I found myself, 'are perfectly normal, no different from anyone else's.' Eventually enough of the precious fluid was extracted, leaving me with yellowing bruises for several weeks. 'That'll be f18, please,' another young man said brightly. 'You'll need the receipt for the insurance.' Now, I have no health insurance. I went to the doctor in Harley Street (himself reasonable in his charges) to save time. Insurance puts up the cost. Private hospitals think nothing of charging f200 for a night's accommodation because 'the insurance will be paying'. Insurance has as malign an effect on health charges as the expense account on res- taurant prices.
Neither New York nor Paris has an exact equivalent of Fleet Street, though each has or anyway used to have a journa- listic quartier, respectively the Rockefeller Centre with part of Fifth Avenue, and the area round the Figaro office. One of the necessities of journalism is meeting other journalists — something which the advo- cates of 'new technology' and its conse- quential moves hither and thither like to ignore. It is, I know, easy enough to make jokes about living off one another's mis- takes and coming back to the office hungry after lunch. The truth is that, though your colleagues may talk a lot of nonsense at times, you can still occasionally pick out from the dustbin that old ring which, to a journalist, is beyond price, an idea. The new papers produced at Wapping, Victoria and God knows where may contain more and better news. But they will lack spice. However, this ingredient is supplied as much by network, connection or, quite simply people as by location. Location helps, that is all. When Mr Frank Johnson (now sojourning in Bonn for the Times) first started on the Daily Telegraph, his colleagues included Mr Maurice Green, Mr William Deedes, Mr Colin Welch, MI. T. E. Utley, Mr Michael Wharton and Mc John O'Sullivan; while Mr Peregrine Worsthorne used to drop in from the Sunday Telegraph. I told Mr Johnson then that he would never again work with such a group; I was right. I certainly cannot discern a comparable collection behind the barbed wire at Wapping.
Talking of Bill Deedes, I nominate this week's Deedesism from the London Stan- dard. 'It is all Lombard Street to a rotten orange,' a leader says, that Mr Denis Healey will continue speaking against his party's defence policy. The essence of a Deedesism is that, by getting a familiar phrase slightly wrong, it should both int!" minate a truth and be funny in itself. This, example is not a specially good one, ' agree. But then, it was not coined by the Master. 'All Lombard Street to a Spanish orange' would have been better.
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