, Room for Improvement 'She plays golf and loves tapestry'
. . . . 'The hospitality was wonderful,' he told The Isis, 'and so were the natives— although of course they were cannibals' . . . . 'Despite her position as a star comedienne, she has acquired nothing of the temperament associated with the famous of her profession' .... 'Very few undergraduates are aware of the high standards of production at the Playhouse,' he said. 'It is a regrettable fact, but it is no longer " fashionable " to go there. I feel that if it were known that " certain " people went, many more would follow '. . . . From last week's issue of The Isis (established 1892) these sentences arc selected more or less at random. They are not civilised sentences. A quarter of a century ago (and I believe that Mr. Osbert Lancaster, Mr. John Betjeman, Mr. Lionel Hale and other' respectable persone would bear me out in this) the contributions in which they appear would have been sympathetically considered for publi• cation, but would have been rejected on the grounds that parody must be related to a recognisable target. It is, alas, to be feared that the young gentlemen who write in this term'S /sis are devoid of any intention to parody and unaware that statements like Magdalen's greatest tradition is the singing from the tower on May morning' or (in a two-page leader headed 'Non-Believer') the filth of experience has suffocated his presumptuousness' are barely, if at all; compatible with the genius loci. But perhaps it is all due to Miss Zuleika Dobson decamping, with her amateur but beguiling magic, to Cambridge.
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