12 SEPTEMBER 1940, Page 5

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

THE efficiency with which daily papers are facing the present 1 abnormal situation is remarkable. But the weeklies have their difficulties too, and it would not be astonishing if some mark of them remained on the face of the finished article. They mostly work with very small staffs, so that any defection creates a problem. The Spectator is no doubt a normal example. In the course of Monday night the editor, with no worse than shattered windows, had to evacuate his flat owing to the presence of unexploded bombs, the assistant-editor (for- tunately unhurt) had his house half wrecked, another member of the staff, with the whole neighbourhood evacuated owing to time-bombs, could not arrive at all. And so on. Of course the posts, which bring copy, are utterly unreliable. Life therefore proceeds under some difficulty, but it pro- ceeds, and will. And if, as I say, my colleagues' pre- occupations leave some trace on the printed page, readers who have suffered something similar themselves or worse will no doubt make allowances. Carrying on will not get easier, but it is not in sight of getting impossible.