PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
With Mr Kekoalaullionapalihauliuokekooiau David Kaapuawaokamehameha standing for Mayor of Honolulu, Mr Peter Humphrey of Uxbridge rescuing a drowning goldfish CI would hate to think how many goldfish owners would have stood by and let fish drown because they did not know what was wrong': RSPCA inspec- tor), and the government of Jordan threatening to report Miss Mandy Rice-Davies to the United Nations Security Council for opening night-clubs in the Holy City, this week saw the silly season well under way.
Sterner notes, though, were struck, princi- pally by the Board of Trade, which announced an £80 million deficit on the nation's trade in July. The export figures set a record, but im- ports by far outstripped them. Hopes based on the June figures (when the deficit fell to £50 million) were dampened, and the Prime Minis- ter, taunted with proclaiming an `economic miracle' last month, lay low in the Scilly Islands and said nothing. Prices on the Stock Exchange, where all news seemed to be good news, once again went through the roof.
An attempt on the life of Mr George Papa- dopoulos, Prime Minister of Greece, failed, a bomb exploding near his car: 'God,' an- nounced Mr Papadopoulos, `is a philhellene and protected Greece once more.' Influence of this kind might explain Mr Richard Nixon's selection of Governor Spiro Agnew, son of an immigrant Greek restaurateur, as his partner on the Republican presidential ticket; but Americans found it hard to see what else would. And in Greece, the husband of Mrs Helen Vlachos, the anti-junta newspaper pub- lisher, was reported to have been arrested.
The International Federation of Airline Pilots forbade its members to fly to Algeria, whose government detained an Israeli airliner and its crew after pirates had captured it on a scheduled flight. Two Syrian pilots inadver- tently landed their hfics in Israel, and were detained. The Israeli government was reported to be thinking about a swap. The Haitian government put Mr David Knox, chief infor- mation officer for the Bahamas, on trial on charges of plotting to overthrow the regime.
At home, a better week for strikes: that at 'British United Airlines was called off, and the great bus strike that was to test the Prices and Incomes Act was averted. But television tech- nicians and newspaper blockmakers stayed out, depriving the public not only of a televised insight into the SPECTATOR (What the Weeklies Say) but also of Flook, Bristow, Modesty Blaise, Maudie Littlehampton (after a gallant rearguard action) and any hitherto un- photographed blonde.
The Consumer Council proposed an official classification of British hotels, and The Thnes feared a statutory gastronometer (surely, rather, a Gastronomer Royal?): the Chinese govern- ment were good enough to let the British chargé d'affaires in Peking come home, and bring three members of his staff: the Czechs saw off Mr Ulbricht, Prime Minister of East Germany, but got into trouble at Butlin's holi- day camp, Barry, Glam, where two visiting Czechs were reported as calling Welsh girls 'often fat and badly dressed'—they had, it was explained, looked for a nation of Twiggies.
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