Personal column

Arianna Stassinopoulos

The shadowy riders in the unannounced Tory leadership race already seem to be doing plenty of manoeuvring for a good position at the start. Tideir supporters, trying to gauge the backing weir men have on the Tory back benches, are weighing up such imponderables as the East Anglian block, the fox-hunting fanatics, the 1,acnetarist and indeed the bimetallist votes. It looks as though the eugenics vote is already committed but soon they will no doubt be busy recruiting that most elusive of philosophical categories — redhaired archdeacons. When a Keithite asked Norman St John-Stevas what he tliought of replacing Heath with Joseph I Understand that he was acidly impartial: "It Would be like falling out of the refrigerator and al, to the deep freeze" — if he is right, it is a pity that the decisive say in electing the new Tory eader will not be with the Eskimo vote.

Levinesque

say that Cancerians are hoarders—they also

say we are enthusiasts, Anyway, for either i—• `sorl, and perhaps simply because the glor. us• lY baroque Levinesque cadences appeal to

Mediterranean mind, I have for several Y,ears been hoarding Bernard Levin's columns.

ft? adapt a sub-Levin patter, [had to buy a new „nig cabinet, build an extension on to my 'th'-adY and finally, when he started writing 0,,ri_nce a week, move flats to accommodate the d'enlow. So, when I read his impassionate _Foundation of the latest model of Philips

tlitectric razors, I was able instantly to flick

,rough my card index under the entry: tis-anspicuous consumption: B. Levin's affec e..?,T1 for" and find a column confessing, indeed eiebrating, his total inability to resist the a9.—

Prearance on the market of every new coff

ate'ee-maker, The more extravagantly elaborthe machine, the more likely was he to saeoumb

,,, .

wiirLhy is "the new Melitta type coffee-maker %.,a Paper filter in an inverted-cone holder eu into a glass jug" (Times, May 22, 1973) anY less morally iniquitous than "a Philips rre-,`▪ "lar, with nine settings, to make the cutters 19,;A°1ve at nine speeds" (Times, October 29, Why is "the search for the taste to end ttes" (Times, May 22, 1973) fascinating, and

.,e search for the shave to end shaves

,uauseating" (Times, October 29, 1974)? The i'013Pearance of the Philishave Exclusive calls call from Mr Levin exhortations for "self-diss'al,e," "a collective act of will," and -Mloosed limits on production, consump19.17:1A and everything else" (Times, October 29, t). But the appearance of the new Melitta 11,e coffee-maker conjured up images of T. S. lieTt' the Vesuvius, Robert Bolt, the Grail, thetven, the Niagara Falls and Ecclesiastes — all thae ennobling images are in the same column, soe,? all, I swear, refer to coffee-makers and my ee is our friend the Times for May 22, 1973. ls thre3 the razor blade a "rich man's toy that ns a close shave for democracy" (Times, colober 29, 1974) but not the Melitta type ee-rnaker a rich man's toy that will grind :)11')eracY to a halt? Levirilto put it another way, and in the average diffe column most things are put in several Li, rent ways at what point precisely does one een;., cultivated taste become another man's per&cuous consumption? As some sage — ix,.."alps Goethe? — should have remarked, ha,s-asional hypocrisy alone, is not the door to

l'Phress, but it sure oils the hinges.

Heretics and Chinese

Somewhat disillusioned by Bernard Levin's retreat into conventional wisdom—doubtless a passing mood — I wondered if there were any heretics left. Ernest van den Haag, of New York City University, whom I met at a recent conference in Brussels, is certainly a heretic by anybody's standards. His theories are based on the anti-Benthamite principle of maximum annoyance for the maximum number of 'progressive' thinkers. In his brilliantly paradoxical book, On Civil Disobedience, he vigorously supports the decision of the Athenian democracy to put Socrates to death — a sophisticated defence of the prosecution and a far cry from splenetic magistrates declaring that "young people must be protected."

It must not be thought, however, that America has a monopoly of such thinkers. Still reeling from Socrates, I was further numbed by the fervour with which the Welsh academic Christie Davies argued that the Crown Colony of Hong Kong should be removed to Anglesey. With the imminent expiry of the British lease on the New Territories, many of the people of Hong Kong will need a new home and Britain will be forced either further to devalue the British passport or to exacerbate the racial tension in Wolverhampton South West. All this can be avoided, and the economy of North Wales revitalised into the bargain, if the British Government follows Christie Davies's advice and fills Anglesey with enterprising Chinese businessmen. Within a decade it can be safely predicted that half of the Welsh population

would be commuting to work across the Menai Straits. Could news of this scheme have

already reached the ears of Cledwyn Hughes, Labour MP for Anglesey, who is standing against Ian Mikardo for the chairmanship of the Labour Party? Someone ought to explain to him that the name Mikado is Japanese and not

Chinese. And it is no good his saying all these Orientals look the same to me,-because he may live to regret it when he is angling for the Holyhead Chinatown vote.

On the fringe

Clement Freud, I understand, does not open his mouth in public outside the Isle of Ely, for less than E150. But I doubt whether he gets the kind of fringe benefits that 1 do. I was recently speaking at the annual dinner of a business and professional women's club and was placed next to the husband of the treasurer — yes, thank goodness, such fragile and decorative objects as men have not yet totally been done away with, on such occasions. Somehow, and please don't ask me how, the conversation came round to the fact that I go through a vast number of pairs of tights every winter — I pride myself on having one of the highest tight-destruction-rates in the European Economic Community, not excluding its associate members. The gentleman turned out to be a manager in a tights manufacturing firm and a charmingly chivalrous one at that — today through the post I received no less than thirty pairs of multi-coloured tights. As Christmas is approaching, I would like to say that other things that I go through at a fast rate besides tights, are: Krugerrands, Rembrandts, penny-black postage stamps, Chateau Lafite-Rothschild 1961, and autographed copies of the works of Aristophanes.

Oenological note

Out of sympathy for the predicament of the Bordeaux wine producers trapped at last in their own scandals, I have sent them a bottle of Californian coffee-flavoured wine — only one of the many inspiringly 'blended' wines available on the West Coast of America. I am now eagerly awaiting the opinion of these wine purists on the authority, breed, fruit, fragrance, 'lust', and vigour of this interesting young wine.