DIARY
FRANK JOHNSON Aa cause celebre, the struggle between Mr Neil Hamilton and Mr Mohamed Al Fayed has something rare about it. It now entirely hinges on whether something did or did not happen. Causes celebres normally hinge on the meaning of the facts, not on the facts themselves. Did Mr Al Fayed stuff brown envelopes with banknotes and order them to be passed to Mr Hamilton? Mr Al Fayed says he did. The chairman of his publishing company, Mr Stewart Steven, reasserted the claim in our issue last week. Mr Hamilton, replying on page 18 this week, denies it. He does not say that there was a misunderstanding, or that the cash-filled envelopes were for a legitimate purpose, he just denies it com- pletely. The drama of the Hamilton-Al Fayed affair is that it is one of those rare cases, like Dreyfus or Alger Hiss, in which one of the contestants must be lying. Yet it ought to be possible to find out who. If Mr Hamilton put the money into a bank account, the transaction would have been recorded. If he opened a new and special account for it, the inquiring authorities could easily discover it. It is unlikely that it was Swiss. If he kept the banknotes, it is probable that during the days after he received each instalment there would have been fewer cash withdrawals from his usual bank account, and less use of his credit cards. He would have paid for goods and services in cash, unless he put the notes under the bed, which seems unlikely, since he does not strike us as one of life's misers. For once in a cause célèbre we do not have to resign ourselves to the phrase 'we shall never know', because we can know, we should know — and I suspect we will.
Supporters of Sir James Goldsmith's Referendum Party are understandably indignant at the implication that Sir James is not really British. They point out that his father was a Tory MP, and that Sir James was brought up in Britain at least as much, if not more, than in France. But the charge of non-Britishness is all the more reason to question whether Sir James was wise to say in a Daily Telegraph interview on Saturday, `I vomit on the Government.' Somehow, that doesn't sound very Middle England neither Solihull, nor Basingstoke, nor `county' — more the sort of insult associat- ed with the politics or commerce of the Levant, or the Middle East, as in (if I may be permitted to invent one) 'may the fleas of a thousand camels infect your armpits', which insult Sir James, if he thinks I am wrong, could try out against Mr David Mel- lor in Putney. Sir James is threatening to stand in that constituency; his supporters' hope being not for him to win but for him to take enough Tory Eurosceptic votes from Mr Mellor to give Labour the seat. Or he could confine himself to assuring Putney voters that he vomits on Mr Mellor. We will see how well that goes down, or rather, comes out. The proof of the resultant pud- ding, so to speak, will be if Mr Mellor keeps the seat.
Fashion being what it is, the fashionable in London constantly search for unfashion- able places in which to give their parties. Naturally, within a short time, the places become fashionable, and the search moves on. A former working men's club near a fly- over somewhere off the rough end of Lad- broke Grove is a newish favourite. But the most fashionably unfashionable for some time has been the Polish Hearth Club near the Albert Hall. Unlike most of these venues, it deserves its status. It is a welcom- ing sort of place, its very name having so much warmer associations than, say, the Groucho Club. But, my speech being some- times indistinct, some friends were under the impression the other day that I had told them the party was at the Polish Health Club. Whereupon it struck me that this could be the new high street chain of the late Nineties — what the Body Shop was to the Eighties. When I asked a friend, who knows Poland, what was the Poles' idea of a healthy life, the reply suggested that this could be just the business to attract cus- tomers who have had enough of exercise and dieting. The Poles' idea of health, apparently, comprises lots of pork chops, goose, pancakes with jam or chocolate, much cream (due to milk over-production under communism) and vodka. Sadly, such are the ways in which nations influence one another's taste, while Britons gorged and sluiced in Polish Health Clubs all over our country, the fashionable of Warsaw would be thronging Anglo-American vegetarian restaurants, and gyms.
Editing The Spectator this week entailed my deciding a more than usually large number of points of etiquette and address. Earl Spencer writes on page 20 about press intrusion, a subject on which he is qualified to pronounce feelingly. Natural- ly, he signed himself Charles Spencer. But I thought readers should be left in no doubt that the author was Earl Spencer, and not, say, Charles Spencer, the Daily Telegraph's drama critic, or any other Charles Spencer. So I adopted the non-U practice of signing him 'Earl Spencer', thus doubtless bringing down on myself the charge of Pooterism, as well as courting the misunderstanding that the author of the piece is a legendary black American jazz musician. Then Mr Neil Hamilton, in his piece on page 18, referred to his enemy, Mr Mohamed Al Fayed, sole- ly as 'Fayed', whereas the chairman of Mr Al Fayed's publishing company, Mr Stewart Steven, writing last week in defence of his employer and friend, had referred to him as 'Al Fayed'. Apparently, 'Al' is a sort of title. Mr Al Fayed's enemies say that it is a title to which he is not entitled. But why do I refer here to 'Al Fayed'? Because I believe in addressing people as they wish to be addressed until such time as they are proved not to be thus entitled. I appeal to the editor of the Egyptian Debrett to resolve the matter.
That charge of Pooterism was of course made in some quarters against the Prime Minister's diary here last week. I don't sup- pose he minded. The Pooter vote must be huge. Slightly churlish, however, was the suggestion by Mr David McKie, in the Guardian, that the Diary's misspelling of the footballer Ruud Gullit — we printed it as 'the dreadlocked Rudd Gullit' — 'may lead some to question the piece's authen- ticity'. I am sure that the Prime Minister knew how to spell Mr Gullit's first name, but not sure that the Downing Street or Central Office staff, who transcribe the prime ministerial handwriting, all do. And if Mr McKie is right in questioning the Diary's 'authenticity', who did write it? Me? I had never heard of Ruud Gullit. If I had written it after being briefed by the Prime Minister, it would have come out as the `dead-locked Red Mullet'.
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