Notebook
The news that the wife of the American Ambassador has observed a kestrel swooping onto her lawn to attack baby rabbits (Notebook 6 August) has been greeted with 'scepticism. Ornithologists are of the opinion that the hawk was far more likely to have been after a beetle than a rabbit. But it is not unknown for kestrels to take baby rabbits. It is one of those rare natural occurrences, like the appearance of the Combe Florey puma, which a privileged few have witnessed. Even more remarkable was the phenomenon, which I observed this week, of a house sparrow catching flies while both were on the wing. This is a feat approximately equivalent to a man doing the same by rushing around the lawn with his mouth open. There is nothing remarkable about a man on a motorcycle doing it, he is like a' human swallow in this matter, but the house sparrow is simply not equipped for the job. This one took at least three on a railway station platform on the Western Region.
Both kestrel and sparrow might have interested Henry Williamson, whose death was marked by obituaries which ranged from 'this famed but mighty Tolstoyan novelist' (Sunday Times), to writer of 'pantheist escape literature' and 'period curiosities' (Observer). In his old age Williamson could be disconcerting. Once, when being commissioned to write an article about wild flowers, he suddenly demanded of his youthful employer, 'Are you a fighting man?' Then added, 'I thought not' in a rather disappointed tone. Perhaps this shows that he was an optimist, ever hoping to find fighting men camped out on the deep pile of the offices of a colour supplement. A few days later he was in Fleet Street to watch a huge march against the Vietnam war as it proceeded towards Whitehall. It was a bitterly cold day and he was stationed on the pavement directly opposite the Daily Telegraph building. As the marchers passed beneath Lord Hartwell's crowded balcony they raised their arms in the Nazi salute. I remember the arms of the Telegraph leader writers sticking out between Hartwell's shrubs in disrespectful reply. Williamson was not wearing a hat despite the weather. The sight of this silent old man with his white hair and blue eyes peering intently at the riff raff who passed before him giving the old salute was rather curious. What did he make of it?
There has been a notable failure by the international press to cover recent events in Lagos, partly perhaps because the Nigerian government makes it so difficult for jour
'nalists to enter the country. A traveller who returned this week says that about 200 expatriate businessmen have been imprisoned for several weeks awaiting military trial for currency offences. They represent many of the biggest European and American companies operating there. About 50 of them are British. Most of the charges are concerned with double-invoicing, a means of transferring payments for costs incurred in Nigeria to make it look as though they were incurred in Europe — and should therefore be paid in a more negotiable currency than the Nigerian Naira. This manoeuvre normally requires the assistance of Nigerian customs and banking officials. One British company operating in Lagos has run into a slightly different problem. Recently they were visited by a Nigerian who said that he wished to place a large order with them. It was worth £100,000. He would pay them £150,000 of government money for it. Would they pass the extra £50,000 to his Swiss account? Certainly they' said, a routine matter, they did it all the time. When the Nigerian had established that the British company did indeed do it all the time he revealed that he was a government investigator. The British company were invited to pay £15m in backdated reparations or have their Nigerian assets nationalised.
It may seem peculiar for the government of a west African state to be accusing us of corruption, but the Nigerians are now, through the IMF loan, net givers of aid to this country. We are for the time being dependent on them, and this imposes on them an obligatioh to offer us this sort of moral guidance which we will of course appreciate.
Among those who should study the new Nigerian procedures are the members of the House of Commons. Even by their usual standards the last week of the summer session was something of a record. Mr Cordle was first helped from the chamber assisted by the comment from one colleague, 'This confirms that honour still has a place in our public life'. Then the Commons rejected the motion to censure Messrs. Maudling and Roberts. Then the members voted themselves a quick pay rise and, refreshed, moved that George Strauss be censured instead for moving a vote of censure on Maudling. Finally the Brotherhood talked themselves out of the last day's business, and so allowed Mr Callaghan to escape without offering any sort of explanation for the extraordinary stories circulating about his Right Honourable predecessor, MI5 and a suspected Communist cell. The electors are left with the rest of the summer to ponder the difficult question, would it be more alarming if Mr Wilson were correct and the security services were barmy, or if the security men were correct and Mr Wilson was a political idealist after all?
It has been a good month for lunatics. Firstly American research has led to new understanding of 'idiot savants', a previously unsuspected class of people who seem low in general intelligence but who are capable of astounding mental feats in particular areas. One is able to calculate instantly the months and years of this century in which the 13th falls on a Wednesday. Others can play complicated piano concertos after hearing them for the first time.
Einstein apparently displayed some of the characteristics of an idiot savant, so did Isaac Newton. Both may have had brains which were capable of 'such extreme concentration on narrow subjects that their minds were simply unavailable for other activities'. Everyone must know people who fit into this category, and who, if their capacities were only recognised, could be of the greatest practical use to us all. Perhaps Lord Goodman would chair an inquiry into it? He might even discover that he should have been a cook rather than a lawyer. More controversial is the government report which recommends that in future mental patients should be allowed the vote. Among those who might not agree is Noel Picarda, who, on the very first day of can: vassing in a Lincolnshire by-election plunged into a party of old ladies and solicited their support in the Conservative interest. They were on an outing from the local hospital's mental wing, and the shock he suffered when he realised this affected the rest of his campaign. Perhaps a compromise could be reached whereby the votes of mental patients were counted separately, and used only when the rest of the electorate had failed to return an overall majority?
Patrick Marn ham
Previous page
