SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
J. W. M. THOMPSON
A couple of months ago Roy Strong predicted that 'the public will probably shy away from this show' in his SPECTATOR notice of the current Winter Exhibition, 200 Years of the Royal Academy. He went on to say why : lack of any sense of central direction, indifferent hanging, hideous lighting, and so on. And now, sadly, he has been proved absolutely right. Sir Thomas Monnington, PRA, discloses that only a trickle of visitors has attended Burlington House instead of the hoped-for torrents. What ought to have been a triumph of the season is ending in clouds of financial loss and failure.
This, to me, is exasperating and deplorable in more ways than one. I begrudge somewhat the high place now accorded to the showman's skills in the arranging of exhibitions. There are treasures beyond price in this very large show at the Academy and in spite of all the de- ficiencies noted by the acute professional eye of Dr Strong I found that a morning spent there was wonderfully rewarding. Monuments of two centuries of British art are lavishly assembled: displayed without inspiration, perhaps, but there, to be seen before being scat- tered around the world again. People will be silly indeed to miss the chance simply because the show as a whole is something of a jumble. And yet—how maddening of the poor old Academy to fumble so great an opportunity! How characteristic that it should pant labori- ously behind fashion even in secondary matters such as the hanging of pictures!
Wilkes and liberty
More cheerfully, I should like to commend a far less ambitious bicentenary exhibition which neatly achieves exactly what it sets out to do. This is the British Museum's 'Wilkes and Liberty' show, put on to commemorate this month's 200th anniversary of John Wilkes's expulsion from the Commons. Wilkes I have always thought one of the most interesting men of his period and he prompts compari- sions with today's political figures. He was a very early example of a politician swept to national significance by the runaway success of what is now called his 'image.' In reality as much a libertine as a libertarian, he became passionately identified by the populace with resistance to the prevailing oligarchy. He 'was never a Wilkite,' as he said privately: much as Mr Enoch Powell, I dare say, would dis- own many who think themselves Powellites.
The cartoons in this exhibition show the cruel glee with which the cartoonists exploited his mighty squint and devilish features. How, one wonders, would so unprepossessing a politician have faxed in the age of television? Wilkes used to say unconcernedly that he was one of the ugliest men in the kingdom but that he would compete for the favour of any woman against the handsomest of men 'given half an hour to talk away his face.' I can't see him being awarded that margin in a party political broadcast.
More equal than some
In all the illogicalities and oddities affecting labour relations in recent years (admittedly a large field) there has been nothing stranger than the reaction of some of the women Workers at Ford's to their proposed equal pay agreement. This promised equal pay provided that the women undertook equal work and accepted night-shift working. This, most people had innocently supposed, was what equal pay for women meant: it is on this basis
that Mrs Castle, for example, draws her equal pay. But at Ford's it was greeted with loud squawks of female dismay. What is really wanted, it seems, is equal pay and special privileges, in particular no night work. In a way it's pleasant to know that what used to be known as 'feminine logic' still prevails even in industry. By what other brand of logic, though, can women conscientiously reject night work? After all, there is the most ancient of Vaditions behind it, if that phrase about the 'oldest profession' has historical validity.
Sound fellow
Kenneth Home was a great comedian, strictly in terms of radio. It is a medium which has produced only a select band of such masters in its brief existence, and which will presum- ably produce very few more. Nevertheless, radio has evolved a distinctive kind of rapid, verbal humour which can't be transferred to TV or any other means of communication. I notice that some current radio humourists are at least as important to my limited circle of acquaintance among. schoolchildren as any of the television jokers. Kenneth Home's stance of the one sane, good-humoured fellow at large in a world of loonies guaranteed him endless materiaL Like any great comedian he made us laugh at our world, at its fads and absurdities, at its many imperial delusions . unsupported by imperial clothes. In his breezy, genial manner he inflated every show into a vast, swelling, shining bubble of nonsense : and on the way he deflated countless varieties of unintended nonsense and rendered us all the priceless ser- vice of mockery.
- Dots before the eyes?
We seem to be repeatedly threatened with new and outlandish diseases. The great Mao Flu scare had us all knocking at the knees in antici- pation only a few weeks ago: mercifully it appears to have come and gone without any- one, apart from Mr David Ennals, being aware of its presence. Now another branch of our tireless bureaucracy has discovered a fresh threat: 'Decimal Apathy.' I feel, I confess, the symptoms of this complaint upon me even after reading the Decimal Currency Board's six-page document intended as a preventive against the contagion. Evidently a defective 'state of awareness about decimalisation' is one of the worst consequences. I suspect Decimal Apathy is far more widespread than even the worried Board imagines. People don't seem to care about decimals. They display an unhealthy tendency to surrender to enormous fits of yawning at the mere thought. Perhaps a course of prophylactic jabs could be adminis- tered under the National Health Service? It might even incorporate specifics against other ailments of the day. such as Balance of Pay- ments Vertigo and Standard Time Lethargy.
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