Portrait of the week
The old British ritual of clock-changing came to an almost certain end at midnight on Saturday with the beginning of British Standard Time, de- spite many indignant mutterings. Rebellion was more open in the Commons on Tuesday, when about forty-six Labour rebels felt sufficiently strongly about school milk and insurance stamps to abstain from voting. Earlier, the Home Secre- tary, Mr Callaghan. astonished the House with a pair of monumental Mises, referring to two recently arrested (and untried) men as 'murderers.' A Tory MP, Mr Richard Reader Harris, charged with fraud, was allowed £15,000 bail and Mr Leslie Finer, BBC correspondent in Athens, was ordered to leave Greece.
Inner London boroughs went against the tide by knocking a penny off the rates, Mrs Lili Bilocca, strident champion of the Hull trawlermen's wives, lost her job, and there were rumours that the turtles on Aldabra might have to be disturbed after all. The pilots' three-and-a-half day strike against sue was called off. At Winfrith atomic energy site workcrs were furious to learn that over 15,000 were to be spent on preparations for a visit by Prince Philip. The Board of Trade confirmed its decision not to allow British-made ploughs in the world ploughing championships in Rhodesia.
Fighting broke out again in Saigon, while in Hue the Americans suffered heavy casualties in their attempts to dislodge Vietcong from the citadel; the mayor was-given the go-ahead to execute Viet- cong prisoners in public. India agreed to stand by the international tribunal's ruling on the Rann of Kutch, and settled grudgingly for nine-tenths of the territory.
There were high-level ructions in Olympic circles following the readmission of South Africa to the Games. The High Court outlined a settlement awarding 'substantial damages to sixty-two thalidomide victims. A sixteen year old girl in Los Angeles gave birth to Siamese twins and the Beatles went to Rishikesh to join Mia Farrow on a course in instant transcendentalism: in three months' time, the Maharishi reckoned, they would be fully qualified 'semi-gurus.'
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