COMPETITION

No. 606: Travellers' rest

Borough councils and county councils, which have long done their best to get rid of 'travelling people', now have a statutory duty to provide sites for gipsies. Competitors are asked to provide a verse allocution (not more than fourteen lines) to be addressed by the head of a returning gipsy community to the chairman of a local council. Entries, marked `Competition No. 606', by 5 June.

No. 603: The winners

Charles Seaton reports: In a recent SPECTATOR article, David Walder Cold of 'an energetic canvassing lady of my acquaintance who is capable of looking at the plants in a garden or the colour of a front door and judging thereby the politics of the occupier'. Competi- tors were invited to supply an extract from a Canvassers' Handbook giving similar guid- ance in determining party allegiance. Now that the election really is on us, the masses of recognition signals sent in should be useful, and it's a pity I can't print more than a selection. There were some fairly tell- ing ones. On plastic gnomes, for example:

These, especially if they are portrayed on toadstools, are a clear indication of a Labour household, with its trust in showy but insubstantial little figures set in a world of

hallucination. E. P. Heriz-Smith

Wives are significant; on Sunday morning:

WIVES: wearing frilly apron, cooking Sun- day joint, hair permed, glasses with light-col- oured, upswept frames — Tory; wearing trousers, reading Sunday papers, hair au naturel, glasses with square, black frames, pregnant—Labour. J. M. Crooks and other days:

A young housewife seen through the window doing housework in the nude, who comes clothed to the door, is pseudo-trendy and Tory: if she answers the bell still stripped, Socialist: matronly, blue-rinsed and nude, a

floater, open to persuasion. Adam Khan

Dustbins (if accessible) are important: Examine garbage. Aubergine skins, Camembert boxes, Graves bottles, indicate probable Right bias; containers of mousses, bottled coffee, potato powder, margarine,

white bread, Left. P.M.

Ian Kelso's canvasser seems to have some eccentrics in his constituency:

Goldfish pond: Floating voter. Weathervane on roof: Always votes for party currently leading in opinion polls. Chimes instead of conventional bell: Supporter of Bow Group. Bedroom curtains drawn on first afternoon of week: Member of Monday Club. Geraniums, lobelia and white alyssum, planted in Union Jack pattern: Last voted for Balfour, no longer interested. 'Lloyd George Must Go', picked out in cowrie shells: Embittered Asquithian Liberal. Dis- charges blunderbuss at you from front window: A 'Don't Know'.

Iwo guineas and three for F. Galway:

Elderly men with neat full beard and moustaches ethe set') will be ex-RN Tory : Toothbrush or Guardee moustaches, Army ditto: RAF handlebars, crypto-Socialist. All other facial adornments mark the Radical. Moustached women, having a grievance against society, are Communists. Gnomes in- dicate Socialistic sentimentality. Kitchen- garden-cum-jobbing gardener is High Tory: all other vegetable patches are Labour. Mini- skirted ladies pushing non-powered mowers are Socialist. The scruffier the male gardener the more Tory: the sharper the gear, the more Radical. The two-car-port is Liberal; the two-cars-abreast garage, Conservative. Suburban front doors brightly painted are Socialist if the housewife is fiftyish. All others are non-indicative.

Edward Samson seems to have researched his subject very thoroughly in his `Can- vassers' Botany' and deserves four guineas. A guinea to each of the others quoted:

Red Rattle (Pedicularis palustris):

Corn mun ist

Wild Thyme (Thymus serpyllunt): Tory Selfheal (Prune/la vulgaris): Independent Eyebright (Euphrasia officinalis): Labour convert Birch (Benda alba): Tory die-hard Heath Rush (Juncus squarrosus):

Tory convert

Common Rush (Juncus conglomeratu.s.):

Late Labour converts

Adders Tongue (Ophioglossum vulgatutn):

Non-voting protesters

Cross-leaved Heath (Erica tetralix): Tory turned Liberal Thrift (Stalice maritinza):

Labour, Jenkins fan

Pignut (Conopodium mains): Disillusioned Don't Know Slender Thistle (Cardutts tenuillorus):

Scottish Nationalist

Creeping Forget-me-not (Myosotis repens): Labour, George Brown disciple Sloe (Prunus spinosa): Liberal.

By the way, if your visit coincides with the delivery of the weeklies, be warned by T. Griffiths : A SPECTATOR on the sill means Tory; New Statesman, Labour: both together, a com- petitor. Avoid like the plague. He will be odd, talkative and politically unreliable.