24 JULY 1947, Page 5

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

UNDERSTUDIES, I know, are potentially figures of romance, and the widespread disappointment caused last week by Janus's announcement that he was going away on holiday may in some cases have been modified by hopeful, or at any rate curious, speculations about his deputy. Well, it all depends what you hoped for. There may be—and I very much hope there are—readers who have long cherished (scarcely daring to avow it) the wish that A Spectator's Notebook would one day be contributed by a writer who, having been rolled on by a heavy-weight hunter, has spent the last four weeks in a nursing-home and is immobilised in the depths of the country. Such readers are in luck ; I think, as a matter of fact, that they are really luckier than they deserve to be.

With the rest of you, it is the other way round. * * * *