Palmer bash
Sir: My thanks to Tony Palmer for the laugh of the week. A member of the 'minority of a minority' has at last begun to realise the futility of plugging the high progressive line. He'd better realise at the same time that it isn't only 'Outraged' of Clapham Com- mon who is moved to a positive frenzy of boredom by the 'univer- sity' educated. left of centre, well meaning, radical liberal.' We all arc—especially the university edu- cated. right of centre, well meaning. conservative whose common sense is affronted and charity strained by the self-righteous cant emitted by liberal thinkers.
And I am grateful for more than flu. 1 init. My suspicion that the intelligent young have in large part heaved overboard progressive thought (would that progressive thinkers could be heaved after it) is now confirmed. For this relief much thanks.
We have had twenty years of enlightened rubbish—some of it sentimental and therefore merely aesthetically vulgar, but much more both enervating and subversive. We are sick and tired of it. My son, aged twenty-four, read the Palmer article and remarked, 'These people simply don't know the score. They have no idea of what the majority tohrinitkys; particularly the young ma- jority.' on it, Mr Palmer, chew on it. And the best of British luck from your namesake.
John Palmer 44 Shad Way, Sandy Lane, Ted- dington. Middlesex
Sir: Tony Painter's experiences at the Speakeasy recounted last week. show how the most depressing events can have highly salutary effects. Naked expressions of 'wog-bashing' and 'hang 'ern and flog 'cm' (in that order) are no more appealing to me than to him, but I find them less surprising. After all. the Epping Young Con- ser% atives did once call me a Com- munist.
The trouble is that the lives of TP and his genre have been more cloistered than those of any mid- Victorian suburban family. Being Oxbridge-educated, media-orien- tated and left-wing has, through force of circumstances, made him an 'intellectual'—an honour con- ferred on hint by fellow members of his esoteric Elite. He is thus more qualified than most to be committed meaningful and wrong.
He is also sublimely out of touch. What is infinitely more surprising than that the Speakeasy audience did not enthuse lyrically about student participation is that Tony Palmer ever thought they would. I mistakenly assumed that aspiring revolutionaries maintained some contact with the masses they intended to lead to salvation.
So it was wonderful to see him raise his delicate curls above ground last week; to recognise how isolated his position is: that stu- dent revolutionaries, rock musi- cians and the like are only repre- sentative of their own (and his) iconoclastic elite. But what was more heartening still was to realise how the post-war generations, while imperfect in their prejudices. have at least declined to accept the image that the image-makers of Portland Place and (pace Mr van der Eyken) the Penguin Press have tried to foist on them.
The majority by definition, have more affinity with the social norm than the social deviation. Tony Palmer never did find the norm to his taste.
Jim Powell Trinity Hall, Cambridge
Previous page
