27 JULY 1962, Page 8

Where be his Gibes?

I'm sure my ill-wishers will enjoy the latest description of poor Starbuck as 'a squalid, mind- less piece of degenerated protoplasm,' which comes from somebody in Worcestershire who thinks that my opinions on television are mis- taken. This, I gather, is because he dislikes com- merce, which he equates with greed, avarice, envy, malice, etc. In a hundred years, he says, highly civilised tourists will be going round Britain, 'musing on the mutability of things and the sad decline of a once-great people to a peasant stupidity and ignorance, marvelling that such a people could once have produced a Shakespeare, Milton, Newton or Russell even.' And none to say alas, poor

STARBUCiC