29 MAY 1964, Page 3

Portrait of the Week

MR. NEHRU DIED, aged seventy-four: 'it is like the fall of the Himalayas for us,' ran one of many sorrowing Indian comments: Sir Alec Douglas- Home flew to the funeral: and, uncertainly, the task of choosing a successor to bear the burdens of the sub-continent began.

THE QUEEN revealed plans to visit Ethiopia and West Germany next year. Mr. Wilson revealed a three-point plan for beef, which caught nobody's attention, and Labour formally cancelled its autumn conference: through shortage of money, the party also cancelled some press advertising, and Mr. Brown apologised for going to the Cup Final rather than addressing a meeting in Wales.

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A POOR WEEK FOR SCOTLAND, with an outbreak of typhoid in Aberdeen claiming around a hundred victims: cause of the trouble was a seven-pound tin of corned beef. In Edinburgh the convenor of the Public Questions, Religions and Morals com- mittee of the Church of Scotland denounced his church's recent talks with RCs as 'an illicit flirtation.' Unemployment reached its lowest level for two years, and Dr. Beeching promised 'further substantial staff reductions' on the railways. More staff cuts by John Bloom, who also decided to take a cut in salary himself. Manchester is to have a Leningrad Street, in return for a Man- chesterskaya in Russia, Lord Sandwich may renounce his title, to become Mr. Alexander Montagu, and the Ministry of Health revealed that over 800,000,000 sleeping pills were prescribed in England last year.

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THE FIRST UN SOLDIER to die in Cyprus was killed in a clash in Nicosia, and 'over 350 soccer spec- tators were crushed in a riot in Peru: the govern- ment set up a state of emergency, as happened in British Guiana as well, with sugar strikes in the fourth month: more British troops were flown out. Senator Goldwater • advocated the use of a nuclear weapon in Vietnam, was denounced by U Thant, and was obliquely criticised by ex-Presi- dent Eisenhower. Meanwhile, a stricter ban was put on ex-Chief Luthuli, and the first firing of Blue Streak at Woomera was postponed.

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LONDON BUSMEN may resume their overtime ban, after pay talks broke down. Huw Wheldon said he was leaving Monitor: there was talk of TWTWTW being revived; the founder of the Women of Britain Clean-Up TV Campaign accused the BBC of censorship, and Screaming Lord Sutch opened his own pirate radio, from a wartime fort off Herne Bay, with Pop records and readings from Lady Chatter- ley and Fanny Hill. Lord Beaverbrook was eighty-five, Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick died, applicants for driving licences will now have to read ,a number-plate at sixty-seven feet instead of seventy- live, and a Cheltenham fruit dealer was sentenced to eight years' preventive detention for a Is. 101d, fraud on a housewife.

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FIVE SCOTTISH LEAGUE soccer clubs secured a court injunction' preventing Glasgow Rangers from proposing the reforming of the entire league system—with all five of them excluded. Other sad sports news was the lowest score ever in a cricket match-0 all out by the Martin Walters works side against Saltwood. The Egg Marketing Board has sold 36.000.000, eggs to Argentine, and a BBC survey showed that the Beatles were now Britain's top tourist attraction—followed by the Queen, Sir Winston Churchill and the Chief of Scotland Yard.'