'NOBLE MAXWELLS AND THEIR POWERS . . . '

Cap'n Bob mounts his charger

Edinburgh THIS week the writing on the wall is rich in irony. Hoardings welcome us to 'the

friendly games'. It is a bit like the paper that calls itself Truth because it prints so many lies. The games are friendly —

Provided you accept the welcome. For the boycotting nations the games are not so friendly. Robert Maxwell wants them to pay the £2 million 'shortfall'. What if you don't pay, a High Commissioner from one of the offending countries asked the Czech last week, would Britain bring in the Gurkhas and the Guards to collect? Cap'n Bob grows serious. Britain is no longer an imperial power, he says, but every time a defaulting country is mentioned in any of his newspapers the readers will be told that the country welshed. There is considerable irony, too, in the Bell's whisky advertisement. The 'Spirit of the Games', we are to believe, lies in the lines: That man to man the world o'er Shall brothers be for a' that.

When the advertisements were put up it must have seemed an innocent 'quote', appropriately dignified for a 'quality' pro- duct. Since then it has begun to look like a

rather poor joke. In fact, it is a subtle but Pointed criticism of Mrs Thatcher's posi- tion on South African sanctions. The open- ing lines of this famous poem are a sharp rebuke to those who oppose sanctions on

the grounds that they will further impover- ish Britain:

Is there for honest poverty That hings his head, an' a' that? The coward slave, we pass him by — We dare be poor for a' that. In case there is any doubt what Burns's

Position would have been on sanctions, there is the poem The Tree of Liberty Whose • • . fruit is worth a' Afric's wealth:

To comfort us 'twas sent, man, To gie the sweetest blush o' health, And mak' us a' content, man!

Burns of course is the poet of the Games and if we don't look out there will soon be

an industry promoting the Caledonian

Nostradamus. Nithsdale's Welcome Hame begins:

The noble Maxwells and their powers Are coming o'er the border; And they'll gae big Terreagles' towers, And set them all in order. .

Of course, not all the setting in order was done by Maxwell: the cheerful Opening Ceremony last Thursday was the responsi- bility of the BBC. It was a colourful business all right, kilts, parachutists, chil- dren in bright colours running around forming all kinds of patterns. When it occasionally rained, the choir put up pur- ple umbrellas. In the middle of this wonderful jumble I was surprised to see a touch of Indian colour. Six gaudy floats pulled in — Big Ben for Europe, a speedboat for Australia, a polar bear for North America, tribal masks for Africa, a palm island for the Caribbean and a peacock for Asia. On the peacock sat a young Indian girl in a pink silk pyjama kamees, smiling. Despite the boycotts, here was the BBC asserting we 'shall brothers be for a' that'. (What the girl said to me was 'I just did it for the fun of it. It was great, the atmosphere.' Then she giggled.) So how did the Beeb get their Indian girl? A fortnight ago a local restaurant called the Indian Cavalry Club was laun- ched and the BBC had been present. When the Indian Association turned them down they turned to the restaurant where a young Pakistani called Ditta works. Since the organisers wanted a couple for the floats Mr and Mrs Ditta agreed. At the last minute, however, Ditta was told they didn't want any men. Had Mrs Ditta any misgivings about going on the float? 'Well, I didn't want to dishonour anybody so I telephoned the Indian embassy to check. They said "Since you are not an Indian citizen anything you do will be a discredit to the British govern- ment, not the Indian government." So I thought, what the hell? Anyway, the man at the Indian embassy said I would pass unnoticed.'

She certainly did not pass unnoticed. The television cameras closed in on her and she has been receiving telephone calls from friends ever since. Mark Lazarowicz, the Leader of the Edinburgh District Council, who has been trying to `disinvite' Mrs Thatcher to Edinburgh, mentioned 'that Indian girl on the float' when I spoke to him over the weekend, 'It was down- right insulting. . . it showed the BBC and the organisers had a complete lack of understanding of the strong feelings the boycotting nations have about apartheid.' (When I contacted the BBC press office for a statement all they said was 'We are sorry Mr Lazarowicz feels that way.') Financially, it is not at all clear what is happening. The Commonwealth Arts Fes- tival, funnily enough, stands to gain from the boycotts. 'In any such venture the gate receipts are only a small proportion of the total earnings,' Robert Atkins, the co- ordinator of the Festival, explains to me, slightly embarrassed by the peculiar econo- mics. 'Most of the Festival is run on subsidies and sponsorships which aren't affected by any boycott. When you have a situation where the variable income is significantly higher than the variable costs a boycott is bound to save you money.' He pauses, thinks about something else. 'Maybe you shouldn't write that.' He laughs. 'Most of it is government money and they may just ask for it back.'

The Games do not work quite that way: the boycotts came early enough to affect some of the sponsorships and, unlike the Arts Festival, the Games company is not responsible for bringing participants up from London. To this day, however, there is no reliable figure of how much the boycotts are going to cost the Games. Early last week Cap'n Bob had announced it would be £2 million. At the press conference last Thursday he put the figure at £1 million. It is difficult to accept either estimate.

Though Mr Malcolm Rifkind keeps saying the Scottish Office will not pick up the tab most people feel it will. As Cap'n Bob explained recently, if they said they were going to pay, the sponsorships would completely stop. A friend who has made a hobby of watching Edinburgh politics com- pletes the explanation. 'After the Games are over, there will be a great fuss about the shortfall. A committee will be formed with all the big Edinburgh accountants and solicitors on it. That's the Edinburgh way. Finally the Scottish Office will step in. That's what they're there for, to pay for everyone's mistakes and ambitions. It's the price of the Union.'

I dread to think what will happen if the Scottish Office doesn't pay. Since it is unlikely the Gurkhas and the Guards will be sent abroad as bailiffs, might Cap'n Bob take the Daily Express's advice and go himself? Village View, the Games paper published by the Commonwealth Games Scotland 1986 Ltd. (i.e. by Mr Maxwell), published an ominous full-page cartoon on 25 July, A self-satisfied Cap'n Bob, dress- ed in cavalry uniform, had mounted the charger.