Notebook
Ihave just been to my first awards dinner and left it £500 the richer. My benevolent employer, Mr Algy Cluff, had entered me for the 'Editor of the Year' award Presented by the Periodical Publishers' Association. I didn't actually win. This honour, and a cheque for £1,000, went to the editor of Good Housekeeping, Miss Charlotte Lessing. But I was ahead of all the others, including the editors of Tunnels and Tunnelling, Smash Hits, Ocean Voice, IkneY, Running, Slimming, Look Now, and Occupational Safety and Health. It would have been nice to have beaten Miss Lessing as well, but one can't have everything, and the cheque for £500 was most welcome. Anyway, I couldn't really have beaten Miss Lessing; I don't have her style. While I was sitting there trembling in mY borrowed dinner jacket, she contrived, like some seasoned Hollywood star, to be away in the south of France on her big night leaving behind a colleague to collect her cheque and mumble into the microphone something like, 'I know that if Charlotte had been here, she would have wanted to say that none of this would have been possi- ble without teamwork...' Whatever else the PPA may get up to, it is certainly doing its best to glamorise the humble trade of magazine journalism. It could have been the Academy awards night. The huge din- ing room of the Europa Hotel off Grosvenor Squre must have contained several hundred people in evening dress, tucking into a dinner which cost £25 a head without the wine. The announcement of each award was preceded by urgent, throb- bing music which sounded as if it had been written to accompany a war film of the Falklands. Meanwhile, the name of each winner emerged from the depths of an enor- mous cinema screen to come slowly into focus in colossal letters. By the time my turn came, I had sufficiently entered into the spirit of the thing to attempt a modest Yet eager Richard Attenborough-type little run on to the stage, but I think I had drunk rather too much to bring this off effective- ly. Anyway, it was all very jolly and I think the PPA should be congratulated for set- ting up these annual awards, even if it must be almost impossible for the judges to decide between the relative merits of .111,agazines like Tunnels and Tunnelling and 'cue Spectator. The only other press awards for which magazine journalists have hither- to been eligible are those given by Granada Television, and they do not involve money.
e outcasts of the journalistic profession now have our own annual jamboree.
Mr Patrick Skene Catling, writer and occasional contributor to this paper,
has written to me in a state of high indigna- ------,
tion about the Times. It is not Hitler's 'diary' that is upsetting him, but a report which appeared recently in the Times diary about himself. This stated that while Mr Skene Catling was paying a visit to Alice Springs, 'a dingo bit him in the behind, leaving a ten-inch scar.' Now if true, this was certainly an event worth reporting. If this is the sort of risk which visitors to Australia run, then I think we should be told. According to Mr Skene Catling, however, the story is completely untrue. Once again, following the 'Dingo baby' murder, dingoes have been unfairly malign- ed. No dingo bit him in the behind or anywhere else, he says. He wrote to the editor of the Times in an attempt to correct the record, but no correction was ever published. Why should this be? Perhaps the Times still believes in the story and is sen- ding Lord Dacre of Glanton to authenticate it.
ALondon taxi driver, identifying his passenger as a political journalist, said he had picked up Mr Roy Hattersley the other day and asked him if he wanted to be Leader of the Labour Party. Quick as a flash, and without further elaboration, Mr Hattersley replied: 'Yes'. It is very satisfy- ing when politicians express themselves with such clarity and simplicity. In one three- letter word Mr Hattersley managed to say more about his political objectives than he has in a hundred speeches. The same taxi driver subsequently reported this conversa- tion to another passenger, Sir Robin Day. It was, replied Sir Robin importantly, 'ir- relevant.'
Sometimes, when I contemplate the Mid- dle East, I wonder if it is worth worrying about it at all. Not only does the Arab- Israeli problem appear totally insoluble on any reasonable basis, but the whole history of the area has been one of occupations, massacres, and migrations by one tribe or another. So if the Jews happen to be on top
at the moment, good luck to them. But then, even if one decides that the principles of fairness or justice are inapplicable in that part of the world, it is difficult to take quite such an irresponsible view because of the area's strategic importance and the risk that a major explosion there could result in an even bigger explosion here, leaving most of us dead or suffering the effects of radiation. So one ends up asking oneself yet again what on earth can be done to introduce some sort of stability into the area. What, for example, can Mr Shultz do during his present tour of the Middle East? Given the record of the United States, it will be astonishing if he achieves anything. What has made nonsense of every American in- itiative so far has been the reluctance or in- ability of the American government to im- pose its will on Israel. The Camp David agreements did at least restore Sinai to Egypt and bring peace between the two strongest military powers in the region, but they simultaneously freed Israel to proceed unchecked with its de facto annexation of the West Bank and its occupation of large parts of Lebanon. The idea of a superpower bullying a small democratic country like Israel may not be an attractive one. But it also seems completely unreal that Israel, which owes so much to the United States, should be allowed blatantly to ignore its wishes. Israel must be supported and pro- tected against external threat, but it is also time that Mr Begin was given a nasty fright. His own political popularity is built in part on his defiance of the United States, which gives Israelis the false and dangerous im- pression that there is no need for them to heed America's desires. And unless the United States quickly convinces the world that it is prepared if necessary, to impose harsh sanctions on Israel, the prospects for a peace settlement will remain as bleak as ever.
Ireturned from a couple of months in the Middle East to find a whopping great bill from American Express which I will endeavour to pay off as quickly as possible. The reason for the size of the bill is the ex- traordinary extent to which the American Express company has infiltrated the area. There is hardly an urchin on the streets of Cairo or bedouin in the desert who will not happily offer you anything from a stuffed camel to a large sum of money at the unof- ficial exchange rate if you present him with your American Express card. That he may barely be capable of filling in the form cor- rectly is no deterrent; his confidence in this little bit of green plastic appears to be un- shakable. It also appears to be justified, for while one sometimes vaguely hopes that a debt incurred in some remote and primitive spot may never come home to roost, it un- failingly does. I am impressed by the com- pany's efficiency, but surprised that as a result of its activities practically everybody in the world isn't bankrupt.
Alexander Chancellor
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