Diary
'There is no human activity but that
I sooner or later some public fathead won't get up to demand that it should be banned. Every pleasure has its enemies. The puritan in Mencken's definition lives in dread that someone somewhere may be enjoying himself. Slightly different are those who cannot bear the thought that someone somewhere may suffer from the exercise of individual freedom — by drink- ing too much, not wearing a seat belt, reading the wrong sort of books. The Liberal MP Mr David Alton has now decided that the preaching of the Church of Scientology is so dangerous that it should be outlawed. Now, I am not a Scientologist and what little I know about the 'Church' is unpleasant as well as absurd (though it is impossible not to have a soft spot for any sect led by a man called Lafayette Ron Hubbard; put a name like that in a novel and how the reviewers would sneer). But then that could be said by any sectary of a rival creed. It is just what stout protestants said and sometimes still say of Mr Alton's own church, the Roman Catholic: only the other day an Orange agitator said publicly that taig priests should be incinerated. Mr Alton can surely see the irony of this. He and his fellow papists are the beneficiaries of Toleration. They might show a little toler- ance towards others, however apparently dislikable. Scientology may seem to attract weak characters and intellects. But if grown-up citizens (children are in different case) are to be allowed any freedom at all it must include the freedom to be weak, to do very silly things, and to take the consequ- ences. Try explaining that to a politician. Incidentally, Mr Alton's Liverpool consti- tuency is now called Mossley Hill, another example of the Boundary Commissioners' insensate lust for nomenclatural change, which in this case spoiled a good joke. Until the last election the seat was called Edge Hill. That was once the last stop but one on the tram line to the docks, and 'getting off at Edge Hill' was Liverpool demotic for coitus interruptus.
Another MP was recently in the news after being caught in a public lava- tory. He has my sympathy except for what may seem a small point: he insists on calling himself 'Dr' when he has no more than a university research degree to his name. Not long ago this Teutonic use of 'Dr' as a title of address for someone with a DPhil or a PhD was a joke. University lecture lists were preponderantly inhabited by Misters. Not now. Four out of five lecturers will be prefixed by 'Dr'. And as I say the habit is spreading into politics. Dr John Gilbert has just been lucubrating as an Opposition spokesman; look him up and he turns out to have a PhD from an American school of business administra- tion, of all things. Pace Auberon Waugh, Dr Owen is one of the few people in Parliament who should be Doctored. By English tradition physicians are given the honorary appellation even when they haven't a doctoral degree; along with real doctors, of Divinity, Music, Law. Perhaps I am too sharp on this subject, but the precedents of philosophical doctors in pub- lic life are not cheerful: Dr Goebbels and Dr Kissinger come to mind. Then again, I may be jaundiced by having done time mot juste — in the land of Dr Malan, Dr Verwoerd and Dr Treurnicht.
rr he suspicion of 'Dr' goes with my 1_ distrust of anyone who uses a pet name for public or professional purposes. At least Mr Scargill doesn't call himself 'Art', nor Mr Murdoch `Rupie': compare and contrast Mr Anthony 'Tony' Benn and Mr Roland 'Tiny' Rowland. Whether or not Mr 'Ken' Livingstone is to be trusted, however, he is surely here to stay; witness the extraordinary publicity stunt going by the name of The Ratepayers' lolanthe. Ken knows how to hog the limelight, literally as well as metaphorically. And the GLC may be on the way out, but it is going in its own style. lolanthe was not the only new show on the South Bank last week. At the Purcell Room there was 'A Festival of Music, Dance and Drama by the GLC supported groups' which included a per- formance of Scarlet Harlets (it becomes wearisome continually to say 'I have not made this up'; there should be a neat typographical device with that meaning): 'Visual theatre about rape, consisting of mime, mask, acrobatics, live music and giant puppets.'
Progress means deterioration and better means worse. The announcement, 'For your greater comfort or convenience .
invariably presages some new discomfort or inconvenience, as in 'For your greater comfort and convenience we will be run- ning six trains instead of ten on Sundays, none of them with buffets.' I have been making a list of small changes for the worse, all part of the quiet decay of the quality of life. Electric hot air blowers in lavatories: these pseudo-towels take an age to dry your hands, while cleverly chapping them. Opening tabs on beer cans: a piercer used to be needed to open a tin of beer but at least you didn't remove a finger nail in the process; there is a new American kind of imploding tab which can break not just a nail but a knife. Another trans-Atlantic deterioration which is on its way here is the hose-and-nozzle to dispense soft drinks behind a bar instead of bottles. The bar- man presses one of several buttons which injects 'flavour' into a stream of soda. What in fact happens is that the flavours mix up and insofar as the 'tonic' in your gin tastes of anything it is a subtle mixture of cola and ginger ale.
Tmoneast year I collected a good deal of d y when Teenoso won the Derby, through no skill of my own: I had drawn him in a club sweepstake. I have watched the colt with affectionate interest since then. On my way to Ascot on Saturday I thought hard about backing him but was put off by the going. As he sauntered home I first grimaced — but even the ranks of non-Teenoso backers could scarce forbear to cheer. What a game horse he is; and what an incomparable jockey Lester Pig- gott is. This is England's Year of Shame on the sports fields: beaten by the Boers at rugby, walloped by the Welsh (the Welsh!) at soccer, a Test series too humiliating to contemplate — but even if it weren't for all that, Lester would still surely be the greatest English sportsman of his age. In a profile of him, in fact, I once asked unfacetiously if he was not the greatest living Englishman, the criterion being un- matched pre-eminence in any field. In the King George VI on Saturday he wasn't just pre-eminent, he was supreme, toying with the others. Before long he must retire and take up training (although it is hard to see how he could make as much money train- ing, to begin with at least, as he does riding). He is almost the age that Sir Gordon Richards was when he became the first professional jockey to be knighted and he has surpassed most of Sir Gordon's achievements. There are staider elements in the Jockey Club who are not quite giddy with excitement at the prospect of Sir Lester, and you can't entirely blame them. Few men have less ingratiated themselves with the great and the good, when you think of his ruthlessness, his awkward and difficult manner, and, to borrow a phrase of Mr Kenneth Rose's, his chiaroscuro financial career. But look at that race again. The man deserves a peerage.
Geoffrey Wheatcroft
Previous page
