Portrait of the Week
PRINCESS MARGARET made the gossip-columnists look even more inept at their dingy trade than usual when her engagement was announced to a Young man that none of them had even hinted at as a starter. A number of amateur journalists suddenly recalled how well they had known, and how highly they had esteemed Mr, Armstrong- Janes, and—it seemed—that they had always called him 'Tony.'
THE LABOUR PARTY again fell out in public—this time in the House of Commons over the defence debate, during which Mr. Gaitskell, Mr. Shinwell and Mr. Strachey all set about each other, and Mr. Soames laughed to see such fun. Sir Anthony Eden published what he remembered about the Suez affair, and Mr. Watkinson, the Minister of Defence, opined in the House of Commons that 'before long' we would have 'a perfect assault force.' In Trafalgar Square, Sir Oswald Mosley and his chivalrous followers had a bash at some of the supporters of the boycott of South African goods. The Local Government Commission recommended a number of changes in the admini- strative structure of the Midlands, including the merger of the counties of Rutland and Leicester- shire. Mr. David Davenport-Handley, chairman of the Rutland magistrates, said that the people of his county would fight the proposal `to the last rut.'
* THE ISLAND OF MAURITIUS was struck by its second cyclone in six weeks and its worst since 1892: at least ten killed. Agadir was destroyed by the worst earthquake recorded since the city of Lisbon fell down in 1757: probably some thousands dead, and tens of thousands more trapped or homeless. Mr. Chou En-lai accepted Mr. Nehru's invitation to Delhi to talk about the disputed frontier between India and China, and Mr. Khrushchev said that those two and other Asian countries should be represented at future summit conferences. Britain, France and the United States proposed to fly supply planes at over 10,000 feet along the air corridors to Berlin, and the Russians said they mustn't. The Yugo- slav Government released two elderly Social Democrats after only two years of much longer sentences they had been awarded for plotting against the regime. Sir Roy Welensky revealed to a Daily Ex press correspondent that a province of the Belgian Congo, soon to become indepen- dent, will secede in order to adhere to the Federa- tion. Vauxhall Motors announced that they would set on a plant by the waters of Mersey, the World Bank said that all was set for an Indian- Pakistani agreement on the waters of Indus, and the Arab League Council expressed concern over what Israel was .up to with the waters of Jordan.
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SEVEN HUNDRED MEN AND WOMEN set off to walk from John o' Groats to Land's End, not as a comment on the reliability of British Railways, but for the greater glory of Mr. Billy Butlin and the chance of it £1,000 prize. The Treasury an- nounced that there would be more money for the ,aqs, and Mr. Alexander Maitland, QC, gave half a million pounds' worth of assorted nine- teenth- and twentieth-century French paintings to the National Gallery of Scotland. Sgt. Elvis Presley, a former entertainer, held a press con- ference to mark his withdrawal from the military life, and said that 'the Army has done wonders for me.' Among the wonders: sixty mili- tary policemen to line the route to his press con- ference, and comrades-in-arms to hand out photo- graphs and biographies of the sergeant to the reporters. In the Blantyre inquiry a witness recalled that Africans bearing banners said, 'Orton Chirwa isn't everybody : we're the Bow Group of the Malawi Congress Party.
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