6 JANUARY 1956, Page 7

THE NEW Astronomer Royal, Dr. Woolley, deserves a special medal

for announcing at London Airport on his arrival from Sydney that all this talk of interplanetary travel is 'utter bilge' and 'rather rot.' I have no particular objection to 'science fiction' (although it is vastly inferior artistically to the Wild Western and detective genres), but things were coming to a pretty pass when grown men began to indulge their fantasies in solemn books and speeches. I wish the Astronomer Royal had gone a little further and told them to take up model yachting instead. That is a much prettier pastime than dreaming about going to Mars with a goldfish-bowl over one's head and a super- concentrated food lozenge under the tongue. PHAROS