Personal column
Larry Adler
• "But I want to buy some shortbread," cried Margaret Thatcher plaintively.'
That was on the front page of the Evening Standard and the cry wrung my heart, though I find it difficult to imagine that redoubtable lady crying anything plaintively. Heath, yes; Thatcher, no. But I can't get the phrase out of my mind and it has now taken the form of a spiritual:
Mammy leader Tory loves shortnin, shortnin' Mammy leader Tory loves shortnin' bread The Paul Robeson record is the best version.
Busy Ben
Pace the Duke of Wellington, the English can and will believe anything. To give you a for instance, they believe that Benny Green exists. He not only does not, he could not. You can find his by-line in Punch, The Spectator, Musical Express, Daily Express, Pony and Wells-Fargo Express. As Benito Verdi he writes for the Corriere della Sera, as Ben Gurion-Green for Ha'aretz, Abou ben Green (may his fees increase) for Al Ahram, Benesch de Grunwald for the Frankfurter Zeitung, Benny Prasino for Kathimerina, and Sir Ben Knee-Greene for Burke's Peerage. No one man could do that, stands to reason. There is a Benny Green Factory — 'sweatshop' describes it better — where gnomes churn out the stuff eighteen hours a day presided over by a fiend with a whip named Benno Ogpu Grinstzchef. Were this factory to close down, journalism would be not only poorer but a hell of a lot thinner. (After Wells-FargoEx press add: the Jewish Chronicle, the Gentile Chronicle and the Agnostic Gazette.)
Uri's tricks
That eagerness to believe plus the immense attraction of self-deception makes otherwise serious writers go off the deep end about an amiable showman like Uri Geller. Geller's tricks have been in the conjuror's repertory for years, many members of the Magic Circle can do them, but as they don't profess psychic powers, they don't make news, David Berglas, Randi, Dunninger, Melbourne Christopher, can all do the mis-shaping of cutlery and the stopping of watches. A conjuror, or magician, is there to fool you — that's his job and he should be expert at it. That you are a journalist or a scientist makes you no less gullible. There is no such thing as the Geller Effect, he possesses no special powers whatsoever and some time, with more space at.my disposal. I'll do you a personal Urinalysis.
Stars
The recent death of Jack Benny made me think about the difference between star quality and the star bit. The first is rare, far too many try on the second. Chevalier, Chaliapin, Chaplin — they had star quality plus something else — two wild horses are waiting outside, their mission is to drag 'charisma' from me but I promised my dying grandmother never to use the word. A star appears to be working without effort. Hard work, unlike justice, need not be seen to be done. Adler's Law; whenever the performer -makes you aware of the effort that goes into his work, that ain't no star, regardless of billing or even salary. The star bit is the list of outrageous demands like making the management pay for the entourage (French for 'freeloaders') carried along by the star-bitter and having nothing at all to do with the show. Phoney trimmings like a special cable installed for the star-bitter's colour TV, Rolls and chauffeur on call twenty-four hours a day — one star-bitter refused to do his show because he wasn't met at the airport by a helicopter, for God's sake, to take him and chums into town. The show, by the way, was a big charity gala but the star-bitter asked for and got fifteen Big Ones. Some charity.
Bars
One New York amenity that I wish London had is the piano bar. At Gregory's, on 1st Avenue, you can hear the musicianship of Ellis Larkins and when he plays nobody talks, they listen. The nearest thing to it in London is at the Meridiana, on Fulham Road, in the basement, where Keith Sawbridge plays his Tatumesque soliloquies. But there is always the "Play 'Melancholy Baby' "type drunk to spoil things, plus the amateur pianist who, after listening to Sawbridge, thinks that he has better to offer. • This kind of creep has the chutzpah to get to the piano and play his five-thumb exercises while thousands moan.
Over the weekend I met James Cameron there, which justifies the existence of piano bars. We both were fans of I. F. (Izzy) Stone and A. J. Liebling. "I had to stop reading them" said Cameron, "I couldn't resist imitating them." I wish there was a Liebling here to take the press apart. One of my favourite Liebling bits was when he took off on Ward Morehouse, who wrote in the present tense; "Banging along indomitably in his car," (Liebling wrote) 'the doughty little coupe WM 125' which he has implacably personalised throughout his journey, Morehouse reported two days later, "It's wet, wet as only North Georgia can be during a cloudburst." (How wet was that? I wasn't sure.) But he kept right on going, apparently hitting his typewriter as the doughty little coupe ran itself. "I've slowed to at crawl," he reported, "Something's in the road ahead — Yes, a mule cart driven by a coloured man." ("Stop typing, Ward!" I caught myself crying. "Grab that wheel! Don't hit that coloured man!") Cameron told me that after the '67 Six-Day .War he suggested to Moshe Dayan that a gesture of generosity to the defeated foe could work wonders. Dayan considered it then said, "Nobody asked them to come here — let them find their own way home." What a pity! "Dayan could have had the United Nations lying on their backs with their paws in the air," said Cameron. I agree. Here, if ever, was the moment for Dayan's Gettysburg Address.
Tin ears
The Journalistic Tin Ear goes to the reporter whose shots do not ring out, whose guns neither bark, blaze nor spit and whose victims get shot, not gunned down. He must remember that yo-yos go up and down, not in and out and that nothing every grew like Topsy. "I just growed," she said about herself; as written by Harriet Beecher Stowe (why do so many lady writers have three names?) but that was before the Black Power boys gunned her down. Could we also please retire 'go walkabout,' which is Australian baby-talk, and leave orchestration to musicians, scenarios to the screen-writers, And 'oy, vay is mir,' the 'that's what its all about' syndrome! My favourite was the TV commercial put out by the Standard last year, ending with a zoom-in closeup of the front page which read, 'Lord Lambton and Call Girl' While. a voice-over intoned "It's what living in London's all about."
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