DIARY

From Victoria to Westminster is but two stops on the Underground — just time, I reckoned as I paused for literary refresh- ment at W.H. Smith's, to peruse the Sun newspaper from cover to cover, with per- haps a few minutes left over for pleasurable contemplation of my impending luncheon at the House of Lords. Getting rid of it was another matter. While the litter bins have been reinstated at Victoria Station follow- ing their removal after a recent bomb inci- dent — presumably someone in authority has sounded the all-clear on the threat of litter-bin bombs — they are still conspicu- ous by their absence on the tube stations. (So, too, since their disappearance, are those posters warning that litter can cause fires; but that is by the way.) What I didn't bargain for, until I reached journey's end and sought to dispose of my paper, was that the environs of the Palace of Westminster, for the same reasons of security, are like- wise now litter-bin-free, being surrounded by a kind of cordon non-sanitaire. My host Is of a liberal disposition but I did not think he would thank me for allowing myself to be ushered into the Peers' Guest Room with a lurid tabloid under my arm. Resist- ing the temptation to drop my soaraway Sun into the gutter, its natural habitat, I therefore set off to get shot of it. Halfway along Whitehall I had still not encountered a litter bin, and I was becoming uncomfort- ably aware that if I did not turn back soon I should be late for my appointment. I was alongside a pub with several outdoor tables: it occurred to me that I could drop the paper casually on one of these and saunter away. I was about to do so when I realised that my decidedly shifty move- ments were being observed by no fewer than five policemen. There was nothing else for it: I went into the pub and paid £1.20 for a glass of wine I did not want and had no time to consume. I took a sip and walked rapidly out, leaving my burden on the bar counter. A voice pursued me: Don't you want your Sun, my son?'

Commenting on an Independent on Sunday poll which shows that more whites than Asians think Britain is still racist, Mrs Angela Rumbold, the Home Office minis- ter with responsibility towards that sort of thing, promised to consider 'tighter mea- sures', whatever that might mean, to ensure that people of all backgrounds could corn- Pete on a 'level playing field'. This seems to be the political buzz-phrase of the moment. A few weeks ago politicians John Selwyn Gummer and Neil Kinnock were the main Culprits — forever telling interviewers they were 'not in the business' of doing this, that or the other. Now they are all in the busi- ness of looking for level playing fields.

KEITH WATERHOUSE

Where does this idiotic expression come from? The wonderful world of education, I believe; but you can never pin these flot- sam-and-jetsam phrases down, and they are too ephemeral to settle in a reference book — the only playing fields in the Dictionary of Quotations are those upon which the Battle of Waterloo was won. Even when they do get recorded they are usually so out of date as to be meaningless — e.g., 'Rama- da Socialism', which the Longman Register of New Words notes was coined by Dennis Skinner to describe the new-look Labour Party whose leaders stayed at the luxurious- ly appointed Ramada Renaissance Hotel in Brighton during an annual conference. But by the time the dictionary appeared the hotel had changed its name to the Hospi- tality Inn. Getting back to that level playing field, though. There is nothing at all unfair about an unlevel playing field, provided the teams change ends at half time.

Iam glad to hear that the Old Curiosity Shop of journalism, the Fortean Times, for- merly difficult to get hold of unless you were a subscriber, has now so to speak gone public and can be bought at newsagents, its publishing arrangements having been taken in hand by John Brown, the man responsible for the mega-success of Viz. The Fortean Times continues the work of Charles Fort, 1874-1932, who was to strange phenomena what Stanley Gib- bons was to stamps. Each issue is packed with investigative reports on all manner of odd goings-on from crop circles and spon- taneous human combustion to urban folk myths like the dead grandmother in the car boot. The last issue has a story about a cap- sized boat spotted near the Pacific coast of the Soviet Union. The sole survivor told his rescuers that a cow had fallen into the boat out of the sky. He was promptly packed off to a mental institution. However, his story was investigated and it emerged that a mili- tary aircraft was about to fly from one base to another when a cow strayed on to the airstrip. Preoccupied, like just about every- one else in the Soviet Union, with where their next meal might come from, the crew decided to impound the cow, so drove it into their bomb bay and took off. As they got to cruising altitude and it grew colder, the cow became agitated, and they had to jettison her over the sea, where she landed on the unlucky boat. The editor of the For- tean Times agrees with the contributor of this tall tale that it has the feel of a legend, `but that does not necessarily mean that it didn't happen'. I don't know: isn't there a Graham Greene short story about a man who is killed by a pig similarly falling out of the sky, his widow's distress being com- pounded by the inability of sympathisers to learn of the circumstances of his death without breaking into hoots of laughter?

The argument about how much gram- mar should be taught in schools will rage on until there is no more grammar left to teach, or grammarians to teach it. Even educational minimalists, however, can scarcely object to a short crash course on the use of English, sent to me by a corre- spondent. It is the work of two Americans, Helen Ferri! of the Rocky Mountain News and Ernest Tucker of a now-defunct Chica- go newspaper:

1. Don't use no double negative.

2. Make each pronoun agree with their antecedent.

3. Join clauses good, like a conjunction should.

4. About them sentence fragments.

5. When dangling, watch your participles.

6. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.

7. Just between you and I, case is important too.

8. Don't write run-on sentences they are too hard to read.

9. Don't use commas, which aren't neces- sary.

10. Try to not ever split infinitives.

11. It's important to use your apostrophe's correctly.

12. Proof-read your writing to see if you any words out.

13. Correct spelling is esential.

But how the language does move on. Browsing in Cecil Court, I came across a first edition of John le Carres The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, published 1963 (and yours for £150). The publisher's blurb on its characteristically bold Victor Gol- lancz dust wrapper begins, 'This is, in our view . . . a terrible novel.' I suppose the adjective is still used in its original or Bibli- cal sense, but its colloquial meaning, as in `Waiter, this steak is terrible!' is by now so entrenched that it would be a rash publish- er indeed who publicly described the work of one of his authors as terrible — whatev- er he might think in private.