Portrait of the Week— A WEEK OF SOUND AND FURY,
With the loudest voice that of the Cypriot High Commissioner in London, who warned that 'Cyprus will not make any concessions, even if it means a third world war.' Peking insisted that US action against North Vietnam was going 'over the brink of war.' As it turned out, neither crisis was as black as it was painted: after brief skirmishes in the Mansoura region, the Cyprus crisis lessened as a cease-fire was agreed—with each side accusing the other of breaking the agreement. In South East Asia, US planes attacked five coastal instal- lations in the Gulf of Tongking, but after Perfunctory rumbles Peking's venom weakened, and China announced she may buy ships from Britain.
'LABOUR INTENDS TO GRAB half the North Sea.' Mr. Boyd-Carpenter claimed at the weekend. This was not the strangest election slogan ever, but a reference to oil and gas prospecting that has begun in the region. For politicians this was a week of accidents, with Mr. Soames in hospital for two months after falling off a horse, Sir Alec Douglas Home with two bandaged fingers, and Mr. Wilson slipping on. the Scilly Isles rocks. Labour's opinion poll lead slipped further.
THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY of the £1 note, which has so multiplied as to be now £2,704m strong. Two million notes that are not at present in circulation are the missing hoard from the Great Train Robbery, whose first anniversary passed this week with one of the imprisoned robbers escaping. A major week for religion, with Pope Paul issuing his first encyclical. Meanwhile Professor Ramsey said in Oxford that the Biblical language should be modernised with 'personnel manager' replacing 'the good shepherd,' and, Presumably, 'public relations officer' replacing 'apostle.' Big Jim Taylor, leader of the Exclusive Brethren, burst through London, but flew home again without giving any interviews, exclusive or Otherwise, Al-RICAN FIGHTING continued unabated: the Congolese Army and Eastern Congo rebels showed no sign of compromise, with Gaston Soumialot, the rebel leader, claiming he was 'the new Lumumba.' In Northern Rhodesia, another fifty died in Lumpa riots, but Alice Lenshina surrendered to the Government. Mr. Ian Smith IS to come to London next week for further talks on Southern Rhodesian independence.
BUT TIIIS WAS A WEEK of oddities: of a pro- mised Daily Mail-Daily Express colour section, of 200 bookings for the new Cunard transatlantic liner—before the ship has even been designed, of a Piano in the Billy Colton Band Shaw exploding, and of a boys' band being cleared of killing five cows with their music. Betting shops began offering odds on next week's Top Twenty pop records, and Lady Dowding resigned her fellow- ship of the Zoological Society of London, claim- ing that a laboratory for experiments was being built in the grounds. Ian Fleming died.
A SATURDAY BOOST for BBC-2 will be recorded extracts of a top soccer fixture each week : but this may help neither soccer nor BBC-2. And this week BBC-1 had not a single programme in the Top Twenty. In the cricket world, Trueman and Cowdrey are back in the England side, and Tom Graveney completed his hundredth century, all scored since the war.
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