Diary
The great merit of Dr Johnson is that people have strong views about him. Mr A. J. P. Taylor wrote once than any author of today, asked whether he would have preferred to write Macaulay's Essays or Johnson's Lives of the Poets, would unhesitatingly choose the latter. I am not sure about this myself, but it is a good, Cocky, Taylorian talking-point. Mr Michael Foot, on the other hand, considers Johnson a Tory bully and has little time for him. I should have thought him less of a bully, and less of a Tory too, than Mr Foot's great hero Swift, whom Mr Foot Perversely persists in regarding as an early Bevanite. Mr Malcolm Muggeridge, again, secs Johnson as simply the greatest En- glishman, and one of the best human beings, who ever lived. The most common error about Johnson is to equate Latinity With long-windedness. It often takes longer to say something in plain words than in fancy ones. Consider: 'I besought my father to remove me. He counselled endur- ance.' In plainer words it goes: 'I asked my father to take me away. He advised me to stick it out.' This is an increase of 50 per Cent My example does not, as it happens, Come from Johnson but from Evelyn Waugh, who resembled him in many re- spects.
The other modern writer who is com- pared to Johnson is George Orwell. I have two reasons for bringing him up at the end of a year in which, you might reason- ably think, we have heard quite enough about him to be going on with. The first is to do with plaques. There is a plaque
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Commemorating Orwell's residence n. Canonbury Square, Islington. There is bathing for Waugh, who also lived there for a time. This is surely something that should be put right. The second reason ___ is a bit involved, I am afraid — is to do With biscuits. In The Road to Wigan Pier, flaying mendaciously described Lancashire tel, excoriate the as 'flabby', he proceeds to excoate 'ue family with whom he was living for Pretension in talking about cream crackers In. stead of biscuits. Poor old Orwell, be- sides lacking much of a sense of humour, had a cloth ear. In working-class speech a 3cream cracker is a cream cracker while a iSCUlt is a sweet or semi-sweet biscuit. I have always enjoyed both cream crackers d,nd water biscuits (not a great working- Class favourite) with cheese but I have never been able to understand the fuss .11"x people make about Bath Olivers.
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eY. . are, I fear, seen as a symbol of gentili — rather as Bronco lavatory gaper was until the soft stuff swept the d, so to speak. Anyway, there was the '4th Oliver famine when Nabisco took
over whoever-it-was and shifted from Reading to East London. Nabisco recently announced boastfully the resumption of supplies. Though, as I say, I have never been a great fan, the new version is not much good. Mr Chris Patten, the Member for Bath, tells me that there is a project afoot to make the biscuits in the city once again. One can only wish the project well.
weekly paragraphs may have given the impression that my life consists of a succession of inconveniences, setbacks, even disasters. Thus an index might run: 'Charged by electricity board for work not done . . . summoned to appear before Highbury magistrates for non-payment of rates. . . scalds hand.' My life is, however, quite equable really. I merely think that people like to read about the misfortunes of others. In pursuance of this conviction, I will tell you about another one. Last week I was pottering about the hallway when a buff envelope slapped through the letter box. Opening it, I found a note from the Collector of Taxes in Euston Road, with whom I do not normally have dealings: for some reason which I cannot understand, my taxes are inspected and collected in Bootle and Bradford. Anyway, the Euston Road chap said in his note that an attempt had been made to get in touch with me but that I had been out. This was a plain lie, as I have already explained. The note went on to say that this was a final request for payment of tax due before court proceed- ings were taken. This was also incorrect. I had dispatched a cheque for the sum involved in September. I had also re- quested a receipt, both at the time of dispatch and subsequently. No such receipt had arrived. Charitably, I assumed that the Revenue had made a muddle, lost the cheque, that sort of thing. I asked my accountant to search my bank statements, which I send off to him. He replied that the cheque had indeed been cashed by the Revenue in October. I look forward to
receiving an apology or an explanation, preferably both. I do not suppose I shall get either..
In politics, as in the rest of life, jokes turn out to be not jokes at all but perfectly serious. After the Falklands business, com- mentators such as Mr Peregrine Wors- thorne started talking about Dr David Owen, half in jest, as a future leader of the Conservatives. Labour politicians started talking in the same way, hoping to harm him with the voters, with the Liberals and with his own party. They certainly did not take it seriously: all they really meant was that Dr Owen was flirting with 'Thatcher- ism'. It now turns out that it is all more serious than this. A few junior-to-middle- ranking Ministers have in fact approached Dr Owen with a view to his joining the Conservative Party and eventually becom- ing its leader. Dr Owen tells me that all he wants to do is win for the Alliance those working- class votes which went to Mrs Thatcher. His Tory admirers, however, remain optimistic about catching him.
T like to end my stint on the Diary by Isaying something nice about the Specta- tor. This time it is that everyone I spoke to afterwards seemed to have enjoyed the political awards lunch sponsored by High- land Park whisky. Everyone did not, however, enjoy Dr Owen's speech, in which he gave a short dissertation on the constitution and announced that he would accept his award only on the strict under- standing that he would not be chosen in subsequent years also. The favourite words of condemnation for the doctor's effort were 'pompous' and 'conceited'. For my- self I thought it was vintage Owen, one for the connoisseur, and I enjoyed it enor- mously. You might think it easy enough to organise a good lunch for politicians and journalists — the two least popular groups in the land. Not a bit of it. All the newspapers and magazines with which I have been associated over a quarter of a century have been hopeless at putting on social functions. The primary mistake they make is to give Management final power over guest lists. Management invites peo- ple, first, according to rank and position and, secondly, according to whether Man- agement considers they can do the paper or magazine some good. This is a disastrous prescription for a party, because those who hold positions of pomp and power are usually rather boring. The Spectator has never fallen into this error. Proprietors may change, editors come and go, but it still gives the best parties in London. Guests seem to be invited because they are interesting, because they are pretty or because they are failures. This last categ- ory is one that Americans can never grasp. The next time people receive invitations they should ask themselves: Am I being invited because I am interesting or pretty? Or because I am a failure?
Alan Watkins
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