Notebook
The Speaker of the House of Commons,
Mr George Thomas, departs with the Present parliament. His successor will be a Tory on the illustrious principle of Buggin's turn. Several names have been mentioned. A very mild constitutional convention once held that only backbenchers were eligible for the Speaker's chair but that has been more often ignored than observed in the last generation, and some candidates are former ministers. But they have other drawbacks. Mr Norman St John-Stevas's
ah — flamboyance may outweigh his deep constitutional learning. Mr Mark Carlisle is too shy and retiring. The Tory backbenchers have already shown their esteem for Mr Edward du Cann by electing him Chairman of the 1922 Committee, but against that are (to borrow a gentle phrase from Mr Kenneth Rose) the chiaroscuro memories of his financial past. The dark horse is Mr Bernard Weatherill (the Tailor of Taste), Member for Croydon, North- east. He has been an MP for almost 20 Years, has never held Cabinet office but has been a Whip for long spells. He is not universally admired, but probably has enough backing to pull it off. From last Sunday the Observer stopped running a column by Mr Conor Cruise O'Brien every week. Until the election he Will alternate with a team of politicians. That is another reason to hope for a June elec- tion. There may be wheels within wheels we Ivot not of at St Andrew's Hill, but in any case it is a perverse decision. One thing that produces the true trade-union demarcation mentality in me is to see a newspaper col- umn written by a professional politician. We don't make speeches in the Commons; let them not write pieces for the papers. The rule doesn't apply to extra-political sub- jects. Mr St John-Stevas writes well on b ,„ilagehoI, Mr Magee knows more about wagner than many journalists, Mr Hat- tersleY can wax lyrical in sub-Waterhousean v_ein about gobstoppers and Len Hutton. Hut I simply don't want to read a piece on current affairs by a practising politican. There is a rational basis for this distaste, an extention of the man-bites-dog theory of Journalism , The question one unconscious- ly asks on beginning a newspaper article is, Do I know in advance what he is going to say? If not, read on. If so, don't. A column by Mr Foot which turned out to be a reasoned defence of the nuclear deterrent, orof the Common Market, might be worth reading; but that is impossible. Exceptions Prove the rule. Now that he has no further Political ambitions Mr Enoch Powell is a diverting and even startling read. Not long ago he emerged as a form of unilateralist, in the Daily Telegraph of all places. and Con- or Cruise O'Brien himself, one of the great journalists of the age, is not so much a retired as a failed politician.
It was not a bad Grand National by the re- cent standards — not high — of the race. Talking or writing about the National lays two traps: of sentimentality, pretending that the race is more important than it is, and of cynicism, saying that it doesn't mat- ter if Aintree disappears. The truth lies betwen. The National is part of what Australians call Our Gloria Sarah Titch, but it is not a very important horse-race any more. Even the triumphs celebrated in the last two years — a 48-year-old Master of the Quorn winning on an upgraded hunter- chaser, a woman completing the course, another woman training the winner — il- lustrate that. There are few great steeple- chasers about, none bred specially for Ain- tree, as Lord Bicester used to breed them. It is hard to imagine a top-flight trainer train- ing the winner of the race three years runn- ing as Vincent O'Brien did in the Fifties. It is inconceivable that any .`chaser presently racing could carry 12st 7lbs to second place over the full rigour of the old fences, as Easter Hero did 54 years ago. There is no point in apportioning blame for all this. Aintree may have been the victim of malign neglect, and the Jockey Club might have done more to encourage steeplechasing in general. But it is patently untrue to say that the racing authorities are responsible for, or even could have done much to prevent, the decline of staying 'chasers, or of stayers on the Flat for that matter. That is part of a broader change in the pattern of breeding and of the economics of racing. For all, that, I hope Aintree survives. It is odd that the bickering, in effect, about who should pay the most for its survival should be bet- ween the grandees of the Jockey Club and the punters (or those journalists who believe that they represent the punters), neither of whom have much to lose in prac- tical terms if Aintree goes. There has been less heard from, or contributed by, the two
groups who do so well out of the National, bookmakers and the Government.
ry here are alarming new notices appear- 1 ing in London taxis. One, more and more commonly seen, forbids us to smoke. That is merely insolent. More worrying is the notice in the form of a red transfer stuck to the side window. It gives graphic instructions as to how the window should be lowered and raised. At passengers of what mental age is this aimed? There is no puzzle about opening the taxi window, apart from moving a fiddly little catch, and that is not mentioned on the new diagram. Are we to suppose that there is some upwardly-mobile socio-economic group who can afford to take taxis but who don't know how to open a window? Come to think of it, there is no cause to be snobbish or patronising. Of all otiose instructions, the most charming of all is directed at the chicest and brightest audience in the land. The Glyndebourne programme book, has a paper cover with flaps like a dust jacket. Thoughtfully printed on the front flap, year after year, for those who have never thought of it, is the advice: 'Use this flap as a book marker.'
On Wednesdays and Fridays at four Ra- dio 3 broadcasts choral evensong, the impious aesthete's substitute for church- going. The cathedrals and college chapels which the service comes from ought to be the guardians of several traditions, musical and liturgical. But they don't seem to be very keen on the 16th- and 17th-century set- tings of the canticles, although these are high among the exiguous glories of English music, preferring recent and mostly second rate music. And most of these places where they sing are devoted to appalling modern translations of the Bible. The other week a lesson read from the New English Bible, in- cluded the verse, 'Happiness lies more in giving than receiving.' Apart from the crashing banality of expression this is not even obviously true. St Paul is quoting Christ (Acts XX 35) and I am not sure if that was the sense He originally intended. There are plenty of people who are much happier at being bought a drink than when they have to pay for a round. Whereas, `It is more blessed to give than to receive' is an unassail- able value judgement. The first and last word on the NEB was said more than 25 years ago in a memorable review by the great (since December, alas, the late) Dwight Mac- donald. He noted the translators' genteel prissiness — throughout the NEB, 'harlot', a word which is not in current demotic use, replaces 'whore', a word which is — as well as their unnerving aim for the hackneyed, the syntactically limp, the bathetic. At a memorial service some while ago the Prince of Wales had to read the words, 'Let us now sing the praises of famous men.' As Dwight said, the NEB misses only one trick. It should have, 'Jesus burst into tears.'
Geoffrey Wheatcroft
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