A Spectator's Notebook
,,Mrs Rose Kennedy, the matriarch of the ennedy family, was in London last week for the of her book Times Remembered Published by Collins. I have not yet embarked 9.1)on the volume, but my advance thought is that it is likely to be incomplete. When reading the biographies of the very powerful and those Whose fortune is the foundation of their fame, I 1,1Wariably find that little explanation and detail lavailable as to the true source of their money. There are usually some references to involve ' solitent in this enterprise or that investment. But Marty of these biographies would be the better for what might amount to a balance sheet of the family's finances; the trusts controlling trusts and the names of the trustees and their present investments; the rise of their ,caPital position; and information about the real 11.1rni 11.niognPoints — the spectacularly successful
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, the help of a major lending source at a _vital juncture and, just occasionally perhaps, "evvs of a powerful friend who has come up with help at a critical time. Perhaps in years to come returns of income tax and capital will come into the public domain after a certain cstatutory period following a public man's ,„eath, thus giving a further and fascinating 'anension to historical understanding. The Duke in Paris prances Donaldson's biography of the Duke of Windsor has received well-deserved Praise. rtliastair Forbes in the Times Literary Supple Was probably the most outspoken, i'lesslY lengthy and least reverent, with his °YaitY who liked his royalties". ,T.,_ scale of the Duke of Windsor's domestic angements was known to a wide spectrum bo society, but not to many Parisians on the illevard. Peter Shell, the portrait painter who ever r did less than justice to his female bects, told me a year or two ago that he had „,',I }Lyn asked to paint the Duchess. The driver of re'te rather battered taxi he took did not c hi °grilse the address that Sheil gave, but got wn) to the house. A footman in full livery (and atilth llose and wig, if I remember the details ihig„hht.,) haughtily opened the door. The driver, "wig he was at some club, shouted Inneki A, "Quest que c'est — le roi des ngleisr INI(uup.— • • m nahsm
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adsm is defined by the textbooks as tendg with realism, one of the two main encies of mediaeval philosophy. They as°t13,0Unded the problem of genera and species, oj hether (1) they subsist in themselves or co -1 al the mind: (2) if subsistent, they are .r.Poreal or incorporeal; and (3) they are -vParatd from bent om sensible things or placed in
Realism represented a spiritual view of the world, and nominalism an anti-spiritual doctrine of sceptics. Now, I suspect, we shall be seeing a lot of the word 'nominalism' in the press, though so far as I know it's not been there yet. The word is used in the discussion of hyper-inflationary situations to describe the process of evaluating past and future obligations where a constant or other form of numeraire is unavailable. There has been no experience in this country with the special courts that were established in Weimar Germany and at other times to revalue loans and mortgages and other contracts which might have wiped out one party or the other due to the erratic effects of an unanticipated inflationary hurricane. The Spectator hopes shortly to print a major article on this subject, which looks as though it may be affecting most of us before long.
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