DIARY
JAMES NAUGHTIE Iknow spring is coming because I have had the letter from Mrs C.W. Urquhart Smellie of Cumbria. February for her is a kind of pre-Lenten dark night of the soul. When the month is over she shouts for joy, or at least she writes to people like me, because what she describes as her purgato- ry has ended for another year. And this time the letter brings good news. I have won her Pronunciation of February compe- tition. At all hours of the day and night, on several different networks, Mrs Urquhart Smellie listens. And she hears some strange things — Febway, Febu-erry, Feboory, Febry among them. They are all logged, with the speaker's name, from pro- grammes, news bulletins, the midnight shipping forecast, even modest Radio 3 trails. Those of us who like the letter 'r' have an advantage of course. Nonetheless I tingle in the warm glow of this accolade. Mrs Urquhart Smellie spoils it a bit by adding some sharp advice on the difference between 'wait' and 'await' which hits home. Yet she is what radio listeners are for, and that is why the Radio Four cliche-watch now hovers like a black cloud. Think of the humiliation. No more fierce rows, watch- dogs with or without teeth, level playing fields, top salaries, faceless bureaucrats. The world will seem different. And unfair. Newspapers don't have to worry about this sort of thing. They have become temples of the cliché. Nearly all the broadsheets and all the tabloids now appear to have a policy of despising originality — most news stories are written in formulae, and newspapers seem designed by a committee. They all now have to have one of those `list' fea- tures, and at least one column which is a pastiche of the Guardian's pass-notes and a page with the word 'agenda' at the top of it. And the language! As I write, the Indepen- dent's front page stares at me. 'Defining moment', it says of Tony Blair and Clause 4. If he wants to win the election and the Independent wants to sell more copies that phrase should go now. Politicians who like it and newspapers that print it deserve a course of treatment from Mrs C.W. Urquhart Smellie of Cumbria. I can tell them it works.
Spring is happy despite those worries. Battersea Park is looking handsome again. Yet even there, hovering over the Victorian pump-house and the cascades and the gold- en pagoda, there's a shadow. Battersea Power Station, one of London's noblest buildings, is a wreck. The roof is long gone. 1 can see it crumbling. One of the towers now sprouts a tree. The Eighties are cap- tured in the picture: this was the monument to the past that was to be the way of the future, a theme park. Never mind that it was an over-ambitious, cobbled-together plan that would have caused traffic chaos and appalling noise — what could be a bet- ter idea? Margaret Thatcher even announced that she had kept the opening day clear in her diary. A friend of hers was rebuilding the thing, after all. Then it col- lapsed, but only after the roof had been taken off and the rain let in. And there wasn't a public outcry. No wonder that Ter- ence Conran was surprised when he was judging the City of Architecture Award to find Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow fighting like Kilkenny cats for the honour and London not interested. The power sta- tion is a symptom of that loss of heart. A planning application is now looming. Natu- rally it has hotels and a conference centre — what else? — but at least it could save the building, and the magnificent control room hidden under the towers. But when something is done they should put a sign on the front of it — Never Again.
Asailed by these depressing sights, one of the best ways of cheering up is to go to a good memorial service. They are among the best social events, especially if there are grand hymns, a confident reli- gious heart to the thing and a trestle table afterwards groaning with pancakes and scones and evidence of an orgy of Scottish baking. They can be witty and warm cele- brations even if, as with this one, they are attended by a great number of accountants. The service was for Sir William Slimmings, a distinguished public man and a fine pri- vate one, who came to London from Dun- fermline with a one-way ticket in 1935 and sounded on the day he died as if he had just arrived. One of his attributes as a man of business was his courtesy, which failed him only once. He was confronted by a persis- tent but indecisive client who would take no advice. 'You are going to have to decide,' said Sir William, `if you are going to leave your money to the Inland Revenue or to your family. Which is it?' And the client said, 'Neither.'
It was good to contemplate that conun- drum in the company of Rattigan immedi- ately afterwards, in the calm of a Saturday matinee, which is often like Evensong in a nice country church. But though In Praise of Love is very enjoyable — and Lisa Har- row and Peter Bowles give moving perfor- mances — I couldn't help wondering about a couple of things. Why did Rattigan write the bad bits as well? And why do English actors seldom make anything of American accents? Some regulars on the radio, I should say, are particularly bad. Surely there are some Americans in London who can act. Or are some of the pouting young waiters lounging around various West End establishments really waiters after all? Yet Rattigan survives, something of an escape from the world that was obvious outside the Apollo Theatre. The queue at the National Lottery machine next door was bigger than at the box office.
So more power to the thespians. I know one who had to find a new way of resting between performances this week. He did it in the company of a government minister. The actor in question, a senior civil servant in his spare time, was playing a leading role to both houses of a pantomime put on by the parents at our children's school, a fine tradition in the dull term. Between shows he rushed off to have his meeting, hoping that his blusher and eye-liner could be removed in time. The minister, if he noticed anything, was too polite to say. I trust that no deft government initiative or startling idea was stifled by the circum- stances. More I cannot say, except that the panto was a hit and not only because it was written in our house (and not by me). I believe that the civil servant in question continues to enjoy his minister's trust, avoiding the fate of the important charity official who was summoned to No 10 in the Thatcher years for an urgent meeting about aid. He appeared on breakfast television first to press his case in public and had to rush to the meeting. Checking back later to discover what The Lady had made of the presentation he and his colleagues had given, he was told that she had only one question: 'Who was the man wearing the make-up?'
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