COMPETITION

In sorrow or anger

Jaspistos

SCOTCH WHISKY

In Competition No. 1647 you were in- vited to compose a letter of resignation from a clubman, or clubwoman, citing examples of how the old place is not as it used to be, or ought to be. I don't belong to a club, but if I did I should certainly have, resigned when the Women's Evening, or Annexe, was intro- duced, on the grounds that no self-

respecting,

or respected by me, woman would want to be entertained in such premises rather than in a pleasant res- taurant. The best reason for not joining a Club, apart from Groucho's reason, must be that of the son of an ambassador, who, his father told me sadly, refused to be put up for the Reform because he couldn't stomach the Act of 1832. As for resigning, What glorious opportunities there have been, and still are: from the Beefsteak because of the quality of the meat, from the Travellers' when it was discovered that a member had never left the British Isles, from the Savile because the billiard table was hogged by Stephen Potter, from Boo- dle's when the servants stopped ironing the newspapers and washing the small change. from the Groucho because so many mem- bers look like one of the Marx Brothers (especially Zeppo), from the Athenaeum because some members who are bishops believe that.. . I accept five of your resignations as worthy of reward. The prizewinners, printed below, get £15 each, and the bonus bottle of Chivas Regal 12-year-old de luxe blended whisky goes to D. A. Prince for a carefully controlled explosion from the Oldest Member.

I shall not pursue the gravy question, nor resurrect the no less serious issue of custard. I am aware that the Committee has spent many well-minuted hours on these matters, and that no useful purpose is served by revisiting well- trodden ground. Suffice it to say that when my father introduced me we dined on proper plates, not geometric dishes; nor did young men (in those days the Club had no youthful employees) raise supercilious eyebrows when asked to pro- vide a good thick gravy. Why decent custard should be replaced by 'fruit coolie', as I believe the term is, I cannot comprehend.

12 YEAR OLD SCOTCH WHISKS.

Serious as this is, it is not a resigning matter. However, reading material in the Carruthers Library is a separate issue. Viz and Mad I could ignore; the Guardian, though a reprehensible choice, had at least passable cricket reports. But when the Field is replaced by the Face — Sir,

enough! (D. A. Prince) I write in cold fury that you and your antedilu- vian, antiquated governors should attempt, in charlatan style, to 'revive the past'. I shall not dwell upon the ousting of tubular sofas from the Lounge in favour of frumpish leather monstrosi- ties, nor upon the reckless substitution of 'Dover Sole' and 'Saddle of Mutton' for such innocent fripperies as mini-Kievs, nor yet upon the bone-headed cancellation of the Athena poster loan scheme in favour of pompous 'portraits', nor even upon the preposterous change of subscriptions from Home Computing to The Spectator. They denounce themselves. But I hereby submit my resignation at the cynical decision to 'turn back the clock' — itself no longer digital, mark! — by suspending back- ground broadcasts of Radio Two in favour of 'silence'. Such intellectual time-serving bodes ill. Sir, a club where Bernard Herman and the NDO are disavowed is no club at all.

(Will Bellenger) The Carlton may well have the daughter of a grocer as an honorary member, as you have pointed out, the Athenaeum a 'Pop' sculptor, the Thatched House a market gardener whose closest acquaintance with the Far East is an afternoon in Kew, the Guards a self-confessed pacifist, but if this country is to enjoy any connection whatsoever with a past that is dwind- ling so fast that it is red from the Doppler Effect, the election of Mr Gorbachev as a gesture of apres Cold War togetherness goes too far.

White's has been called the first of London clubs. If this election goes forward, it will certainly be the first to follow Almack's destroyed by a foreigner.

'Yet each man kills the thing he loves.' In 1941 it was a bomb. In 1990 it is a bear-hug.

(T. Griffiths) Dear Ms, My Darren and me won't be along to the Mums and Babies Club no more and my friend Linda and her Sinthia too because of the new people.

It was alright last year when we first come but the two new mums that just started keep on about their husbands all the time. Last year all on us girls was the same with our kids and we got on fine but its not right as those married ones come along. They got their own homes with the toilets that they dont have to share and all that and they ought to stay there.

Candy Jones (Ms) (John Sweetman)

The ruin of this club began with the Committee's ruling that greens would-not be used on wet days, so that members came to spend far too long in front of the over-large club TV — with inevitable consequences on suggestible persons. There was Sandwedge, addicted to One Man and His Dog, who trained his hound to defecate, at a whistle, behind his opponent's ball; and Niblick, obsessed with crime fiction, who fixed up a realistic plastic hand in the third bunker which appeared to catch a lofted ball from Major Brassies, causing him to rush terrified from the course and to pour away all his whisky; and that half-baked science programme which led to two members claiming to be transvestites and thereby entitled to drive off halfway be- tween the ladies' and men's tees. Now comes your latest order that members must produce chromosome counts! Disgustedly, I resign.

(Ralph Sadler)