DIARY IAN HISLOP
Listening to the radio in my car at three minutes to twelve on Saturday while look- ing for a parking space I heard something that made me dump it where it was and rush into the middle of the road. It was not an invasion by Martians or even the outbreak of the third world war but the news that there was about to be a flypast to commemorate the climax of the Battle of Britain. Like everyone else in the street in Knightsbridge I gazed upward in the vague hope that they would come our way and then gasped as the five Spitfires and two Hurricanes suddenly roared into view and flew directly overhead. An American tour- ist standing next to me could not believe his luck and neither could I. We were directly under the flight path and despite having felt queasy when the band on the radio had started playing an instrumental version of 'We'll meet again', the sight of these aircraft in a clear blue sky was incredibly affecting. I explained to the American that these were Spitfires and Hurricanes, my knowledge coming entirely from watching The Battle of Britain on television, and he explained to me that he was a former marine and knew this perfect- ly well. When wave after wave of modern jets flew over, 16 at a time in tight diamond formations, he pointed out to me which were Tornados, Hawks, Phantoms, Har- riers or Jaguars. They were very low, very loud and very threatening. Two trainee taxi-drivers with their distinctive mopeds and A-Z maps had stopped beside us. 'I hope Saddam Hussein is watching this', said one. He is clearly going to make a great taxi-driver but his friend was less obvious material. He said that he was glad that the whole thing was just a display as he could imagine it as a raid of enemy planes over London. At this point the Red Arrows flying wing tip to wing tip appeared and unleashed streams of red, white and blue smoke. This was reassuringly like a display, but the red jets were followed after a short pause by a solitary Lancaster and then a last Hurricane and Spitfire. The American and I looked into the empty sky for a while and then parted, making embarrassed fraternal noises. Returning to the car, I found on the radio a woman with a Celia Johnson accent describing the home front and I was filled with nostalgia for an age before I was even born. This was a bit disturbing. 'Cynics are just grouchy sentimentalists,' warned the novelist Robertson Davies once in a book I had better re-read. . . .
There were two 'No War' banners in the crowd at the Last Night of the Proms, presumably carried one in each hand by Mark Elder heavily disguised in a beard, but it was not these that stood out on
television in the sea of Union Jacks. It was a lone Japanese flag that swayed emo- tionally during 'Rule Britannia' and 'Land of Hope and Glory' that caught my atten- tion. Given that Japanese businessmen are now becoming knights of the realm and that the Japanese are going to have to fork out for the costs of the Gulf crisis, it is probably rather churlish of me even to remark on it. Still no one else seems to have done and I am always amazed by these shifts in national allegiances. I sup- pose it is perfectly possible that in less than 50 years time there will be an Iraqi flag waving in time with 'Jerusalem'.
Arthur Scargill is apparently consult- ing his lawyers about the full-page adver- tisement for Mitchum deodorant that appeared in many papers last week. This showed a large photograph of Scargill with the caption, Tor when you're really sweat- ing'. This is quite funny, particularly for advertising men, and is a great deal more imaginative than hiring Gazza to sell Brut. However, Scargill clearly does not think so and I would be interested to know on what grounds he objects. Unlike Sir David Steel, for example, he does not normally appear in advertisements and he may feel that such an association with the capitalist system is degrading to him. He may alternatively feel furious that he has not been paid for this 'celebrity endorsement' and that the company in question should immediately donate a large sum of money to the International Miners Organisation. His lawyers may possibly be urging him to try the libel angle since the advertisement could be read to suggest that Mr Scargill smells, or even possibly that his financial
dealings do and should therefore be co- vered up by something. I think what has really annoyed Scargill is much simpler. It is the insufferable implication in the adver- tisement that the Lightman report, the police charges, or the censure of the Labour party or the TUC would have caused Scargill a moment's unease, let alone an outbreak of sweat. The NUM leader clearly thinks he is going to survive this crisis intact. Men's hairspray firms should immediately contact their advertis- ing agencies. A big picture of the immacu- late Scargill hairstyle should do the trick with a suitable caption underneath: Tor when you're really unruffled'. I doubt he would complain about that one.
The Liberal Democrats have obviously called in the admen themselves and have invested in a new logo. I have always been pretty dubious about the science of corpo- rate identity and I hope that Paddy Ashdown is pleased with his bird. Whatev- er else the PR specialists may have told him when they designed this image for the party they should surely have considered 'the humorous potential of it. Although jokes would have been made about any- thing, I cannot help thinking that the stencilled bird is particularly vulnerable. It looks as if it is falling to bits, shot to pieces, not joined together, half-finished . . . any others on a postcard to David Owen please. And as for the choice of the bird itself, it is a turkey, it is a dodo, it is a dead duck or, irresistibly with John Cleese on the conference platform, a dead parrot.
The BBC men have definitely been learning from the PR men. At the launch of BBC 2's autumn season, instead of talking to the journalists they played a very slick video filled with extracts from their forthcoming attractions. Of all the varied, and, it has to be admitted, quite impress- ive, output of arts, current affairs, comedy and drama, there was one programme that I was sure I would be reading a great deal more about. I wrote down 'Lesbian love romps' on my press pack at the time and am delighted to see that I was right. Portrait of a Marriage about Harold Nicol- son and Vita Sackville-West has generated the most copy of any BBC 2 offering and it was kind of the BBC men to show journal- ists a bit of naked breast at the preview so that they could put the publicity machine into overdrive. The BBC are cynical about journalists and they were proved right. The journalists are equally cynical about the public and if there are some unusually high viewing figures for a slice of literary biography, then they will have been proved right in turn.
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