DIARY
PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE When I write an article in the Sunday Telegraph criticising Mrs Thatcher — as I did last Sunday — readers send in letters to complain that I am doing the socialists' dirty work for them. This charge is quite Justified and I felt its weight very much this Sunday morning when I heard a Labour MP on the radio saying: 'Even true blue Peregrine Worsthorne has now turned against the Government.' In a sense, of course, the Labour MP was quite right. I have turned against the Government. But not at all in the pro-Labour sense that he Was implying. That, of course, is the trouble. There is no way of criticising Mrs Thatcher which does not in practice give aid and comfort to the socialists, which is the last thing anybody should want to do. So why do it? The true answer, I fear, is that a columnist is more of a journalistic animal than a political animal; more con- cerned with the quality of his column than the good of his party. That, at any rate, is My priority on Friday when my deadline approaches: to write the most authentic article within my power and to hell with the consequences. But then on Monday, with no deadline in sight, I revert to being a Political animal and feel terribly ashamed to have written anything which might even Marginally contribute, for example, to bringing the ghastly Mr Hattersley back Into office. I suppose I could pretend to Myself that criticising Mrs Thatcher is a public duty rather than a professional indulgence. That, however, would be a lot of cant. Just as politicians almost always Put party before country, so do journalists Put paper — or their particular part of it before party.
The fastidious classes used to be put off using cheap hotels, restaurants and even Pubs by things like bed-bugs, smelly drains, dirty lavatories, rancid fat and so on. Now that those disadvantages have, for the most part, been done away with, a new and even more horrible obstacle has arisen to take their place: noise. Today it is bad noise, rather than bad smells or bad anything else, which makes it difficult to economise by going down market. Last Weekend, for example, we spent a night in a charming bed and breakfast place in Warwickshire. It was spotlessly clean and Warm, with far better bacon and eggs than are served at the much more expensive hotel nearby. Nevertheless we shall never go there again, because the peace of the breakfast room was shattered first by the flaring forth simultaneously at full volume of both Radio 2 and TV-am, and then by the even noisier row which errupted when I asked for the volume of both to be switch- ed down or better still, off. I wish this Problem of the differing levels of noise
toleration was taken more seriously by everybody in the various service industries, since it has become the main distinguishing factor between elite and popular taste. Would it not be a good idea, for example, for pubs to have bars with juke boxes and bars without, just as they used to have saloon and public bars? British Rail too, should have compartments where transis- tor music can be played and others where it is forbidden — a much more important distinction than smoking and non-smoking. Likewise, there should be particularly ex- pensive hotels where it is possible to escape all traces of piped music. Never before has the gap between what the elites and masses like to eat, drink, wear, travel in, look at, or even live in, been so narrow.
0 ne usually thinks of high technology as being on the side of Big Brother, providing HIM with all sorts of new methods of surveillance and thought con- trol over US. A friend of mine who has just returned from Russia tells me that there it is beginning to seem possible that the boot may be on the other foot: that high technology could prove an agent of libera- tion rather than servitude. For if the Soviet Union were to embrace the computer age at all seriously — which they will have to do if they are to stay afloat economically this will involve familiarising at least the whole educated class with those new tech- niques which at the moment are the pre- serve of the armed forces. Most civilians do not even have the use of a telephone of their own. But once the latest methods of knowledge storage and dissemination are widely understood and freely available, the Kremlin will be quite powerless to prevent the Soviet intelligensia from plugging into Western knowledge banks and, what is even more dangerous, from communicat- ing among themselves without there being the slightest chance of the state hoping to keep tabs on such an unlimited potential for free exchange. Just as the printing press, and the spread of literacy, made it increasingly difficult for the old tyrannies in the long run to prevent free thought, so may high technology eventually have the
same corrosive effect on the new tyrannies. That is why, apparently, the Kremlin old guard are fighting such a hard rearguard action against the industrial use and de- velopment of high technology, preferring that the Soviet Union should remain back- ward rather than run the risks which economic modernisation will inevitably en- tail. Mr Gorbachev, on the other hand, is prepared to take the risks. He, however, — again according to my friend — is very far from securely in power since there are still a number of other relatively young members of the politburo who are not at all resigned to never having any chance of the succession. Under a gerontocracy ambi- tious younger men can always hope that fate will do the necessary bloodletting so as to make room at the top. But with some- body of their age in the way, the tempta- tion is that much greater to conspire to give fate a helping hand.
Artist members who present their own paintings to their London clubs are usually hurt if these are not prominently hung in the dining room, bar or some other well- frequented and prestigious part of the premises. This creates problems, since those walls are always full, leaving no space for new acquisitions. According to my observation, however, the space where members and their guests look at pictures most often and most appreciatively judging by the rapt expression on their faces — is that above the urinals. Yet this position, which should be the most sought after of all, is the least well-favoured. Nobody wants to be relegated to the gents. In my case this silly taboo takes a slightly different but no less silly form: that of feeling it insulting to any author I respect to read a book of his, or even more of hers, on the loo.
Agang of workmen from the local council, accompanied by an enormous crane, are busy in our Fulham street this week thinning out high branches from the trees. In appearance they look just like any other council workmen — dirty dungarees, safety helmets and so on. But the way they speak is utterly different — in posh Ox- bridge accents. Apparently working in the parks and trees departments of local coun- cils is now quite fashionable among the less affluent Sloane Rangers. Whereas road repairing or any other kind of rudely mechanical job would still be regarded as infra dig, tree lopping, even in a dirty urban street, is judged to have just enough connection with the estate managing duties appropriate to a country gentleman to be, at a pinch, acceptable — at least for young- er sons.
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