Postscript
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THEtti's been unex- pectedly little comment on the historic fact that our High Commissioners and Information Services in the Commonwealth countries have all quietly ceased to be 'United Kingdom' and become `British.' Perhaps less comment than the Com- monwealth Relations Office feared, when it chose to make the announcement not in the capital of the Commonwealth (or of the United Kingdom, or Britain, or whatever it is the capital of these days), but in Canada, and a month after the change had been officially decided upon and the titles already altered.
I don't suppose it makes all that difference in Canberra or Accra, but if the Foreign Office goes the same way as the Commonwealth Rela- tions Office (and why should we be called one thing in the Commonwealth and something else elsewhere?) one of the results would be that we should no longer sit with the big boys at the United Nations. Instead of being alongside the United States and the USSR, it would be be- tween Brazil and Bulgaria. Unless the Foreign Office decided on 'Great Britain,' when it, would be between Ghana and Greece. Best of all, to my mind, would be to disregard the howls of Celtic rage and plump for 'England' and sit between El Salvador and Ethiopia, with nobody able to say that we had Great-Power ideas above our station.
* Not very tactful of the War Office, 1 thought, to announce that a hundred Seychellois had just been recruited for the British army and that recruiting teams were jingling the Queen's shillings in the Fiji Islands, within a week or so of Mr. Butler's broad hint that the Government was proposing to curb immigration—which means, in effect, the immigration of similarly coloured people, who are apparently good 'Fall-out can harm your lungs—smoke Commo- dores and keep it out !' enough to die for us but not to live with us. I am reminded of the time of Dunkirk, when German and Austrian Jews and other anti-Nazis of the British Pioneer Corps were holding oil the enemy with picks and spades, and their refugee relatives in England, who hadn't got round to being naturalised, were being herded into internment camps.
I see from the programme of the annual Marden (Kent) and District Commercial Fruit Show, held this week and said to be the most important show of its kind in England, that com- petitors were advised how best to display their apples and pears by being told in detail the headings under which their exhibits would be judged. These were:
1. Style, Appearance and Alignment; 2. Bulge and Height of Fruit; 3. Solidity, or Compactness; 4. Neatness in Wrapping; 5. Packing in Orchard Boxes; 6. Packing in Single-Layer Trays; 7. Uniformity; 8. Size; 9. Colour, Finish and Skin Quality; 10. Internal Condition, including Bitter Pit, etc.; 11. Freedom from Disease and Pest; and 12. Freedom from Bruise and Other Damage.
Under 'Edible Quality,' the programme reads, `No method of judging this fairly having been devised, it has been decided to delete it from the Score Card in spite of its importance.'
'The MCC are breaking all precedent by ad- vertising in THE DAILY TELEGRAPH today for an assistant secretary.' Thus Peterborough in last Friday's Telegraph. It depends, of course, on what you mean by 'all precedent': the MCC had advertised in the Times the day before.
Don't be put off by a bottle covered entirely in gold paper (the effect is Much admired in Jerez, whatever they may say in the Haymarket), but consider what's inside, which is a very re- markable sherry. It is a Spanish-bottled oloroso called 'El Cesar' which, unlike most olorosos, has darkened only with age in cask and has not been made into a dessert wine by the addition of the sweet Pedro Ximenes liqueur. Nor has spirit been added to raise the alcoholic content. The result is an extremely full-flavoured natural sherry with an unexpectedly dry finish and clean after-taste—an excellent appetiser on a cold winter's day when, as the shipper points out, a true fino (and he ships a very good one himself) can seem a little thin. It is served at the Martinez Spanish restaurant in Swallow Street, where they know about sherry, and it is sold at the Roland Read shops in Islington, which is where I tasted it; Balls Brothers in the City; and Toni G. Porter's in Leeds. It is 21s. 6d. a bottle, and you can always tear off the gold paper.
CYRIL RAY
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