Postscript . .
I WONDER how many man- hours and tempers were lost in London last week, how many appointments missed and meals spoiled, because of the traffic jams caused by the State visit and the Royal garden party? Surely the case becomes stronger with every party and every procession for the Court to move from Buckingham Palace to Windsor? I imagine that State visitors, such as the King and Queer, of Thailand, could be put up there in some comfort, and with no incon- venience to their Royal hosts, and they could drive into London of an evening, after the road from Windsor and the streets of the capital have all become clearer of traffic, for such inescapable frolics as Guildhall banquets (dinners, instead of luncheons) and gala performances at Covent Garden. Those citizens who want to stand and cheer could do so just as easily in the evening as at noon, and many could do so who under the present dispensation are at work when monarchs are driving around: Most of the guests invited to Royal garden parties would be just as pleased and just as proud to go to Windsor Great Park as to • Buckingham Palace, and they would be causing much less inconvenience to their less- privileged fellow-citizens. And there are splerdid stamping-grounds there for such ceremonials as Trooping the Colour. In any case, I should have thought it was pleasanter for the family itself to live at Windsor than in Pimlico, though there's no longer the pong there used to be from the brewery.
The story—specially set in train by women journalists for women journalists to gush (Ater— of how the King and Queen of Thailand were driven in a bus from the Thai Embassy to Claridge's, with the Queen tendering a token sixpence, and the driver being asked to tea, reminds me of a war-time tale that J. Beach- comber Morton used to tell. An elderly peer, he would recount, boasted to a fellow-legislator of how he had put up his Daimler for the duration and went everywhere by bus—lust the thing for a feller like you : not only your patriotic duty but you hear what ordinary chaps are talking about—salt of the earth—can't think why Eve never done it before.' His noble friend was deeply impressed, and instead of calling for a taxi to take him home, duly waited for a bus at the bottom of Whitehall. When the conductor came to him, he tendered a handful of silver and said, 'Number 143 Belgrave Square.' The thousand-page China Yearbook 1959-60 (which I didn't realise until I came across the phrase 'Communist aggression' is, in fact, the Formosa Yearbook) reveals that among the foreign correspondents accredited to the capital, along with Mr. Charli. Chen of King Features and Mr. Masayoshi Wakana of Mainichi, the representative of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is Mr. Newsreel Wong. I hope that this will be accepted as capping, and thus putting out of circulation, the weary quip about Jones the Photo. It is to the Harlow and West Essex Gazette, on the other hand, that 1 am indebted for the information that the secondary school headmaster in those parts who is so opposed to corporal punishment that 'my secretary has to get me a cup of tea after 1 cane a boy because I feel so ill, is a Mr. Bottoms.
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Rules being drafted for the British athletes who are going to Rome for the Olympic Games are said to forbid them to eat fresh fruit, ice-cream or salads outside the camp, and to drink Roman tap-water. Well, I used to hear tell of a high-born British traveller who was equally suspicious of Paris tap-water, and who used to brush his teeth, night and morning, with a young and unassum- ing white burgundy. But I suppose the medical sub-committee of the British Olympic Associa- tion would be just as doubtful about Chianti for English teeth as they are about Italian peaches, figs, grapes, apricots, melons and pears for the English stomach. No doubt we shall put up quite a decent showing on our good old English diet of tinned monosodium glutomate-and-Californian- tomato soup, baked Boston beans on margarined toast, and tinned Florida peaches in custard- powder sauce.
Among the public relations consultants now in town is a lady from Park Avenue, New York, who, according to World's Press News, 'special- ises in government trade mission publicity' and is currently conducting a campaign on behalf of the Japan External Trade Recovery Organisation in the United States to popularise the use of undersize tuna-fish in hot dogs.'
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Eighteen months or so ago when I last wrote here about Lagosta, the very slightly sparkling (indeed, 'prickly' rather than effervescent) Portu- guese vinho verde, it cost I Is. a little half-litre flagon, two-thirds the capacity of the usual wine- bottle. Now, thanks to the Budget concessions on wines imported in bottle, it is down to 9s. 9d., a very reasonable price for a bottle that is just right for a luncheon for two. Whether lagosta, in Portuguese. means lobster. as the shippers say it does, or whether, as I suspect, and as the picture on the label suggests, it is the same word as the French langonste and the Italian arragosta,, and means crayfish, it was served by the shippers the other day at a lobster luncheon, and went down a treat. It was wintertime when 1 wrote about ii before, and I recorded how it had benefited a sufferer from a chill on the stomach because 'it is light and not too acid, so that it is easy to digest, and its fizz gives it a tonic quality.' Now, in this summer of a sort, it shows itself a refresh- ing warm-weather drink with cold meals. Kettners and Francis Downman stock it, both in Soho, and so do Embersons and the Knights- bridge Cellars, both in Kensington, and Coopers Stores, in the Edgware Road and opposite Har- rods. I still like the white better than the pink.
CYRIL RAY
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