SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
J. W. M. THOMPSON
The Bishop of Stepney, who sees this country with fresh eyes after his many years in Africa, made an interesting remark the other day. He suggested that television and radio so conditioned public thinking here nowa- days that only a person of courage could bring himself to take an unfashionable stand. Interesting, yes—but I am not sure that he got the point quite right. It doesn't really require much courage, surely, to be out of step: not yet, at any rate. The real 'conditioning' power of radio and TV lies in their ability, or their operators' ability, to switch on one issue and switch off another. When they are giving a subject the full treat- ment it is still possible, for most people at least, to oppose the fashionable consensus view; but it is impossible to ignore the matter —which may often be the rational course.
Thus, at present the 'media' are obsessed with South African cricket. It would be easy to think that the country was in an absolute ferment about this controversy. Every small detail is urgently reported; when a sports writer wrestles with his conscience even that is presented as a matter of national concern. (And I can remember when the idea of sports writers having consciences would have been thought bizarre: but no matter.) The issue, in short, has been 'switched on' by the con- ditioners of public thinking.
Because we all loathe and reject apartheid we respond readily enough to the condition- ing process. We are all drawn into the Great Cricket Drama. Yet there must still be some, I feel, who suspect that the whole affair is dangerously irrational; that an element of hysteria is being injected into a trivial issue; and that if it weren't being shouted at us daily most people would by now have quietly decided whether or not they wished to watch the South Africans and left it there. That, in fact, it is all a huge emotional fuss about almost nothing: a triumph of 'conditioning'.
Cadarene Tours Inc
More than six million foreign tourists, it is disclosed, are expected to visit Britain this year. The figure represents a tremendous rate of growth; if tourism continues to develOp at this rate we shall all be outnumbered by foreign visitors in the fairly near future. But it is already enough to make the spirits droop. I say this not out of any xenophobic prejudice but because I don't see how this small, grossly overcrowded island can accom- modate such a vast influx of holiday-makers without paying a severe price: proliferating Hilton hotels in such places as Stratford- upon-Avon, further large-scale destruction of London to provide more hotels and motor roads, a swamping addition to native traffic in places already sorely congested, an up- grading of restaurant prices and a downgrad- ing of comfort, and much more besides.
My own feeling, at the moment, is that no nation's character has ever benefited much from dependence upon tourist trade. A nation which is for ever trying to sell the charms of its own country to others is play- ing a role too close to that of the pimp to be altogether ennobling. And now that tour- ism has become a mass-production industry, with units of humanity conveyed mechanic- ally from point to point along the assembly line, the prospect is even bleaker. Could there be a sadder end to this rough island story than to dwindle into a processing-point on Route 273B of Gadarene Tours Inc?
In darkest England
Having said that, I must in honesty admit that I am an inveterate tourist and sightseer and have trotted contentedly around scenes of antiquity and interest in several contin- ents. It is just that there are too many of us: we are unable to avoid killing the things we love, including places. When 'a coron- etted Landau' went past the Wordsworths' cottage in 1800 it was a matter worthy of record because of the singular fact that the travellers were 'evidently Tourists'. Anyone living in the Lake District today might think any day without an army of tourists passing his door was the noteworthy day.
I also derive pleasure from guide books and have just been looking through the newly published Shell Guide to England (50s). It is very thorough, well thought out, pleasantly produced. It is also big, with more than 900 large pages; its size alone explains for whom it is intended. No explorer on foot would dream of dragging such a weighty volume with him; only the motorist will use it in the field. So this guide book, by draw- ing attention to the surprisingly numerous beautiful places still lurking undevastated in England, must contribute something towards their eventual destruction by motor. But that is the way of things. The Shell Guide is also good for reading at home beside a fire during the sort of weather we have been getting this spring. I found three errors in the first three minutes I spent with it, which was daunting; but thereafter all was well and there is an extraordinary quantity of information.
Spare the poison
How (I asked here last week) do gardeners control pests without waging chemical war- fare upon their environment? Well, I am now amply provided with answers. In par- ticular several people have sent me a booklet called 'In Place of Poisons' by Lawrence D. Hills (published by the Henry Doubleday Research Association). This answers the very question. It begins: 'The gardener who does not wish to risk poisoning birds ... or build- ing up a danger dose of any of the cumula- tive poisons in his baby's body-fat . . . can change over to safer and often cheaper methods.' These may sometimes be more trouble, just as shelling peas may be harder work than opening tins; but they keep pollu- tion by pesticide out of the garden.
The chemicals not to buy are the organo- chlorine compounds, including DDT, aldrin, dieldrin and lindane—all much used, but de- clared illegal in various countries although of course not here. Buy instead derris and pyrethrum pesticides; or, what is called 'the safest' pesticide, something called quassia (which I have never heard of before, I fear). This consists of chips of the wood of Picras- ma quassioides, a splendid substance which kills greenfly but doesn't harm even the lady- birds which feed on greenfly. It is not too easy to come by.: you have to order it from a chemist and make an infusion. Surely the huge garden-supplies industry could find ways of making these safe preparations more available—especially as the day must come when the easy but dangerous ones are pro- hibited here as elsewhere?
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