DIARY
CHARLES MOORE What do you feel about the Great Crash? My own reaction, though of course I realise and regret that almost everyone will be poorer, is of almost unalloyed pleasure. This is because I am a journalist and it is an excellent story. Politics was becoming dull, and Mrs Thatcher is much more forceful and admirable when explain- ing that times are hard and sacrifices are necessary than when telling us that we have never had it so good. But I do feel sorry for the rich. Critics of capitalism attack the rich for their 'uncaring' attitude to those less fortunate, but there is nothing more uncaring than the reaction of these critics when the rich are unfortunate themselves. Those who have lost huge sums in the crash will not be destitute, but that does not mean that their suffering will not be real. Yet most people (including, on occasion, myself) just laugh at them. When they are up, we tell them they have no chance of getting through the eye of the needle. When they are down, we pass by on the other side.
It's only paper.' This is surely one of the least comforting remarks made in recent days. In a sophisticated society, most things depend on paper. By the same token, a book or a love letter or a will are `only paper'. We give meaning to paper thank goodness, or this magazine would never sell a copy. It sounds like a bank robber's excuse when charged for helping himself to a few thousand portraits of the Duke of Wellington or Florence Nighting- ale: 'It's only paper, m'lud.'
In the Listener of 15 October, Mr Patrick Wright discussed recent criticism of British Telecom, particularly that in The Specta- tor. His theme was that those who wanted the red telephone box kept could not simultaneously attack BT for inefficiency: `How can BT seriously be asked to change everything and nothing at the same time?' The introduction to the article spoke of the `hopelessly confused response to mod- ernisation'. But it seems to me that British Telecom (and Mr Wright) exemplify a terrible confusion about what modernisa- tion is. Modernisation is not inventing a new 'corporate image' which some men in bow ties think represents the future. It simply means taking advantage of the newest technology to improve the service. Our complaint about British Telecom is that attention has been lavished on the image and the service has not improved. It is probably true that no one starting a telephone service from scratch would want to use Sir Giles Gilbert Scott's red boxes, but no one is starting from scratch. The boxes exist: they are extremely popular: if properly maintained, they are serviceable. In Auden's phrase about the Book of Common Prayer, 'Why spit on your luck?' A public service, whether privately or state-owned, is a service to people. It should, in the jargon, be 'user-friendly'. Corporate image-makers seem incapable of understanding that beauty of design, particularly when accompanied by famil- iarity or historical associations, is user- friendly to a unique degree. In English, people like it. Big Ben commands more loyalty and national pride than a digital clock even if the digital clock is more accurate and easier to see. British Telecom had 77,000 little equivalents of Big Ben before they started their destruction, 77,000 objects which commanded the affection of their customers, and now they have squandered that affection. And in one respect, my comparison with Big Ben is unfair to telephone boxes — the old are actually better at their job than the new.
In all the frenzied speculation about the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales, one relevant fact is omitted. The royal family have much, much longer holidays than the rest of us. A man with an ordinary office job who spends five weeks' holiday apart from his wife has used up his whole year's allowance. When the Prince of Wales does the same, he uses only about a third of his year's supply. The royal family leave London when Parliament rises in early August and generally stay in Scotland until it reassembles in late Octo- ber. They have breaks at other times of year, including a long period at Christmas. It is well known that couples who spend a vast amount of leisure together tend to get on one another's nerves, so the much-
noticed separation may be prudent rather than sinister. One hesitates to point• out these long holidays because no doubt someone will now complain about the disgraceful amount of royal time off ('What do we pay them all that money for?'). In fact, however, taking gigantic holidays is one of the many ways in which the royal family set us a good example.
After writing against abortion and in support of Mr David Alton's Bill last week, I found myself rebuked by the Dean of Winchester: '....the Christian view of creation,' says Dean Beeson, 'allows us to see life as a developing process in which quality of experience is no less than the fact of its physical existence.' It is hard to see how a foetus denied the 'fact of its physical existence' can be involved in a 'developing process' or enjoy much 'quality of experi- ence', but still. The Dean presses on, 'No church uses its full burial rites at the funeral of a stillborn child.' One should be cautious in telling a man of the cloth his job, but surely this is not because a stillborn child is not regarded as fully human, but because it has not been bap- tised.
The relict of Roy Plomley has been quoted as disliking Michael Parkinson's compering of Desert Island Discs. She complains that all the guests 'seem to be footballers and cricketers'. An aggrieved Mr Parkinson has written to the Daily Telegraph to point out that there has only been one cricketer and one football mana- ger among his castaways. He also attempts to refute Mrs Plomley's claim that among his guests 'there were few who could be called intellectual'. The intellectuals whom he cites include Shirley Williams, James Burke and Robert Maxwell. All the same, one should not be lulled by the passage of time into forgetting how ghastly the prog- ramme was under its founder. Plomley was not markedly intellectual but he was markedly oily and all his guests seemed to be showbiz personalities. His method of interviewing was sycophancy: it was more successful than Mr Parkinson's egotism but no more attractive.
The Spectator is about to launch a new art prize, kindly sponsored by Adam & Co., bankers. Called the Three Cities Prize, it will be awarded for a painting of aspects of life in London, Glasgow or Edin- burgh. Full details next week. Next week's Diarist will be Nicholas Coleridge.
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