The transatlantic spelling-bee last Sunday afternoon was better fun than
anything the B.B.0 (acting this time in con- junction with one of the American Broadcasting Companies) has put on for a long time. Who picked the Oxford team I don't know, but including as it did the Captain of the O.U.B.C., the President of the Bullingdon, the Captain of the Rugby XV, Lord Oxford and Asquith, Mr. Peter Wood (Lord Halifax's son), and the daughters of Mr. E. V. Knox and Sir Stephen Tallents it was chosen admirably, and with a most wholesome catholicity. These wireless spelling-bees seem to be highly popular across the Atlantic and they certainly ought to be cultivated here. I should like to see teams composed of Cabinet Ministers, or failing that common M.P.'s, Fellows of All Souls, Editors and taxi-drivers. The words selected on Sunday were rather on the easy side, though one of them would have worried, and possibly floored, me. Out of regard for my reputation I shall not say which.
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