Diary
T am very pleased that the Government has given one million pounds to the Sudan to subsidise refugees, because the Sudan is one of my favourite African countries. It is a beautiful place, and while It would be an exaggeration to say that the natives are particularly helpful, neither are they offensive, especially in the country areas. I am worried, however, that a million pounds will not go very far in the Sudan. Brussels is often cited as an expen- sive city, but it is cheap compared with the villages between Port Sudan and the Erit- rean border. Earlier this year, while taking a taxi from Suakin to Korara, I was obliged to stop overnight in a village called Tukar, since a sandstorm — the Sudanese 'hubub' — made it impractical to continue. The only hotel in Tukar is the Hotel Sahara, and if you are looking for a hole in which to die amidst the maximum discomfort and squalor, you need look no further. I have stayed in many bad hotels, and claim a certain discernment in the matter, but nothing I have experienced begins to com- pare with the Hotel Sahara. For dirt, for stench, for every privation of hygiene and Plumbing, it is in a class of its own. In the corner of the bedrooms are mounds of tissue paper and dead insects: the basins are not connected to the pipes and have for Years been used as spittoons; the floors are trampled earth and the beds formed of three wooden planks. None of this would have been the least bit remarkable for Southern Sudan if the room hadn't cost 75 Sudanese pounds a night: 38 pounds sterl- ing. The price would have been steep at two Sudanese pounds, and yet this remote doss-house in the desert was charging twice as much as a family hotel in the Lake District with hot water, clean sheets, a television room full of Reader's Digests and a choice of Special K or prunes for break- fast. I do not know how the Sudanese government intends to distribute its one Million pounds. If a British local authority was put in charge, they would presumably billet the refugees at the Hotel Sahara, like the notorious Costa-del-Dole of Margate, in which case the money would run out in a matter of days. One thing they will not be able to spend the money on is drink. Shortly before my last visit to the Sudan the place had gone dry under pressure from Saudi Arabia, to whom President Numeiri's government is mortgaged to the hilt. .&The ban was still causing great dis- tress, especially in the British Club in Port Sudan which had been raided and £50,000 of spirits confiscated. Overnight, govern- ment troops had impounded every bottle of alcohol from every shop, bar and hotel, and driven them to the banks of the White Nile in Khartoum. There, with great cere-
mony and Islamic self-righteousness, thousands of gallons of whisky, gin and vodka were tipped into the river. Six weeks later and a new decree went out. It had occurred to the mullahs that the Nile irrigates the fields of the fertile plain, and since the crops were now contaminated with alcohol these too were to be gathered and destroyed.
It occurred to me, in the way that inappropriate thoughts drift into the mind while sitting in church, that most Spectator readers would also be attending their local parish services over Christmas. As a demographic trait of the readership this is not, perhaps, of great interest to the advertising industry, who would prefer Christmas to be spent entirely in cocktail bars nibbling designer gherkins. Neverthe- less the notion that, all over the country, fellow subscribers were shuffling into the pews with a cheery 'Happy Christmas to you' struck me as a heartwarming one. I wonder, though, whether it is in fact true. Of the half-dozen Spectator readers I know best, only one other went to church over Christmas. How, instead, did they occupy their time on Christmas morning? They prepared exotic . arrangements of Brazil nuts and crystallised apricots or devised sophisticated champagne cocktails. Perhaps the fogey readership of the Specta- tor are not such duds after all as a target for advertisers. My own local parish church in Sussex is St James's, Stedham, which is amalgamated with St Mary's, Iping, St Paul's, Ested, and St Andrew's, Treyford- cum-Didling. Although a very pretty part of the country, it could not be described as high-flying, and the parish council general- ly makes a point of selecting amiable and uncontroversial parsons. The last incum- bent delighted his Christmas congregation by mistakenly wishing us a Merry Easter. His successor, however, was lured from a post as pastor-in-residence at a Butlin's holiday camp. A recent sermon included a
vox pop poll on who in the congregation, average age 70, was familiar with Michael Jackson's song 'Thriller', said to have eschatological relevance. Nobody knew of it, but it was a good try.
On the subject of pop music, it is extremely disorientating for people of my generation, whose musical tastes were formed in the early Seventies, to find all the old names back in the Top Twenty. Aged 16 I particularly disliked a rock group called Slade (nothing to do with the art college of the same name, your honour) and their dyslexic hits 'Cum on feel the Noize' and `Mammaweer all crazee now'. If anyone had told me a year ago that Slade were about to enjoy a revival, I would have taken a large wager against. But they have, and their embarrassing new record 'All Join Hands' is on Top of the Pops every week. Even more disturbing is the way that, physically at least, they seem not to have changed at all. Their weekly appear- ances on the,telly have a curious effect on me. There is no sense of period charm, rather the feeling that one has wandered into a time warp, and that the Lent Term will begin in another two weeks. It is some comfort, however, that my youngest brother, now aged 13, also holds Slade in deep contempt.
The last paragraph of my second diary and I still haven't registered a single grumble, which is strange since I have been keenly looking forward to this one for six months. It concerns the new safety locks on London taxis, which prevent the doors from being opened until the driver releases a catch. They were originally introduced following a long campaign by Esther Rant- zen on her irritating television programme That's Life. Children and the disabled, she argued, were forever falling out of taxis and hurting themselves, and the locks would be of considerable benefit to socie- ty. Like most campaigns on television it was probably just a device to pad out the programme, but taxi drivers decided to take it seriously, perhaps seeing the locks as a means of stopping passengers from doing a 'runner'. In the event, they have become an excuse for increasing fares.
Numerous times in recent months the meter has showed £2.20p or whatever when my taxi pulled up. When I try to get out and pay, however, the door remains locked. The driver pretends to be dis- tracted for as long as 15 seconds before releasing it, by which time the fare has clocked up another 20 pence. Clearly it is now policy, whenever the meter is approaching the next price zone, to keep the passenger imprisoned inside the cab.
Perhaps I would be better advised to pay my fare through the glass partition, but I have always regarded this as a feminine practice and would feel uneasy not to be fumbling for coins in the rain.
Nicholas Coleridge
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