DIARY
RICHARD INGRAMS Returning to the pages of the Spec. after a short absence I feel rather like a man going back to his old school — a bit superior on finding that most of his con- temporaries are still there sitting at their old desks, writing their essays — Bernard, J.. Waugh, A., Kavanagh, P.J. , the Greek boy who got into trouble and was nearly expelled; and crouched at my old desk the former Head Boy, Chancellor, A., writing about the Television. What has changed is the look of the magazine. You now have a different layout, shiny pages, a colour cover and some curious little embellish- ments like the engraving at the top of this page. It looks like a half-finished basket, but if so, what does it represent? It may be a veiled attack by the artist on us diarists half-finished baskets all of us. But the most disturbing thing about the Spectator nowa- days is the price — 90p. This was justified in a recent editorial note as the result of inflation. But is it not also a reflection on how few people nowadays buy the maga- zine and also a guarantee that in future even fewer will?
Iheard Roy Hattersley in the course of launching his latest tax ideas last week appeal to the 'decent rich' — presumably the same class of people as the Spectator hopes to attract. Decency is a rather nebulous concept which I associate with George Orwell, who once when writing about Dickens's characters referred to 'the good rich man handing out guineas' — the sort of person Hattersley must envisage. But it has been in my mind in the last few days since reading John Mortimer's most enjoyable new novel Paradise Postponed. Beneath what is really a mystery story, Mortimer's theme is the decline of decency in public life, and particularly in the Conservative Party. Whether this will strike a chord I don't know, but it is interesting that Neil Kinnock's only trump card is his apparent — I say cautiously decency. With his modest lifestyle and the importance he attaches to family life, he seems to be a decent fellow — more decent than Mrs Thatcher and certainly more decent than David Owen. Whether the public share Mr Mortimer's concern for decency is another matter but I think it could well become an issue. If so the reshuffled Cabinet will not score very high marks. Sir Geoffrey Howe is decent and so, I suspect, is Norman Tebbit. But Messrs Heseltine, Hurd, Brittan and Law- son are certainly not. As for Jeffrey Archer, he is positively indecent.
Inotice how hard it is for diary contribu- tors, given the opportunity of filling a
whole page of the Spectator, to resist the temptation to sound off on some personal gripe of great importance to themselves but of little interest to the rest of us, e.g. the lack of good old-fashioned British marmalade nowadays. I cannot resist one moan, promising that there will be only one — photographers. I write with especial feeling having been featured at the weekend in a colour supplement photo- graph with my son Fred, which makes us both look like a couple of less tractable cases in the local loony bin. I would not mind so much had we not spent the best part of an hour with the photographer in question to achieve this baneful and embarrassing result. I now know from experience that the longer a photographer takes and the more equipment he brings with him the worse the photograph will be. Matey on this occassion arrived not only with an assistant but with a vanload of kit including lights, reflecting screens, at least two cameras, about 20 films, assorted
tripods etc. The best portrait photo- grapher, streets ahead of all the trendy Parkinsons and Snowdons, is the Obser- ver's Jane Bown. She comes on her own with one camera and nothing else.
Iam sometimes asked if I ever miss doing the television column in the Specta- tor. I answer emphatically no. The critic likes to think that what he writes may have some effect but in the case of the BBC, especially, the effect is nil — one reason why it is in such a mess today. Their only recent response to criticism has been to hire an advertising agency, a stupid thing to do at a time when they are simul- taneously trying to persuade us that adver- tising is a degrading influence which has to be resisted. The first full-page advertise- ment which appeared in the papers last week for Tender is the Night read like some awful parody: 'Scott Fitzgerald's story tells of incest, adultery etc . . . in other hands it could have been ruined . . . but we at the BBC know how to handle this kind of thing . . . .' Licence holders, already incensed at the thought of their money going to the likes of John Humphreys, Humphrey Bur- ton et al., will be even more alienated by this immensely expensive and essentially dishonest campaign. In fact everything the BBC now does makes the coming of privatisation look more and more inevit- able.
We were talking over Sunday lunch about the funny things that happen to people on trains and John Piper came up with the following story. Some time about the beginning of the war the art critic Eric Newton was travelling in a compartment with a young girl who had with her a very large suitcase. At some time during the journey the girl took down the case and opened it. Newton was amazed to see that it was entirely filled with lemons — then impossible to buy in Britain. The girl offered him two which he accepted gratefully. No further conversation took place between the two of them but towards the end of the journey he presented his fellow traveller with one of his books that he happened to have with him, inscribing it: 'A poor exchange for two lemons. Eric Newton.' Some years passed and one day Newton received a letter out of the blue: `Dear Mr Newton, You once inscribed a book to my daughter with the words "A poor exchange for two lemons". Would you kindly explain what you meant by this?' To which Newton replied: 'When I wrote "A poor exchange for two lemons", I meant exactly what I said.' He heard no more.
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