THE 1964 BATTLE OF HASTINGS produced one death and seventy
arrests, after Mods and Rockers chose the resort for their August Bank Holiday fracas. Casualties may have been light by Hastings stan- dards, but the road death toll—at eighty-one, with the final total likely to exceed a hundred—was far too high. Nine French miners spent an unhappy week's holiday trapped 270 feet below ground, but were rescued eventually; five of their colleagues weren't. Furthest 'get-away-from-it-all' journey was made by Ranger VII, the US space vehicle, which sent back 4,000 holiday snaps of the Moon revealing that the ground was firm enough for man to land there, if he really wants to.
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IN THE PRESENCE OF THE SPEAKER, four Tory MPs and one Labour MP, the fortieth session of Parliament closed. ITV decided to abandon plans for Bleak House, a soap opera on Westminster life. Before the session ended, Mr. Parkin waded into the Fiesta Tours affair, accusing the travel agency's owner of Rachmanisen in London : the Board of Trade ordered an inquiry into the com- pany, and this week also referred the cinema business to the Monopolies Commission for one of its six-year inquiries. Seven new Life Peers were created and the International Publishing Corporation is to pay Lord Boothby £40,000.
PRi SIDENT JOHNSON LISTED the qualities he looked for in his 'ideal' Vice-Presidential candidate, thereby excluding Mr. Robert Kennedy from consideration. The composer of the hit song Hello Dolly is rewriting the lyric so that the tune can be used as a Johnson campaign song. US Navy fighters attacked North Viet- namese torpedo-boat bases in reprisal for attacks On US destroyers off Vietnam, and the front lawn of the US Consulate in Stanleyville was used as a battleground between Congolese troops and rebels. Sir Roy Welensky may return to public life in Southern Rhodesia, while in Northern Rhodesia he Army was trying' to track down Alice Len- shina, a prophetess of the Lumpa sect, whose revolt has led to a hundred deaths.
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I IIP HOLIDAY SEASON BROUGHT no respite in Sin6- Soviet squabbling, and while the Chinese proudly Pointed out to the Russians that 'the number of Communist Parties which dance in response to Your baton is dwindling' Moscow accused China of sending stooges with their mistresses to help wreck a 'Ban the Bomb' conference in Tokyo. BP was reported to have made an oil strike in Libya that could be one or the richest in history; M. Pisani, the French Agriculture Minister, told the Cabinet that 1964 would prove to be one of the great wine years, and Gambia, the UK's oldest African territory, is to become independent next February. Meanwhile the UN decided to adopt Fnglish in ,place of American spelling, with the Oxford Dictionary the authority.
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SIR HUGH CARLETON•GREENE FELL OUT with TV salesmen, when retailers complained that the poor quality of BBC2 programmes was dissuading People from buying new sets. A further blow for the salesmen was the news that Dixon of Dock Green returns soon, with Dixon himself promoted to sergeant. Mr. Butler returned from Moscow, with little more than an agreement to set up a new t-IK consulate in Leningrad in return for a Russian consulate in Edinburgh. Glamorgan be- came the first county cricket team to defeat an Australian touring team for eight years, and Colin Cowdrey was excluded from the list of English tourists to visit South Africa this winter.
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