SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 184 Report by John Barlow The Times'
unquestioned " ownership " of Everest having now been confirmed by the ascent of May 29th, readers were invited to allot other strange portions of the earth's surface to one of the following : Punch, The New Yorker, The Morning Advertiser, The Lancet, The Scotsman, Pravda, The Chicago Tribune, and to comment in the appropriate style of editorial utterance.
The Times' interest in Mount Everest was one aspect of the paper's support for certain intrinsically mysterious, and usually inexplicable, English attitudes and values, i.e. the seriousness of cricket, the superiority of political conservatism, the noble folly of doing anything difficult provided it was utterly useless. When Everest was finally climbed many must have wondered 'what further idealistic and still unperformed undertaking The Times could next nurture, publicise and win support for. I had hoped that competitors would show their respective editorial utterances as the first stage in building an appropriate " mystique " for the—as yet—unwon locality. Someone, I felt, might 'have ...awarded The New Yorker something un-American-ly useless (the Kalahari Desert, the Gran Chaco or the Hebrides), and The Scotsman might have been guided to win Pata- gonia from its Welsh-cum-Indian population as a possible further outlet for Scottish emigration.
Most of the entries "gave" their territories (lock-stock-and-barrel, title deeds thrown in, etc.) to their chosen journals and their com- mentaries were therefore editorial self-congratulations on having got something for nothing, and justifying their acceptances. A moderate entry showed competitors unafraid of tackling the complex subtleties or blatant ponderousness of some very distinctive editorial modes : Punch and Pravda were favourites. Obviously many people believe themselves capable of the spry-and-silly, hit-or-miss manner of Punch, and even more thought Pravda easy to emulate. Half a dozen well-conceived efforts were competently solid but unalleviated by any witticism or satire at the given newspaper's expense. Of the entire entry none, I considered, absolutely hit off perfectly what their respective editorial " ghosts " might have written. Three tame very near what I was looking for, and Guy Hadley's seems to merit a few extra points for its slightly lighter touch. £2 to Guy Hadley for his New Yorker, and £1 10s. each to Edward Blishen and H. A. C. Evans for, respectively, their Pravda and Punch comments.
PRIZES (GUY HADLEY) " The New Yorker " explains its interest in the Gulf Stream Just in case Senator McCarthy asks us to justify our possessive attitude towards the Gulf Stream, the answer is—we can't do it. A fine bed of thorns the Senator and his beardless boys would have all ready for us. How; claiming to be pure Americans, could we possibly sponsor any imperialist design on this international waterway ? How could we seek to convert this life-giving, democratic current into a nasty sphere of
influence ? We could only re-echo the question. Reflect, moreover, on the more sinister aspects of the whole shemozzle. Thanks to Senator Macwhatshisname, it is now belatedly admitted that Russian submarines have been using the Gulf Stream to land agents in Florida, whence they migrate directly into the State Department . . . a clear case of total infiltration.
Come to think of it, we can only rely on sentiment for an answer. The Gulf Stream is one of those magical hangovers from our romper days, wonderfully unexplained, like our uncle in India or the frost patterns on the French windows. And let's add, before the tears blind our eyes; we like the Gulf Stream because it travels far without a passport, and because, in a cold world, it's warm. (EDWARD BLISHEN)
Pravda : The Red Sea
Fascist-bourgeois opportunism undoubtedly lies behind the decision of the Western-warmonger-dominated U.N. that the Red Sea should be handed over to this great People's newspaper. Do the effete democracies believe that the task of safeguarding this jackals' gift will destroy the economy of our organ and interfere with the flow of unbiased irrforma- tion to the peoples of our great Union ? Do they imagine that our unequalled libraries have not enabled us to read the crypto-Fascist Virgil's description of the Wooden Horse of primitive-Imperialist Troy'? Disappointment awaits the chauvinists who expect us to be unequal to a task that we alone of the World's Press, with our Marxist-trained capacity for peaceful socialist expansionism, are able to perform. With the aid of one of the many great Soviet inventions, cement, and with the eager co-operation of our toilers, we intend to fill in this sea and make it the site of a magnificent Pravda Institute, incorporating Univeisities of Journalism, Museums of History, and Monumental Stores of Union Records. Thus shall we cut short whatever Western pseudo-cachinna- tionism accompanies this suspicion-arousing generosityism.
(H. A. C. EvAisis)
Punch comments on Suburbia Mr. Punch has heard, with considerable pleasure, that a portion of the globe has been assigned to him as his property. This would seem to place him on an eminence if not equal to, at least in distant sight of, that occupied by his august contemporary, The Times. This is, indeed, an honour that Mr. Punch, in his wildest flights of fancy, had never dared aspire to. Perhaps some curmudgeonly fellow will say that Mr. Punch is even now aspiring too high ; that the owner of Suburbia has no cause to compare himself with the owner of Everest. It is true that, topo- graphically, the two properties display certain dissimilarities., Everest, so Mr. Punch understands, goes up a very long way and possesses few inhabitants, whereas Suburbia goes round a very long way and has lots of inhabitants. This leaves Mr. Punch's withers unwrung ; always a gregarious fellow, he prefers the cosiness of the suburban fireside to the cold solitude of the wide open spaces. The curmudgeon may even mutter something about the sublime and the ridiculous. Mr. Punch has always revered the one and loved the other and his proudest boast is that he unites the two in his own person by being, himself, sublimely ridiculous.
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