Notebook
pope Paul VI died with most seemly timing. For some months he had been letting it Publicly be known that he did not expect to endure his mortal coil much longer. Recent appearances had shown him tired; visitors rile had lately received had remarked on his ,„`railty. He went to the summer palace at '-astelgandolfo, to seek some breezes up in the hills a few miles out of Rome, there had ° heart attack and within three hours was deadHe did not so much shuffle off his 111.11°rtal coil as let it slip easily away. In this (le Was in marked contrast with his prefecessor but one, Pope Pius XII, who il`:.1.11t so strenuously to stay alive that an ti7all communist paper had a headline to r e effect: 'The Pope is resisting Heaven.' I aet....thember that hot September in 1958: day sr day, night after night, as Pius fought to alive, also at Castelgandolfo, and the , Rican radio played endlessly, except for %Olefins nh__ , the hypnotic litanic musical n.se to which the words Christus Vincit, ristus Regnat are set. Pius received n.treme Unction twice, after each of his ° strokes. Roman papers already had him h.,ad by eleven o'clock of a Wednesday ley g i , but t was not until 3.52 the follag morning that Cardinal Tisserant 1341r000unced him finally dead, the culintulatibri of a series of pronouncements buended to quieten Rome's wild rumours tert. which succeeded in heightening its hysearl!: Thus, 8.30 pm, Wednesday: 'A less'llac-pulmonary collapse is now in progis ',.1.25 am, Thursday: 'The Holy Father clea-trih'ing'; 2.45 am: 'He has entered the agony'; and finally, at 2.56: 'With ry saddened soul we announce the 4,7,1Y Father is dead.' Cardinals gathered siniuvund the corpse, to tap his head with the taker halnmer, and to have their picture Exen• At 5 o'clock, London time, the Daily 'for which I was reporting all this in had that picture of the dead Po !"1 his pe tion. Cardinals, across a special late edirt°11,_yould not get that kind of efficiency out vt tleet Street now. And you wouldn't get „`Iat extraordinary behaviour from the VatZan. hierarchy or the Pope's entourage. The 1 ?W. 4s Iss Dr Paul Niehans, who had treated 0)(11 by injecting substances made of the naLrg,e ans of unborn sheep in order to rejuve r?4the cells, had flown in. Sister Paschria was always around. In attendance Chief Professor Galeazzi-Lisi, the Pope s enfri.ef doctor, whose novel method of f.,-.;baltning was to prove a most unfortunate :',4tre and caused the Pope to be covered in ,ransparent sheet during his lying-in-state. "(4 to put the point too-finely, he went off.
Then, there were only fifty-three Cardinals to choose the new Pope. They were duly sealed inside part of the Vatican containing the Sistine Chapel, which chapel also contained an old cast-iron boiler called a 'Vittoria' with a rather ramshackle asbestos flue, supported by scaffolding going very incongruously up and out a high window. This was the stove where the discarded ballot papers were burned, with wet leaves to produce black smoke for no election, without leaves to produce white smoke to tell the waiting crowds 'We have a Pope.' The system utterly failed, producing white smoke which turned to black after each abortive election. It went on for three days, but even before the cardinals were locked in conclave I'd found a Roman bookie making Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, Patriarch of Venice, favourite at 2-1. So it proved. I see a Labour MP now objects to Ladbroke's opening a book on the successor to Montini, Paul VI, himself successor to Roncalli, John XXIII. He is outraged that men should bet on the next Vicar of Christ, comparing them with those who gambled for Christ's clothes at the foot of the cross. I see no objection. Plenty of good Catholics are great gamblers.
Talking of gambling: why should lottery, prizes be limited? Why should we be protected from our follies so excessively by government? Why is a lottery allowed to dish out a top prize of £500,000 if it is disguised as a football pool, or of £50,000 if it is run as part of the great con-trick known as National Savings (which should be called Government Thievings), or of only £1,000 if it is run locally or for some charity? The consequence of illegal gambling is a great deal of crime. This crime can at once be reduced by legalising gambling. Fools are allowed to lose money on horse-racing and dogs. Why not on competitive lotteries? Come to that, why not allow roulette and pontoon and poker to be universally played? There is no skill in roulette, but the odds are less stacked against the punter than they are in pools, lotteries and betting-shops; there is some skill in pontoon and the odds are almost fair; and there is much skill in poker, and no odds against the punter at all. A fool and his money are easily parted, I know. But the fools who are most easily parted from what they have earned are not the gamblers. They are the taxpayers. I don't expect a government to make taxes illegal; but I can't see why it should stop us losing what money they leave us with as we fancy.
My fundamental libertarianism also extends to pets. Just as I do not gamble much, but cannot see why others should not be fools if they feel like it, so, too, I do not go much on pets, although not holding anything against pet-owners, always providing that they do not inconvenience me excessively. I am, however, very much against those who allow their animals to foul the streets and parks. London would do well to follow New York and require dog-owners to follow behind their dogs, scooping up their offensive excreta. Fish make excellent pets, particularly in outside ponds; they are elegant to look at, make no noise, demand no feeding, require no attention and don't need vets. I rather approve of these giant cockroaches now being offered as pets, not that I'd actually have them in the house myself. They are almost as good as fish: almost silent, eat little, demand no affection, and don't need vets. As for the theory that, let loose, they will breed so fast that we will all end up overrun by them: I don't believe a word of it.
Normally, even in August, I would have had something of a political nature in a Notebook like this. But, suddenly, it is almost impossible to write and quite impossible to talk of politics without
Jeremy Thorpe coming into everything. I think he should have resigned many months ago. Given that he didn't then, I am by no means sure he should do so now. I think he has to continue on the path he has set for himself, whatever the consequences. My difficulty is that I believe that I understand the true nature of the situation which is not to say that I know anything at all about the true facts. I think we are seeing the unfolding of a tragedy. Those who know and like Jeremy Thorpe, and! count myself in that number, would not have thought him to be by nature well-cast as one of tragedy's flawed heroes. They will, however, see him as one who will not readily be deflected from his chosen path.
George Gale
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