DIARY
The current rash of attempts by famous people to prove they have a sense of humour seems to have started in royal circles, but is at present sweeping through the Cabinet. (Sir William, now Lord, Rees-Mogg is said to have helped to spread it, by disclosing his love of corny television shows, but the link is unproven.) One of the saddest cases to date is that of John Moore, Secretary of State for Social Ser- vices. This week, various ministers were asked by a newspaper to say what makes them laugh. Most mentioned a couple of items, but Mr Moore felt compelled to list six: John Cleese, John Wells, John Belushi (that's enough Johns, John), the Goons (that royal connection again), Mash and Cheers. If I had not heard Mr Moore address the Institute of Directors a few days before, I would think he had gone overboard for humour. On that occasion he turned in a performance of reassuring tedium, at the end of which he told a man from the Timber Trade Benevolent Society (who had asked a question about problems to do with Christmas hampers) that we live in 'a very exciting pluralistic society'. What a fine, dull word `exciting' is. Peter Walker used, in his days as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, to use it in the powerful combination 'massive and excit- ing', and one must admit that 'massive' by itself is pretty boring, but 'exciting' is better. 'An exciting opportunity' never sounds it. There were only two moments when Mr Moore threatened to raise a laugh among the directors. One was when he boasted in front of Sir John Hoskyns, who spent years trying to persuade the Prime Minister to spend less, that the Government now spends 40 per cent more in real terms on social security than in 1979. The other was when he told a story about an unmarried mother who jumped the housing queue but lost her baby.
The Left in British politics is fairly free of the urge to raise a laugh. Mr Neil Kinnock seldom tells a joke now, though the schoolmistress he opposes would not be immune to ridicule. He lost the services of Mr Denzil Davies, at the unusual hour of one o'clock on Tuesday morning, partly from a want *of cameraderie, which a few jokes might have encouraged. The cover of the first issue of the Left's newly amalga- mated magazines, entitled New Statesman & Society and published last week, carried the defiant statement: It's No Joke'. I would guess this lost them as many sales as The Spectator's headline, published a few years ago and referring to an excellent piece by Kingsley Amis about the maltreat- ment of consumers: 'Sod the Public'. If confirmation of humourlessness on the Left is wanted, one need only look at Mr ANDREW GIMSON Michael Meacher's disastrous libel case against the Observer. A politician able to laugh at himself would have avoided it. One aspect of this case still puzzles some of us who followed it from afar. During the proceedings, when the verdict looked by no means a foregone conclusion, Mr Anthony Howard, the deputy editor, appeared to be in charge of the paper's defence. But once the Observer had won, Mr Donald Trelford came forward to address the press. Perhaps this is what people mean when they say that the art of leadership is to delegate.
The other morning as I was lying in bed, my attention was caught by a short item on the radio about three people, one of them a baronet, who had been charged in Virginia. They were accused of killing protected birds. Sir Richard Musgrave and two gamekeepers had been trying to pro- tect the pheasants they had introduced to a Virginian estate on behalf of the Kluges, a rich couple who have had the kind thought of setting up a shoot to which they can invite their friends. News of this case alarmed me for several reasons. The first was that the laws protecting wildlife tend to have become very strict in places like Virginia, so I imagined the three might be sent down for years. The second was that Sir Richard once had me to stay at his house on the Aegean island of Siros. He was a perfect and an infectiously energetic host. 'Do you know about boats?' he asked me when I arrived. I cautiously said I did not. 'Andrew is not a boating man,' he announced, but took me to look at the engine of his boat, usually moored off the promontory on which, in splendid isola- tion, his house stands. During a storm it had been taken for protection into a nearby harbour. Now the engine would not start. On investigation, we, or rather he, found that sand had somehow got into the petrol. 'Sabotage!' cried Sir Richard, standing up to his waist in oily water. 'And I thought I was so popular!'
The other reason for concern about Sir Richard's trial was the question of what would happen to the pheasants, and hence to the sport of the Kluges' friends. (I am not yet among them, but take this oppor- tunity to point out that I regard Mrs Kluge's former occupation of belly dancer as no social handicap.) Since I know almost as little about pheasants as about boats, I consulted a volume found last Saturday in a second-hand bookshop, Rough Shoot by Captain E. S. Lynn-Allen. A noted ornithologist and sportsman, who was closely involved in the return of avocets to Minsmere in Suffolk, he wrote this book and arranged for its publication while in a German prisoner-of-war camp. It is subti- tled 'Some Thoughts for the Owner- Keeper'. The second chapter is devoted to Vermin: 'In some cases we may find it hard indeed to maintain any considerable head of game and yet to subscribe to the letter of the law concerning some particular species of vermin.' I had heard by this stage that Sir Richard was accused of killing hawks. Captain Lynn-Allen lists several which may be found in the British Isles, including `that magnificent falcon, the peregrine — a raking, blue-grey marauder, with a wing- span of well over thirty inches — a pro- tected bird, and a most relentless hunter of all game, both partly grown and adult.' The evidence at the trial included, I have since learned, a discussion of whether hawks kill game, which according to my informant went very much Sir Richard's way. A dour Scottish gamekeeper won the sympathy of the court when the prosecu- tion alleged that a hawk shot above a duckpond was not killing pheasants: `Noo, but he was thinking of it.' The three defendants were let off with a fine, and Sir Richard has gone to Greece.
It would be rude to end this diary without thanking British Rail for a notice they include on the page in the telephone directory where they give the Ipswich Station number: 'N. B. There will be no staff on duty to answer calls on Christmas Day.' If they could expand this section to cover the other days in the year, it would be even more helpful. At present it is as much use as the notice under the Alexan- der III bridge in Paris, forbidding one to beat carpets.
Andrew Gimson is associate features editor of the Independent.
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