— Portrait of the Week
THE SILLIEST WEEK OF THE YEAR : the Easter holiday sent the world berserk. The Chaos for Nuclear Disarmament rambled into London, after a ludicrous procession through the English countryside. The 'March Must Decide' group vied for popular attention with the Federation of London Anarchists, and lost. Thousands of Pamphlets containing rumoured 'secrets' were distributed during the march, and a breakaway group visited a supposedly `secret' government base. The press could not say where this was, but informed sources (all 15,000 of them) suggest that it is rumoured to be three hours' walk (Aldermaston pace) along the A4 from Reading to Slough, Meanwhile fifty disarmers refused to leave Dilisseldorf airport over the holiday, but relented when allowed to bring back seven Germans with them. Lenny Bruce came and went again, and some Guardsmen walked out. Lord Snowdon became Constable of Caernarvon Castle, two men crossed the Channel by balloon, two Liverpool students were rescued after trying the same by 3 raft, a boy scout walked 120 miles in forty-eight hours, a Scottish ski-ing champion- ship was cancelled because it was snowing, and, although the weather forecasters promised sun and showers, it snowed.
MAC' WORLD, MAD KINGS, mad composition.' Prisoners revolted because though they were encouraged to buy fresh eggs they were not allowed to cook them, and the London Hilton was opened in a blaze of publicity, if not glory. The press were invited to watch (on closed- circuit television) the celebration lunch in progress. The TUC called for equal rights for Women, just as women in Crawley picketed the World marbles championships because they were excluded, and Libyan women were given the vote. A Californian art prize was won by a twenty-two-month-old girl, a fifteen-stone Indian MP was forcibly carried out of the New Delhi Parliament — by six men — and there were the of hot swastika buns being made in bed Midlands. Caroline Maudling was taken to bed jaundiced, Lord Spens is to marry again at seventy-seven, and Jackie Kennedy is pregnant again. It was also bob-a-job week.
THE EASTER CONFERENCES brought an unusual degree of fatuity: the Communists spoke well of the Pope, the teachers ill of Sir Edward Boyle and the Co-ops angrily of the never-never. Dr. Aderiauer said, know when I'm going,' and Mr. Diefenbaker realised that all his hopes had gone.
Enahoro had his plea for asylum rejected by the Commons. *
FRANK HAXELL, EX-ETU SECRETARY, was neatly `de-personed' by the Communists, who gently erased him from all their records, the Soviet poet Yevtushenko had to abandon his intended tour of the US, and the pianist Ashkenazy chose liberty. It was revealed that the Royal tour of Australia cost £100,000, that tickets for Princess Alexandra's wedding are now available at £25 each and that the statue of Queen Victoria in Weymouth has gone green, but the Council
cannot afford to clean it. A Guardsman practising at rt;
–nsLeY sneezed, and shot his commanding officer; Jimmy Edwards was adopted Tory candidate at Paddington North; the Coal Board said Lord Hailsham's claims that a new power station will be built in Durham were totally u_nf founded, and Billie Sol Estes was sentenced to fifteen years° imprisonment for fraud in Texas.
the COMPLETE A WEEK of HUM in April there was e more serious side to affairs. The NUR threatened a three-day rail strike, an American aide brnarine went down with 129 lives lost, and an
to Eichmann who was expelled from Switzerland was arrested in Austria.
Previous page
