DIARY
IAN HISLOP
An
American journalist rang me up this week and explained that she was writ- ing an article about how useless England was at everything at the moment. In poli- tics, sport and even in dealing with the weather this country seemed to be particu- larly hopeless. That was her angle. Did I have any thoughts? I did, as it happened, but most of them were about American Journalists and lakes and jumping in them, so I did not immediately reply. It's odd when patriotism sneaks up on you. I have not felt so patriotic since I listened to Vera Lynn singing on Ditch ling Beacon at the Jubilee. 'I mean,' asked the journalist, 'why exactly are people so unhappy about the football result?' I explained that, although losing to most teams was just embarrassing, losing 2-0 to America was utterly humiliat- ing. There was a bit of a silence, during which I remembered that I don't even like football.
This woman not only wanted to tell me that the English are incompetent but that we are also depressed about it. Her piece was no one in England being merry any more. I did not feel particularly unmerry, certainly not about the football, but she gave up on sport and changed the subject. `What about the weather?' I told her that I thought perhaps the Tories were to blame. `What about the Government?' I was cer- tain that the Tories were to blame for that and, when pressed, I came up with some heavyweight analysis along the lines that John Major was not very good at being Prime Minister. This insight fitted broadly into the American's thesis about us all being a dead loss at everything, but it did not really cover what she considered to be the mood of the country. She asked me whether the Lamont episode was one of the contributing factors to the nation's state of depression. Since I was not convinced we were depressed, it was difficult to say. Nor- man Lamont seemed to me to have given everyone a good laugh recently, and per- sonally his speech cheered me up no end.
But the monarchy is in a terrible state, isn't it?' insisted the voice at the other end of the phone. That was true enough. However, I was again about to explain that we have a very long tradition of laughing at the state of the royal family rather than crying about it when the jour- nalist moved on to the last example in her Catalogue of failing English institutions. She was obviously convinced that this one would plunge me into gloom. 'Look at the aristocracy,' she said. 'What was your reac-
tion to seeing the Marquess of Blandford on the front pages of the newspapers?' I told her the truth. 'Boredom.' This was the wrong answer again and, thanking me for my help, she hung up. In fact I got the feel- ing I had helped: I had proved her point about us being useless at everything by being useless even at giving her suitably depressed quotes.
The American papers wanted the Blandford saga as a sort of Blenheim Revis- ited, but I can't help thinking that it is a much older story than that. I have been writing about the Roman satirist Juvenal recently, and came across a passage about a young nobleman called Ponticus who is boasting about his ancestors. Juvenal asks him, 'Why have so many portraits of gener- als around if you spend the whole night gambling under their noses, if you are ready for bed at daybreak when they would be up and striking camp?' From Ponticus to the heir of the Duke of Marlborough is not really very far. Juvenal talks of another young aristocrat who 'blots the family scutcheon by traffic in illegal drugs'. And he then comments that 'blue blood has a special licence and gets away with behaviour that would shame a working man'. As the Marquess of Blandford emerges from a very short prison sentence for a very long list of charges, it does seem that little changes in 2,000 years.
This was not the view of the Daily Mail which ran a perverse analysis of Blandford, arguing that he was a victim of modern egalitarianism. Andrew Roberts, who, judg- ing from his byline, did not appear to be titled himself and therefore probably not a victim of this new 'inverse class prejudice', reckoned that it was all the fault of the Six- ties and the classless society. He summed up the problem as 'the middle classes have deprived the aristocracy of their ancient and natural role as society's leaders'. That was why Blandford was in a mess and that is why the country was in a mess. Having heard this argument not only in the Daily Mail but occasionally in pubs and school debating societies, I tried to follow it through. At the moment it would mean get- ting rid of Major. Fair enough. And then replacing him with someone aristocratic who would naturally lead the country into a better future. How about Alan Clark? I do not think that leadership works like that. I prefer Napoleon's remark when he was sur- rounded by French aristocrats banging on about their ancestors. He told them: :le suis un ancetre.'
0 ne thing did depress me this week and that was the cricket, not the Test match but the game I played on Sunday when I was out leg before wicket. Cricket is an annoying game and being out is always irri- tating, but being given out lbw is particular- ly infuriating. This is because no one at the level I play knows the laws and everybody who comes on to umpire pretends that he does. This ball, take my word for it, could not possibly have bit the stumps and yet there was the umpire's finger going up. A diary in The Spectator is certainly no place to settle minor scores about friendly cricket matches and it would be entirely inappro- priate to name the umpire. But I do think that Arthur Smith, the comedian and play- wright who spent last Thursday evening being so amusing on Clive Anderson's TV show, could perhaps have used the evening more profitably — by reading the lbw law.
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