DIARY
RICHARD LITTLEJOHN Most people tuning in to The Last Night of the Proms on BBC 1, I would imag- ine, had never heard of Sir Harrison Birtwistle. The inclusion of his work for saxophone, called 'Panic', in the pro- gramme was an atrocity of epic propor- tions. It was like sitting down for dinner in a reliable restaurant and being presented with an hors-d'oeuvre of cold sick. The Last Night of the Proms should be an occasion for familiarity and reassurance, not avant- garde experimentation. If it was intended to bring Sir Harrison's work to a wider audience, all that has been achieved is to ensure that his name is now reviled throughout the land. I should be amazed if `Panic' is ever performed in public again, let alone committed to compact disc. On the evidence of Saturday night, Sir Harri- son Birtwistle is the aural equivalent of Gilbert and George, whose current exhibi- tion, Naked Shit, features the artists sur- rounded by their own faeces and baring their backsides to the camera. Sir John Drummond's decision to programme the piece must have been deliberately calculat- ed to offend. He and Sir Harrison should be stripped of their knighthoods. Instead, they will most probably be rewarded with peerages.
The Prime Minister was in the audience at the Albert Hall. At least he would have appreciated the motives behind the perfor- mance of 'Panic'. John Major has spe- cialised in forcing through a symphony of offensive measures for which there is no popular support. No doubt he would have thoroughly approved of Sir John's decision to ban the Promenaders from bringing whistles and pop-guns into the auditorium. There's probably a European law against it on grounds of health and safety. Presum- ably he would also have been delighted by the sight of a number of European Union flags being waved, although these must have been provided by the management since I know of no one who actually owns one and would imagine that anyone who turns up to sing 'Land of Hope and Glory' wearing a Union Jack bowler hat would be inclined towards Euroscepticism. The sight of the EU flag at such a quintessential cele- bration of Britishness was not the last insult of the evening: that was provided by the German flag being waved during 'Rule Bri- tannia'. This year, 'Panic'. Next year, `Deutschland Uber Alles'?
In the summer, some friends and I endured an unpleasant evening meal at an acclaimed pub-cum-restaurant called the George and Dragon, in Burpham, near Arundel. The waitress hovered over the mayonnaise because Chef didn't want us to eat it all. Chef then refused to take the plaice off the bone, claiming that she was too busy, and subsequently refused to deduct the plaice from the bill because she said it had been half-eaten, even though it had been cooked to an inedible mush. Chef also refused to emerge from the kitchen to explain how one establishes food is inedible without first attempting to eat it. My friend, the journalist Mitchell Symons, complained to no avail. Wouldn't it be wonderful, we fantasised on the way home, if some publi- cation invited one of us to write a food col- umn where we could relate our experience of the George and Dragon? A few weeks ago, the Sunday Times did just that, asking me to stand in for a week for their regular food critic, Adrian Gill. By a quirk of fate, the commissioning editor had also recently visited the pub, and after being told that her children must stay outside was refused sandwiches shortly before 2 p.m. Even though lunch is advertised until 2 p.m., she was told they stopped serving at 1.50 p.m. Have a nice day. She would be delighted if I gave the George and Dragon its just deserts. Chef and her partner have subse- `Fortunately, the chief executive of Yorkshire Water can't be with me in person tonight...' quently complained through their solicitors — the appropriately named firm of Coole and Haddock — that the review was unfair. They have also objected to the accompany- ing drawing by the artist Michael Frith because it includes a sign reading 'No Chil- dren' by the front door. What they seem not to know is that when Mr Frith went to sketch the pub he took along his young daughter and was told 'no children' even before he had the chance to introduce him- self. The moral is not that any of us should have expected special treatment simply because we work in the press but that restaurants should treat every customer as if he or she were the food critic of the Sun- day Times. Revenge, like mayonnaise, is a dish best served cold.
Some years ago I accused a woman who sold her bedroom secrets to a newspaper of having worse morals than a prostitute. At least with a tart, I said, you know the price before you get into bed with her and you can usually rely on her discretion. Now even the whores are cashing in on the kiss'n'tell carousel. This is an understand- able, if regrettable decline in the standards of the oldest profession. The women I com- pletely fail to understand are those who sell their stories for a pittance, even though in so doing they demean themselves. Last weekend, alongside a woman who had been involved in a 'three-in-a-bed session' with footballer Paul Gascoigne, there was a story about a woman who had stripped off and let a vicar rub Dubonnet all over her body. If I had been involved in a `three-in- a-bed session' with Mr Gascoigne or received a Dubonnet body massage from a member of the clergy, I would want to keep pretty quiet about it.
Asurvey has been published which suggests that the sale of car alarms is in decline because motorists believe they are a waste of money. They don't deter thieves and are ignored by police and passers-by alike. The theft of a car radio or mobile phone is nowadays shrugged off as an unavoidable fact of modern life. Most peo- ple don't even bother to report it. The police never bother to investigate because they know they have little hope of catching the culprit and the loss of a portable phone is not the most traumatic experience. Even so, a friend of mine who had his phone stolen from his company car in north Lon- don reported it to the police, simply to sat- isfy his employers' insurers. Two days later he received a letter from the 'victim sup- port unit' offering him counselling.
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