Portrait of the Week— ' OFF WITH HIS HEAD-100 million times':
as his washing machine company foundered Yohn Bloom found that the latest printing of his trading stamps had quietly removed his face in favour of a 6d. sign against a yellow background. After a week of hectic deals shares in Rolls Razor were valued at little more than a few trading stamps, while the tycoon himself returned hurriedly from a cruise off Bulgaria—without the fictional tycoon's formula that would save the company.
BUT THIS was a week of many bloomers: at long last the VC-10 row came to a head, after years of behind-the-scenes lobbying. While the Cabinet was meeting to decide how many of the thirty aircraft BOAC had ordered it should be forced to take, Sir Giles Guthrie, new BOAC chairman, stole the headlines by claiming that BOAC had in fact ordered. `twenty-three too many.' But Mr. Amery, the Minister of Aviation, reckoned that the figure was thirteen too many, and resolved to pass a few on to the R.A.F. Meanwhile someone, somewhere, is waiting for a letter—for many millions, in fact, that have stockpiled in the past week during the postal dispute : and the postmen threatened to stop work alto- gether this weekend. In Durham, the miners' gala was washed out by thunderstorms, which didn't deter Mr. Brown from proclaiming a 'worker's charter.' Meanwhile Mr. Wilson prom- ised '100 days of dynamic action' andclaimed the Government had declined to sell frigates to India.
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LORD MANCROFT was in the news again, after the London Chamber of Commerde asked him to withdraw as president in deference to members who traded with Arab countries. The cost of living rose, and the trade gap widened. A report on London traffic suggested that the city has virtually run out of road; the price-fixing Bill became law—and the first claims for exemption were filed; and the Court of Session in Edinburgh decided that Harris Tweed cloth must be produced entirely by the Outer Hebrides: the judgment ran to 345 pages. Meanwhile 262 relatives of William Shakespeare, whose only son died at the age of twelve, met in Stratford. The Prince of Wales, who had been camping, went into hos-, Oita] with pneumonia.
THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE dropped his first clanger in his first major speech, proclaiming that 'extremism in defence of liberty is not a vice', while his running-mate Mr. Miller argued that he had really meant 'patriotism' not 'extremism.' In Cairo the African Summit meeting erupted when Mr. Nyerere, of Tanganyika-Zanzibar, accused Ghana's President Nkrumah of 'petty Peevishness': the Ghanaian proposal of a United States of Africa was dropped. Malta is to be in- dzpendent in the autumn.
IN SPORT a terrible week, with Britain out of the Davis Cup, Santa Claus beaten at Ascot, and Trueman and Cowdrey dropped from the Fourth Test. Ten prosecutions are likely following soccer bribery charges, and the USSR suspended its humiliation water polo team for smuggling. Final oomiliation was the loss of the world brick- throwing championship—in a tournament in the four towns of Stroud in the UK, US, Canada and Australia the English effort was 3 ft. behind the winners' 115 ft.
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