City and Suburban
BY JOHN BETJEMAN WHICH is the most beautiful public bar in London? I think it is the crescent of mirrors and cream-and- gold stucco in the downstairs part of the Palace Theatre. I was horrified to see that this beautiful theatre, designed by T. E. Colcutt in 1897 as an opera house for D'Oyly Carte and for the presentation of Sullivan's Ivanhoe, has recently been ruined inside with plum-coloured paint. The.con- trasting marbles of the proscenium arch have been mercilessly daubed with the same drab shade, and the noble marble entrance staircase has been similarly treated and its veined pillars painted over with cheap iold. Only the bar I have mentioned reminds us of former glory.
BODY AND SOUL ONLY
When I see the prefix `Dr.' in front of a name in this country, I think of a man who can tell me whether I have pneumonia or only influenza. I also recognise the prefix when applied to the very few Doctors of Divinity there are in Britain. But when 1 read semi-lcarned periodicals I find Dr. this and Dr. that as though the country were one great hospital, and some weeks ago in an admirable review of the Architecture Room at the Royal Academy in The Times I noticed that, among many Misters and Knights, one of the exhibitors was a Doctor. May- be he has a surgery as well as an architectural practice. But I still think it is a pity that the English use of the word Doctor, which means any medical man, not necessarily an MD, should be confused by a continental fashion. The same goes for the use of the word professor outside the university where the professor holds a chair. The famous theologian. Dr. Bright- man, DD, was once addressed throughout a conversation at high table at Magdalen by an American as 'Professor.' At the end of the meal he said, 'I thank you very much for all you have said to me, but I think I ought to tell you that I am not a conjuror.' Of course there are certain popular figures of great enough stature to have the prefix as an indispensable part of their public personalities, such as Dr. Johnson and Professors Joad and Huxley, and the present President of the Royal Academy. But they are exceptions and have earned their titles by popular acclamation.
HIRAM Q. BETJEMAN
This is the time of year when those 'Visitor to Britain' notices used to be pasted in motor-cars. I have not seen so many this year, but I have always wanted one to paste in my own car so as to justify illegal parking in places where I an not known. A slight foreign accent, preferably American, a flashy tie and a jolly smile ought to enable one to be treated with the greatest courtesy when parking, say, on a zebra- crossing in High Street, Kensington, or on the grass in the close of Exeter Cathedral.
A DOUBTFUL COMPLIMENT?
I am very flattered by a remark made about these weekly notes of mine by Mrs. Victor Rickard, the novelist. She told a friend that they were just as though they were written by an archdeacon on a bicycle. On second thoughts, perhaps I am not so flattered. When one thinks of the destruction of churches brought about by modern archdeacons, St. George's, Tiverton, St. Philip's, Buckingham Palace Road, St. Agnes's, Kennington, to name a few recent cases, one begins to see the point of that mediaeval question. 'Can an archdeacon be saved?'
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