No. 532: The winners
Trevor Grove reports : In order to select the champion of champions for 1968, previous prizewinners (and only they) were invited either to compose a New Year's resolution, in verse, for any well-known contemporary figure, or to write a retrospective portrait of the year from the point of view of either Mr Micawber, Casanova, Walter Pater or Sigmund Freud. And I am pleased to report that there was an almost 100 per cent turnout.
Competitors who elected to make New Year's resolutions, per pro a well-known contem- porary figure, appeared to be surprisingly unanimous in their choice. There were, for instance, any number of resolutions from the Rt Hon Member for Wolverhampton West, notably by G. J. Blundell and Edward Sam- son; as many, almost, from Sage of the Year Malcolm Muggeridge, who earns N. I. Rock four guineas:
When I consider nineteen-sixty-nine, And all the implications of the year,
.8,F And mark the trends of speech, from lab' tcr- 'gear,' And test the schools of thought, from theirs to mine; When in disgrace with journals, and TV, I see mistakes, false clues, that blindly lead, And publish forth my verdicts on man's need, And stand declared an ass, for all to see; When, in my search for man's eternal truth, Aided by man's diffuse and puny means, I try to sift what is from what just seems, And ponder nature red in claw and tooth . . .
Then let me ask, with all the power I've got This year, not 'Why?,' but, daringly, 'Why not?'
Four guineas to Captain Rochester, and another vieux sage:
Resolved : to bate the Fourth Estate, par- ticularly those Cartoonists who perversely seek to elongate
• our nose. Resolved : to send to 'Quebec libre' a bomb or two (atomic) Resolved: to spite the gnomic Swiss in'matters economic Resolved : to let our charming little palindromic `Non' Perpetuate the stalemate with perfidious Albion. Resolved: to summon Kiesinger and tell him he's a ninny. Resolved to work with Hochhuth on a spicy `Life of Winnie.' Resolved: that every Frenchman shall have gold to spend once more— Not louis' or 'napoleons,' but gleaming `charlies d'or.' Resolved: to be the Emperor and, when we think it fit, Resolved : to ratify our choice by general plebiscite. And, should our progress through the year be marked by approbation Resolved, in nineteen-seventy to try deification.
And four guineas to Peter Peterson, `To a Right Honourable Friend, from HW': When I consider how my chart's descent, Dizzying th' Observer, leads me to the brink Of dissolution, Can my rating sink Lower, I fondly ask, almost content To seek that other House of Parliament, And drone there with my peers; and then I think, England bath need of mee, I may not shrink, Tho' harsh the Times, nor swerve from my intent : But rather, with eye fix't upon the Pole, Must, with inflated sails, all promise‘cramm'd, Drive on and on the yawing Ship of State, Till, blown to Right or Left out of controul, I lose both Course and Office. I'll be damn'd If I resign : let them all stand and wait.
Portraits of the year, necessarily restricted in manner, proved to be anything but that in matter; four guineas to J. R. V. White: 1968 proved financially unrewarding, pecuni- arily disastrous and—in short—bad, the recent increase in the price of porter being, if I may use the expression, the ultimate straw. Neither Mr Littlewood nor Mr Vernon has yet re- warded us according to our deserts; but the season is by no means over and something may still turn up. Mrs Micawber suffered poor health in the first quarter, consequent upon
her presenting me with a further pledge of our love in March. Since then, my friend Copper- field—was there ever anyone of such extra- ordinary perception?—has had many weighty conversations with us, and Mrs Micawber, who now, takes the bolus, has enjoyed remarkably good health ever since. Expenditure has ex- ceeded income, mainly because of the miserly and, unsympathetic attitude of the Minister of Social Security. On Christmas Day Mrs Micaw- ber' cooked a couple of excellent geese, which Copperfield ate with us.
. . . and, after much meditation, five guineas to the victor ludorum, John Digby, convinc- ingly maintaining a Paternal extasy, even in 1968:
`. . a year of unparalleled activity in the marts and auction halls of perfected art. Such, indeed, is the growing witness of the refining and exalting influence of great painting, that a canvas, say, glowing with all the fervours of piety, by Duccio, shall persuade some wondrously fortunate possessor to abnegate magnificently his private and exclusive enjoy- ment of it, and render it open to the entranced wonder and joy of the populace at large; or some rocky Provencal perspective, limned in all its primal geometry and with the percipience of analytical genius, by Cezanne, shall divert its purchase sum from an otherwise ignoble traffic of bourse or casino, away from some vulgar manifestation of parvenu exhibitionism, and prove an immanence of cultivation, of civilisation, of the highest sensuous dis- crimination, in its purchaser.
The hosts of Philistia are in rout . .
Finally, exceptionally honourable mentions to Martin Fagg and T. Griffiths.
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