TI1E FIRS r INKLING I had that the Atheneum is
not altogether what it is thought to be was when, a few months ago, I was sown a letter to the editor of this paper, written on the club writing paper and signed `Twelve Members of the Athenttum.' Although the letter was such that the members were plainly well advised to withhold Their names, an anonymous letter from the Athenaeum was something of a shock. Now I see from the Sunday Ex preAs that members of the club are banned from discussing the Suez situation. That to men- tion Suez in the Athenaeum should be like men- tioning a lady's name in the mess—Not done here, old man'—is certainly a sign of the times. The Suez tabu seems, however, to have less of the Army about it than of the OTC. According to the same report it has been conveyed to the Archbishop of Canterbury that in criticising the Government's policy on Cyprus in the club be had committed a social blunder. `I say, you chaps, that dirty swot Fisher is talking utter bilge again; the rotter's running down the school. Scrag him!' If some of the most eminent men in the country are not allowed to express their views on some of the most important issues of the day in their own club, what, I wonder, is the point of the place? Not, I take it, its cuisine.
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