— Portrait of the Week 111E MONSOON SEASON arrived in Vietnam,
bringing savage attacks from the Vietcong. Hundreds died on both sides and brutal fighting continues. Across the border in China Mao Tse-tung was rumoured to be critically ill. Mean- while British paratroopets routed 200 raiders in Borneo jungle, and Israeli commandos crossed the Jordanian border. In London dealings in government securities were suspended on the Stock Exchange, for only the third time in living memory.
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'Dm QUEEN,' having averted her eyes from the Berlin Wall, enchanted her German hosts and came home to a poem from Mr. Masefield (who was eighty-seven this week; Julian Slade was thirty-Live). Allen Ginsberg, American beat, also reached British shores after being expelled from Czechoslovakia because students had crowned him King of the May at a friendly festival. Jim Clark won the Indianapolis motor race at 150.686 m.p.h., Sea Bird II won the Derby, and England won the first Test against New Zealand. The Yvonne Arnaud Theatre opened at Guildford, Oxford University honoured Russia's first and greatest poetess, prices went up for the Proms. thgg Royal Academy sold more summer exhibition pibtures than ever before, and President Tito's head was returned to Madame Tussaud's via his embassy. One of the world's worst coal- mine disasters occurred in India, and another in Japan.
NOTHING SPECTACULAR happened at home, save that Mr. Wedgwood Benn suggested reducing postal deliveries to one per day, the Daily Worker was said to be in imminent danger of extinction, and Mr. Wilson's solicitors issued a statement recording that only one defamation suit had been filed against the Prime Minister. Six astronomers on a Pacific atoll threw stones and jumped on their hats when prevented by a cloud from watching an eclipse of the sun. The rest of the Pacific had a perfect view.
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100 COMMONS TOILED AWAY at the Finance Bill, with amendments (over 175 to date, said Mr. Heath) pouring from the Chancellor, Xnd it was Mr. Gordon Walker's turn to predict the date of the next general election. Between next October and October, 1966, he thought. Mr. Dimbleby made a slip for which he could have wept, and the BBC apologised. Lord and Lady Mowbray attended the second funeral in Westminster Abbey of their infant congener, the Duchess Ann, and Ian Fleming's black-and-champagne Ford Thunderbird was advertised for sale at £850.
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