DIARY
President Reagan has partly, but only partly, adopted the suggestion I made two weeks ago that all Middle Eastern airports Should be put in quarantine. I was fortified by the support of Mr Brian Walden — though Mr Walden seems to be against anybody travelling anywhere. The Presi- dent has cut a sorry figure. It is not his fault. He is quite a nice chap. The only recent American Presidents who have been half-way decent as human beings are Eisenhower and then Ford, with Reagan equal third (or rather fourth) with Carter. The humiliation will not do him much harm. On the contrary: times of interna- tional trouble redound to the advantage of domestic governments. The greater the trouble, the bigger the advantage. Patriot- ism is not only enough but everything at times like this — as Mrs Margaret Thatcher demonstrated three years ago.
When Mr Michael Heseltine came to Brecon I spotted him dining early before the meeting, and asked him whether he would be prepared to answer questions from my colleagues and me about the retention which he had just announced of the army camp at Crickhowell. He replied, affably enough, that he would be on the platform later on, where he would be pleased to answer any questions from us in the audience. I consulted Mr Robert Car- vel of the London Standard, the senior man present, doyen and arbiter elegan- harurn in matters journalistic. Mr Carvel gave it as his firm and settled conviction that it was professionally improper to ask questions under these circumstances. Naturally I accepted this ruling. After Mr Heseltine's speech, however, a question on this precise subject was asked by the gentleman from the Times, Mr George Hill- Was he asked to ask it? I do not know. In 1963, at the Marylebone by- election, Mr Quintin Hogg (as he then was, for the second time round) was asked a question by Mr Anthony Howard, then Political correspondent of the New States- man. Quintin denounced Mr Howard to the, audience as a notorious left-wing jour- nalist. Mr Howard replied that he was present also as an elector in the constituen- cy.. 'Then why,' Quintin riposted, 'are you writing things down in your little book?'
T. he most famous old boy of my school
IS, I suppose, the test umpire Mr David Evans. He is more famous even than the tenacious Labour MP, Dr Roger Thomas. I remember that Mr Evans was a useful medium-paced bowler, had an olive com- plexion and wore brown boots. At his elementary school he had been taught by one of my aunts. He was turned into the
ALAN WATKINS first-class wicket-keeper he subsequently became not by the grammar school or even my aunt but by the Ammanford cricket club — or rather the Pakistani professional then engaged by the club. He had a wretchedly unlucky first few days of the Lord's Test, but I know he bears his trouble philosophically (even though there is little evidence that philosophers as a class have any marked disposition to pla- cidity in their daily lives). One conclusion is surely that the laws relating to bad light need to be re-examined. At present, umpires have to juggle with two concepts: that of bad light qua bad light and that of danger to the batsman. One interpretation put to me by an authority on these matters is that play can go on if donkey-drops are being bowled in virtual darkness but not if nasty fast stuff is coming down in much brighter conditions. The most original sug- gestion so far comes from Sir Leonard Hutton in the Observer. He says he was more troubled by bright than by poor light. Now there is experience talking.
It is a bad time of year, however, for the armchair aficionado. Something quite in- teresting may be going on, as it was, for instance, when Edmonds and Gatting were together on Monday afternoon. Then sud- denly it is over to Wimbledon. Someone like Annabel is always playing. I employ the Christian name in its general symbolic sense, intending no disrespect to Miss Croft . personally. Annabel is the British girl who comes from Budleigh Salterton. She is not much good really but is better relatively than the British men. All our hopes rest on Annabel. The crowd always get behind her. She is a grand girl, who will always have a warm place in their hearts. The commentators who talk in this way employ tones in which xenophobia and senescent lust are displayed in roughly equal quantities. Even the possible defeat of McEnroe or Connors is, in television coverage, sacrificed to the certain defeat of Annabel — so it is not only cricket followers who suffer. Nor is it always possible to get cricket by switching to the other channel. Wickets may fall, centuries
may be made. Nothing must be allowed to get in the way of Annabel, going down bravely once again.
London is a better place to live in than anywhere else I have tried (though I have not tried very many). But one of the more disagreeable features of London life now is the prevalence of police sirens. When I lived in New York 24 years ago, sirens were a novelty, though I knew about them from the films. Today London sirens are not only heard more frequently by the year. They also seem to have gone up a notch or two in both tone and volume. The policemen in these cars seem to be having a grand time, laughing away like anything. The officer in the front passenger seat, I have noticed, often has his right arm outstretched, and is looking over his right shoulder, engaging his companions at the back in presumably diverting conversation. If they are really in hot pursuit of crimin- als, they are going about their duties in remarkably carefree fashion. My suspicion is that they are either going to the pub or coming back from the pub. Taxi-drivers, I observe, will assist the passage of ambu- lances and fire engines but not of police cars.
The successor to the late William Clark as one of the independent directors of the Observer will almost certainly be Mr David Chipp, the editor of the Press Association until his retirement earlier this year. He is a sociable Australian of 58, an oarsman and a Kingsman. More important than any of these, he has the right views on the freedom of the press. A few years ago he resigned from the D Notice Committee because he thought it was humbug. He will be an acquisition, I think. All the wiseacres, of Fleet Street and the City alike, said that the independent directors 'would not work', chiefly because Mr 'Tiny' Rowland was — how can one put it? — a strong personality, and also because the independent directors of the Times had been less than vigorous in the dispute between Mr Harold Evans and Mr Rupert Murdoch. In the dispute over Zimbabwe between Mr Donald Trelford and Mr Rowland, the Observer's independent directors did their stuff admirably. Some people make a false antithesis between proprietorial power and union power, of which they prefer the former. Others, again, enjoy the spectacle of power being exercised by bullies. But proprietorial power has rarely been absolute. J. L. Garvin had a permanent tribunal set up to adjudicate on disputes between him and the Astors. He went on for 34 years. I do not expect Mr Trelford to last as long as that.
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