Last week – wet and uneventful – best amusement offered to newspaper readers was story of ex-colonial governor who, wife claims, left her and went off with “another woman”. Most exciting episode was siege of ex-governor in Italian hotel bedroom – unwilling to face cameras and reporters. This kind of entertainment-journalism is governed by rules that are never consciously formulated. They are, roughly, as follows. Ordinary scandalous behaviour (such as marital irregularities) by ordinary people is ignored. The scandals of the powerful – those who might be able to hit back, either by appealing successfully to public sympathy or by withholding advertising or by nobbling proprietors or editors – are also best ignored. This leaves as suitable targets two categories: those who look important or respectable, but are not powerful (the clergy, minor royalty and “society” names without industrial connections are the usual); and “ordinary” people whose eccentricities or bad luck get them into criminal or extraordinary situations, thus depriving them of the protection of belonging to the herd. Those who fall into either of these categories may safely be mishandled for public entertainment.
Key Quote
“Ways have been discovered by which the human race could be destroyed, or, at best, reduced to a few destitute wanderers in Tierra del Fuego or the New Hebrides.”
From a speech Bertrand Russell would have given to a nuclear disarmament conference, banned in Switzerland.
Talking Point
In Paris, everyone is an artist in one way or another. Little wonder that fashion should make Paris its Vatican. Of all the arts, that of the couturier flourishes best where taste is in the fingertips and change is in the air.
Cecil Beaton on Paris fashion
