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‘Kentish cherries’ it says on improvised roadside signs from the end of May, but a friend who produces the real thing tells me that even the not very distinguished variety ‘Early Rivers’ was not available until the middle of June, so the ‘-ish’ in ‘Kentish’ is the operative bit. The early roadside cherries probably come from Spain.
Last month, old friends of T.E. Utley gathered to remember him. Lady Thatcher gave away prizes in his honour to two young essayists who had written about the state of the Union. ‘Peter’ Utley died more than 20 years ago. He was a very distinguished journalist, but his unique gift was in teaching the young through friendship and conversation. He believed that time spent in amusing talk with people half your age is not wasted, and of course that is the most educational and flattering thing possible for the young people concerned. Before Lady Thatcher did her bit, I had to make a speech, and I found myself saying that Peter Utley could not exist in the 21st century. This is partly because his habit of sitting in a Fleet Street pub for several hours a day would not be tolerated by lean modern management. But it is even more because Peter was both a chain-smoker and blind. We are supposedly kinder to the disabled than in the past, but if Peter were alive today he would be forced to stand, sightless, in the street to have a cigarette. It would be impossible for him to make friends and talk and drink. The sort of freedom in which Peter Utley thrived, and from which so many of us benefited, has now been abolished.
These Notes were remarking recently on the BBC’s policy of trying to avoid telling its contributors (except for Jonathan Ross) what they will be paid when they broadcast for it. A reader writes to say that, in the 1960s, he worked for an agency that represented Frank Sinatra. Hearing that Sinatra was coming to London, the BBC rang. Would the great man appear on Tonight with Cliff Michelmore, and sing a few verses of ‘Strangers in the Night’ too? The agent asked what the fee was and, sure enough, was told huffily that the BBC would have to go away and consult. The BBC man rang back, and said the Corporation would pay five guineas. ‘I said this was a fairly small sum for a star like Mr Sinatra. Smugly he replied that this was “the standard rate for someone who hasn’t worked for us before”.’ Sinatra’s reaction was unexpected. He agreed to talk to Michelmore, refusing all payment, but would sing nothing at all.
TV Licensing (contd). The great classicist Peter Jones reports a solution to the threats from TV Licensing to those people who do not possess licences because they do not possess televisions. He has just been on the Westminster Classic Tour of the Turkish coast led by Richard Ashton, a former diplomat and famed numismatist. Mr Ashton, who has a flat in London and no television, was plagued by TV Licensing’s letters until he wrote to them and said that he would have them up for ‘institutional harassment’. I am not sure that this offence exists, but the letters have stopped.
A hazard of writing columns is that readers, usually angry ones, send you letters without sticking a stamp on. (Luckily, abusive emails carry no tariff.) A note is left by the postman saying that an item cannot be delivered and that we must come and collect it and pay the Post Office money. Last week, one such arrived, saying that we owed £1.27. My wife went along and asked the postmaster if she could look at the item before deciding whether to pay. It was a postcard from a Scottish reader abusing me for my ignorance of straw and silage (see Notes, 14 June, Letters, 21 June: I apologise for my error). My wife thought we would prefer to get this message free, so the postmaster kindly let her photograph it on her digital camera and refuse delivery of the card.
François Mitterrand was supposed to have said that Margaret Thatcher had the mouth of Marilyn Monroe and the eyes of Caligula. Actually, I discover, he said ‘the voice of Marilyn Monroe and the eyes of Stalin’. ‘Britain’s Andy Murray’ (the phrase puts a strain on one’s Unionism) has the mouth of Cherie Blair and the charm of Gordon Brown.
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