THE NUMBER IS TEN

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29342, 22 October 1960, Page 12

THE NUMBER IS TEN

(Bu WHIM WHAM) The Licensing Commission will issue restaurant licences but there shall not be more than 10 licences at any time . . . “light” wine and malted liquor, as part of a substantial meal .. from noon to 220 p.m. and between 6 p.m. and 11.30 p.m. with an extra half-hour tor the consumption of liquor served within the permitted hours.—Press report of the Licensing Amendment Bill. Ten Restaurants! How are we going to list ’em? Why TEN? To express our national Esteem For the Ten Commandments, or the Decimal System? Let’s add five More, and make a Football Team. Ten Restaurants! Two million and a Half The Copulation which this Bill applies to! My SensA>f Humour sags. A hollow Laugh More like a Groan, is All that it can rise to. Ten Restaurants! From North Cape to the Bluff, Ten sacred Institutes of Gracious Dining: Till Midnight strikes, and the Law cries, “Enough!” The Elect can go on eating, beering, wining. Ten Restaurants! Where Tourists (if they care to) Can wash their Filet Mignon down with “light” Wine, or the local Vino (if they dare to). While Indigestion waits on Appetite. Ten Restaurants! Where managerial High-ups And Overseas Top Brass can drink and eat. Toasting take-over Bids and business Tie-ups It’s All on Somebody’s Expenses Sheet. Ten Restaurants! (No Cocktails, no Liqueurs, / Just “malted Liquor” and the Wine that’s saleable. Those ten genieel select Restaurateurs Will only serve what’s lawfully available.) Ten Restaurants! Is THIS our equal State? I raise despairing Eyes and Hands to Heaven. It’ll take a Revolution (at this Rate) To increase that mystic Number to Eleven. Too Little for too Few. Sir, I’m inclined To raise my lonely Voice until it’s raucous On This this demented Brain-child of the Mind Of a LABOUR Cabinet and LABOUR Caucus!