RANDOM AT LARGE

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32030, 3 July 1969, Page 20

RANDOM AT LARGE

WRONG TURNING?

Everything has been wrong in London. To start with, we flew in on a day of bright sunshines and the skies have been cloudless ever since, which does not seem to nuke much sense. What’s more, we haven't so far seen any real indication that the permissive society and its X films has allowed Britain to sink into a slough of immorality; Soho is a small segment of London, and that probably records proportions accurately enough. Thdy seem a bit worried about World Cup soccer prospects. but where are all the lined, long faces about the Gibraltar business, and the Leyland strike, and the rising prices? Mr Wilson, it seems, is not popular, but so far as we can make out there are nd massed

marches of povertystrickeu peasants moving down the Mall. They say the crime rate is alarming, but it still seems reasonably safe to use the streets at night and the Free Wales Army does not appear to present an immediate threat to the investiture of the Prince of - Wales, at the time of writing still a good many days away. The vicissitudes of the export drive, the notorious Letter Of Intent, the weather, the bus services, the Common Market, the underground system, and the fact that Hrs X of Wolverhampton has been short-paid in her pension by Is Td for the last two months may seem to be national calamities, at a reading of the newspapers, but the birds are still singing cheerfully, and the

Londoner, in our assessment, is as bright, as helpful, as polite as ever. If the Briton has lost his new in the air, it is well disguised. The sb«P» are full of fine things, and people. The, buses are as brightly red, the Brass es green, as they used to be. We are a bit upset with jL-YssruaK advertisement: “Join the B.WW but otherwise things seem to he very mueh as they were. Admittedly, these are early days for any visitor to reach firm conclusions about Britain and its people. But it may well . be that at least some of Britain’s alleged ills belong, in fact, to its critics.