RANDOM AT LARGE

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32060, 7 August 1969, Page 16

RANDOM AT LARGE

WATCH THIS SPACE

They’re a bleary-eyed lot of Britons today; for although this is August 7 to you, its July 21 to us, and the day those astronauts, whose names escape us, walked on the moon. It seems that a large proportion of the British public sat up all night to watch the live pictures from the moon appear on their television screens and today some of their faces look like lunar surfaces. But already there are firm Indications that this great scientific feat will rapidly be reflected in the everyday language of the

peoples of the world. A new crop of jokes is starting and no doubt the song writers will have to find some other theme for their love songs, now it is established that the moon is a gritty sort of place, and the Italians are planning to give driving lessons on it. The small boys who used to say “Gee-up” as they urged their imaginary cowboy ponies out to meet the Redskins are now issuing instructions for the blast-off. An Englishman’s home is his module, office boys being sent at the double to the posting boxes are complaining of being pressurised and are

being given rockets if they are tardy. Young businessmen have organised their wives to conduct countdowns to get them to work on time, and are acknowledging this assistance with glad cries of “Reading you” until it is time for “Roger, and out” But they will have to watch their steps, because the traffic will not be one way. When a man goes off into orbit for a splashdown at the local, he might find that when he wants to make his power descent to the front door, his re-entry route has been closed and locked.