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His and hers and Raine's
THE triumphal joy of Raine, Countess Spencer, splashed over every front page in a manner clearly hugely gratifying to her, has sent many of the nation's women into a frenzy of self-examination. Could this extraordinary creature have something to teach us? Perhaps there is more to be said for the old-fashioned system of life- and man-management than we realised. Hers is not a success that could have been achieved by wearing dungarees, no make-up and telling it like it is. Perhaps despising charm and chic, and insisting on confrontation, is something the sisterhood is coming to regret, though like the Chancellor of the Exchequer, they may find it difficult to say so.
But the real lesson to be gleaned from a contemplation of this awesome personage is the importance in life of separate bedrooms. Her enormous enthusiasm and enormous coiffure must droop at times; indeed she has admitted as much. Lady Spencer may perfectly well be able to lead her dazzling life without even contemplating separate bedrooms, but for the rest of us it suddenly seems like rather a good idea. Even the most enthusiastic lover must want to retire from the fray occasionally - indeed the more enthusiastic the lover, the more frayed she will be. A woman needs a place in which to restore her temper and her toilette - a boudoir and a peignoir, in fact.
I deeply regret that I did not realise earlier in life the importance of separate bedrooms - mine was a generation that made silly mistakes about being frank and natural, and being accepted for yourself.
This is really hardly a suitable attitude to bring to marriage, and it explains why so many people get divorced these days. I realise an extra bedroom may be beyond most people's means, but we are, after all, a nation of DIY addicts, and where there's a will there's a way. That, surely, must be one of the watchwords of Raine Spencer.
PRESERVING illusions is something we value too little these days - I am thinking of the Lord Chancellor's office. I am sure they meant well, and were only trying to present an acceptable face of the judiciary, but I am afraid it was a great mistake to allow television cameras in on any of their mysteries. Last week I saw a preview of a documentary called Inside the Wig: Thinking Like a Judge (to be shown on BBC2 tonight), about lawyers in a depressing hotel preparing to become judges.
Though not strikingly intelligent, the lawyers seemed quite decent people, if all too human. The first meeting was opened - life gazumping art - by a Mr Justice Igor Judge. One of the trainees said he had really wanted to be a mountaineer.
Immediately a Monty Python sketch sprang to mind - of the man who wanted to be a lion-tamer but settled, on reflection, for accountancy. Another bigger part went to a chap who was indecisive about sentencing, not very interested in criminal law, and, if my ears did not deceive me, uttered a not very judicious four-letter expletive on seeing himself in a judge's wig.
I cannot imagine why, after all these years, people imagine they will benefit in any way from displaying themselves to the cruel eye of the television camera. The majesty of the Crown could not survive it, and nor can the majesty of the law.
SIR Ronald Millar's memoirs have revealed something that everyone has been saying or denying for years - that the BBC was out to get Lady Thatcher. I joined the BBC in 1979 as a trainee and in my first year worked in several different departments.
At Nationwide - a big-audience daily news show, for those who do not remember - I had to go, early each morning, to the editorial conference.
There was a certain esprit de corporation - what I had hated at school as team spirit - and the spirit of the team during my weeks there seemed to be firmly against Thatcher.
It may be the job of journalists to be contrary, and Nationwide's final output seemed okay, if you liked that sort of thing. But more than once I remember some sparky hack asking at full conference: 'How can we get Thatcher today?' - or words to that effect - and getting a general laugh of approval. Throughout the BBC when I was there, up to the level of senior producers and programme editors at least, it was considered both ludicrous and stupid to support Thatcher and Tebbit; they were really hated. The head of religious programmes would repeatedly ask me, incredulously, how I could support 'that woman'. He may have considered this questioning playful; to me it felt faintly like political harassment.
I HAVE heard at second hand an Oxford high table rumour that the Government is thinking of getting rid of the Oxford and Cambridge tutorial system; it is felt to be pointless and expensive.
I hope the Department of Education will publicly scotch this rumour at once.
It is impossible, isn't it, that they should be so stupid? Of the few things that still distinguish this country, inventiveness, independence of mind and a dislike of intellectual conventionality remain.
The inventiveness is of obvious commercial value; Britain is hugely over-represented in tables of distinguished scientists and inventors. (That will probably cease when new EEC research funding regulations are in force.) The other qualities cannot be valued, but they cannot be overrated either, and are not found in the same way in France, Germany, Italy or the United States. And they are due in large part to the tutorial system. Haven't Oxford and Cambridge suffered enough cultural vandalism?
The Sunday Telegraph | Sunday, May 16, 1993
