tangents

news & views

by dal mcintire

Newsman Roscoe Drummond and TIME each recently slapped at British press, which this columnist also has mucked about in since anti-homo fuss last year. Except for TIMES, TELEGRAPH, OBSERVER and MANCHESTER GUARDIAN, English papers are unadulterated trash, worse than U. S. tabloids. Between cheesecake and hogwash, legitimate news has scant chance for a line or so.

When a blond beauty recently shot one of her two lovers for infidelity and was hung, all the crummy sheets turned crusader, pro and con death penalty. Two with top circulation (in world) polled readers: one found 3 Britons in 4 opposed hanging; other paper found exact reverse ... DAILY SKETCH, one of biggest and worst, explaining Downye (their spelling) Calif.'s "vanishing hoses" said gophers are "turtle-like burrowing animals." Oh?... Much fuss over nite-time nude swim parties and police ambushing same. Excuse for press photos of nudes partly draped by discreet towels... Judge excused man caught in park after swimming a river, too tired to swim back to clothes. Judge: I'm not prepared to say . . . a nude is thereby behaving indecently." . . . Louder fuss over young men dressing too well, in fad for Edwardian styles. (Like bigoted attacks here on "zoot suiters.") Pompous statements by judges and ministers. Parents ordered (or offer) to rip up fancy suits.

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of boys in trouble. Army private got detention for not cropping stylish haircut, and had hair forcibly lopped off well above ears. C.O. inspected soldiers leaving one camp to insure against fancy civvies. Meanwhile youths turn from Teddy Suits to more severe "Roman Look," and contest on among art lovers who decorate birthday suits, for most glamourous tattoo . . .

Geoffrey Gorer's Kinseylike EXPLORING ENGLISH CHARACTER, Cresset Press, analyzed 11,000 questionnaires on prudishness, extramarital love, child treatment, religious beliefs. Found older people less likely to be "believers," about same number believing in hell as in ghosts. Half the English believe in charms, horoscopes or such. Revelations on sex views belie English repute for prudery.

Swan census by Oxford Ornithological Society showed many of 450 Oxfordshire and Berkshire swans swim about in bachelor parties showing little mating interest, even in breeding season.

Billingham-on-Tees, Co. Durham: vicar of Haverton Hill discovered vicars buried 33 more people than officially recorded dead, baptised more babies than registered born.

Association for Moral and Social Hygiene suggested to Gov't committee on homosexuality and prostitution that laws on prostitution, promiscuity be dropped "No law in these matters can be effective."

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