... IN the controversy which has been pursuing its somewhat desultory and tangled way through the Press as to whether the future name of our Royal house is to continue as Windsor, some facts seem to be ignored. H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh adopted the surname of Mountbatten when he was natural ised as a British subject in February 1947. Mountbatten was his mother's name, and albeit her family is ...

... 6^/ovc* I jealousy by making his mother fall in love with a shameless pimp was surely the worst kind of sensationalism. Now, seeing Le Garfon Sauvage again at the New Gallery, not only the English title and sub-titles, but circumstances are changed. The first shock and it was a shock has been taken and the intervening months have not been so rich in films of quality that we can afford to be ...

... WE have moved far and fast beyond the agreeable and gentlemanly practice of senior commanders in the field confining their literary efforts to Official Dispatches and Letters Home to My Lady Wife. This, to me, is a matter for regret which grows deeper as the list of generals' books grows longer. I hold it sufficient that these gentlemen accept high honours for success or ignominy for failure. ...

... BRIGGS by Graham ...

... SOME PORTRAITS IN PRINT Beina the lucubrations of your most obedient scribe, Mr. Gordon Beckles THE London club became in the nineteenth century a symbol of a society in which man was the happy dictator. The club was a place sacred to man. It was a refuge first from thoughts of domesticity, and then, as the years passed, from invading woman herself. Viewing the landscape between Pall Mall and ...

... in f^arid his admirers were jubilant and his detractors ferocious EVEN in the days of the daguerreo type, public per sonages must have had a proper respect --and dread--of the camera. The stiff pose, grim jaw and wary look seen in the portraits of our more immediate forbears betray the trepida tion with which they faced the operator. Photography brought greater ease and flattery negatives ...

... Mitzi oi the Golden Spark Freds* Bruce Lockhnrt MORE than half the filmgoing population would feel cheated by a film programme which lasted less than three hours or offered fewer than two feature films for the price of one. Normal double-feature bills provoke my mingled nausea and resentment: nausea such as would be caused by roly-poly after beefsteak pudding, or Scotch bun and wedding- cake; ...

... with i. Bickerstaffe THE year that has just left us is doomed to a big black mark all round on the wine lists of to-morrow. Champagnes especially, but burgundies and clarets, too, have been treated unkindly by the weather of 1951. Although, as some cynical shippers point out, in about three years' time there will be no lack of vintners who will discover that all the time they had a little ...

... f^riscilla in raris Immortals whose names no one ever remembers I HAVE often been asked whether it is difficult to write about Christmas in July, which is the time when Christmas annuals are planned. The answer is No. Thoughts of snow, holly and mistletoe during the dog days conjure up nothing but alluring visions. It is in mid-Decem ber that one finds it more difficult to enthuse, when one ...

... drowns a Coronets JBs X. ...

... jKkrf-cx/Z c- Freda Bruce Lochhart SOME obscure sense of collective guilt may have prompted Hollywood to pick out four of the year's most unglamorous characters for its awards. Runners up to Vivien Leigh's be draggled Southern belle in Streetcar Named, Desire and Humphrey Bogart's belching, gin-swigging vagabond in African Queen are reliably re puted to have been their partners in the same ...

... BRIGGS by Graham Graham ...