60
FRANK KERMODE
lecturers, but by the London Philharmonic, the Bristol Old Vic (all
brought along on a shoestring budget) and by Princess Margaret and
Lord Snowden.
Some of these goings-on I missed through being in Aarhus- the
trip was worth it for the beautiful brick-Gothic cathedral, with the most
delightful wall-paintings
al secco
and, in the Danish fashion, a great time–
battered ship-model hanging from the roof. But I did see the Old Vic
Henry V.
This is a good play only insofar as its jingoism is subtly un–
easy, but a huge audience loved it (at its first ever Danish performance )
and even understood and laughed at the jokes-everybody speaks Eng–
lish, nobody will speak German. The actors were astonished and de–
lighted that all the royals, British and Danish, showed up, although
they had been to
Loue's Labour Lost
the night before. This may be
the first time a British royal has seen Shakespeare on two successive
nights. The Princess is a great professional, it must be admitted, and does
the job with much unaffected gaiety and no stiffness. She applauded like
mad. Another day she had the kind of assignment royals are for. A war–
time attempt by the R.A.F. to bomb Gestapo headquarters in Copen–
hagen went wrong when a plane crashed on a school ; the other bombers
took the flames as a marker, attacked the school, and killed over 80
children. It was sensible not to ignore this in British Week, and the
Princess was right for the job.
All we have to get now is the same order of professional achieve–
ment in the export business.
If
we can't sell to the Danes we can't sell
to anybody. They like us, still think that British goods are of superior
quality, and prefer English cars to Volkswagens. But I heard several
gentle complaints about the difficulty of
getting
things; which is partly
why we have adverse trade balances. We use huge quantities of Danish
bacon and butter. Incidentally, the Danes are very strong on bread, cakes,
butter, and other disastrous and delicious food. The S.A.S. flight from
Copenhagen to Amsterdam, which takes an hour, served the best air–
borne food I have ever eaten, together with martinis, champagne and
brandy; one felt oneself in the midst of an emergency operation designed
to make one as fat and as drunk as possible before one got off the plane.
Back home the weather turned cold, and-who knows why?-the
polls began a trend to Labour. They needed
3~
percent to break even,
and Gallup gave it them; in the end, even N.O.P. came over to Labour,
and they both turned out to be about right.
If
I had to guess at the
reason, I should say it had nothing to do with Quintin Hogg, though
it will be a bad day for Labour when he ceases to put the Tory case,
and little to do with Sir Alec, who I imagine just about broke even, not
