IP: The World According to Dukie the Twit

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> From: "Janos G." <janos451 () earthlink net>
>
>
> Lord Marmaduke Hussey, according to Jennifer Selway's feature in the Daily
> Express today, doesn't like being regarded as upper class. He is a
> toff-by-marriage, he will tell you, adding "I don't mind being called a
> twit, though. I rather like that." Dukey is in the news because of the
> publication of his autobiography, "Chance Governs All."
>
> The man - who later became head of the Times corporation and came as close
> to breaking the unions as it's possible in England, and then spent 10 years
> as head of the BBC, driving it into the ground - lost a leg and nearly his
> life at Anzio in 1944, at age 21. He was greatly amused when told that
> journalists covering the 50th anniversary of Dunkirk were so exhausted they
> required counselling. PD James asked him if there was counselling at the
> beaches of Anzio. "I just thought it was hilarious."
>
> Hussey speaks of John Birt, whom he appointed BBC director general in 1993,
> as a "man handicapped by having a massive inferiority complex and a massive
> superiority complex. Also those terrible suits. I had always thought Armani
> was some sort of perfume."
>
> Of having lunch with the late Robert Maxwell: "He was trying to woo us with
> his legendary charm, which I'm bound to say I didn't see. He was a bad man.
> I don't think he had any redeeming features."
>
> Of a dinner with Mrs. Thatcher: "She didn't drink though she loves whisky,
> as do I. I think she was rather sexy, but not to me; though I can see why
> men were attracted to her [apparently Hussey didn't mean men voters]. She
> had quite a sense of humour, but also an astonishing sense of duty, amazing
> powers of concentration and beautiful manners. Handwritten thank you
> letters, that sort of thing."
>
> The best bit: his use of a word that's new to me (and, sitting on a plane
> between Godthab and Kuujjuaq, I can't look it up) - he speaks of being shot
> in the war: "I never missed cricket and rugby much. The leg was orf and you
> can't put it back on again, so that was that." The only orf I know is with
> two f's. Must be an abbreviation.
>
> More WWII news from the UK: the entire underground government complex where
> Churchill ran the war from, a bunker complex under Whitehall for 2,000
> people, will be restored and opened to the public in 2003.  A Times comment:
> "If Blair seems more exhaused after two months of war than Churchill ever
> appeared, that may be because the modern Prime Minister must fight a public
> war, under permanent scrutiny, on a stage rather than in a bunker. Churchill
> could spend days, personally crafting and honing a single speeach, a luxury
> denied his modern counterpart."
>
> A grand sidebar to the story: about Ruth Ive, now 84 and then 22, a
> telephone operator whose job was to cut the single trans-Atlantic line used
> by Churchill and FDR whenever they wandered into dangerous topics German
> intelligence could use if they tapped the line*. Apparently, Churchill's
> liquid refreshments did not promote the clarity of his speech. "One day Mrs
> Ive found herself puzzling over a reference to someone called `Jughay.' `He
> was actually referring to UJ - Uncle Joe, Stalin - and I probably should
> have boken the line, but by the time worked out what he was saying it was
> too late."
>
> * They did. Daily transcripts went right to Hitler.
>
> PS: The Times has no copy editors left either. The story has five references
> to "Ive" and a four to "Ives." Sigh.
>
> ===============
> Janos Gereben/SF
> www.sfcv.org
> janos451 () earthlink net


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