• Lord Wolfson the Younger (both father and son are life peers) is public-spiritedly offering £250,000 for anyone who, in 25,000 words, can answer the question ‘If it becomes necessary for one or more member states to leave the euro, what is the best way for this to be arranged?’ At dinner with Simon Wolfson on the same night as the cheapskate Booker Prize (worth only a fifth of the Wolfson), some complained that the notice period of three months for completion of the essay was too short. Being a hack, I argued that the incentive of £10 per word if successful should overcome that problem. It is the framing of the question which is more complicated. It needs to be expressed in a way which could be answered by supporters of the euro as well as opponents. Hence the word ‘necessary’. The best answer will not be written by someone whose motive is to destroy or preserve the euro but by someone who understands how to retro-fit emergency exits to the ‘burning building’ that William Hague predicted. Given the balance of economic forces at this moment, one feels that, to achieve the right answer, it probably helps to be German.
• This column has already complained, apropos of the Liam Fox affair, that a greater corruption than shoving work the way of your best man is to put the bureaucracy in charge of politicians’ conduct. Sir Gus O’Donnell’s report on the Fox affair actually states that, from now on, ministers must inform their departments of discussions with outside groups. The servants are the masters now. But it is against the public interest that ministers have so little political support and outside advice. When he came into office, David Cameron, anxious to avoid accusations of copying Tony Blair, cut down on the special advisers (‘spads’) each minister is allowed. This was a mistake. At the Department of Energy and Climate Change at present, there is not a single Conservative spad. Since the entire subject is currently a matter of contention within the coalition, and could easily, through punitive and useless Green levies, lose the Tories the next election, such an omission is crazy.
• Sir David Bell, the permanent secretary at the Department of Education, is to leave his job early and become Vice-Chancellor of Reading University. Because this is all public-sectorish stuff, no one complains, but imagine the caterwauling if he were setting up a chain of private schools. Media suspicion of commercial power is often justified, but similar questions should apply in not-for-profit areas. Charities, quangos, universities are just as likely to push their own interests against the public good as are companies. I am not saying that Sir David should not be a vice-chancellor, but I am saying that vice-chancellors (some of whom earn salaries of over £300,000 p.a.) deserve the same scrutiny as company chairmen and are probably more adept at warping government decisions in their favour than simple businessmen.
• Sad how one short look at one single still from Steven Spielberg’s forthcoming Tintin film is all any true Tintin fan needs to know that he will not want to see it.
• Last week’s difficulties for BlackBerry, and the stories about how it is being overtaken by rivals, made me love my BlackBerry more. How touching to think that this fashionable object is going the way of the crinoline and the gramophone. Soon its rustic name will conjure up an Arcadian idyll, an age when honest labourers conveyed their messages in a vocabulary of elemental simplicity, when the old art of texting was known at every cottage hearth, and the ping of the email was as merry as the village church bells — the age before the terrible egotism of the iPhone, iPad, iEverything.
• I am thinking this way because I am a judge of the Heritage Angels Awards, which will be presented the week after next. The idea, conceived by Andrew Lloyd Webber and arranged by English Heritage and the Daily Telegraph, is to recognise all those who have shown outstanding love, perseverance and skill in rescuing buildings. On Monday night, the judges deliberated in Lloyd-Webber’s offices near Seven Dials. The category which was the greatest revelation to me was ‘Best Rescue of an Industrial Building or Site’. Industrial ruins seem to inspire particular devotion, especially from that type of man (it is more rarely a woman) for whom machinery is entrancing. We were judging the respective merits of two collieries, a windmill and a railway goods shed. A functional building whose function is no longer required is like the workman whose skill is obsolete: it has a dignity tinged with pathos. Now that Britain has long ceased to be the workshop of the world, the remnants of that workshop inspire awe. Give it 30 years and we shall be presenting awards to people reviving the lost art of BlackBerry-making.
• Lloyd Webber confirmed my suspicion that the Olympics are bad news for those of us (a silent majority, I suspect) who are not interested in competitive sport. He told me that, in previous Olympics, theatre attendances have fallen by 30 per cent while the Games have been in progress. People believe that the city will be crammed with sport-tourists making public transport impossible, so they stay away. The expensive restaurants will be full, of course, with Olympic officials, but cultural life will wilt. Lloyd Webber had just seen the Mayor of London to ask him to ensure that Transport for London provided against these difficulties, but felt that Boris had seemed insouciant. The present plan is for most of the Really Useful theatres to close while the curse of sport hits town.
• ‘Mr Moore,’ said the farmer’s wife, riding up to me on her horse, ‘thank you for your article recommending Miklos Banffy’s Transylvanian Trilogy [an epic novel of roughly 1,500 pages about the last phase of the Austro-Hungarian Empire]. It’s so sad, but I loved it.’ I murmured my pleasure. ‘Now I’ve got something for you to read,’ she went on, ‘It’s called Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging.’
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