"Your Head Is on Fire"

"Some were pleased, some were shocked, none remained indifferent on hearing that the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, accompanied by his spouse, is to take off tomorrow from, one of the quadrangles of Christ Church in a helicopter."

To the uninitiated, a lighthearted essay on such a topic might seem out of place amid the somber rumblings of the London Times's editorial page. But generations of Britons have learned to expect just such things in the Thunderer's "fourth leader," i.e., the item usually fourth in sequence on its editorial page, an unfailing source of quiet, literate, gentle humor. Last week, for the second year in a row, the Times published a collection (Fourth Leaders from the Times; the Times Publishing Co., London; 8/6) of the year's best work of its anonymous editorial writers. Covering everything from stamp collecting to new arrivals at the zoo, the fourth leaders not only range the quirks of British life but also have an occasional smile for the quirks of journalism.

Unruffled Manner. "Foreign correspondents," one fourth leader observes, "often attribute the content of a dispatch to 'usually well-informed circles,' and there is something very striking about the phrase. The choice of adverb is peculiarly pregnant, contriving as it does simultaneously to affirm faith and to adumbrate doubt. It implies that the correspondent has found these circles to be reliable in the past, but it sounds at the same time a note of caution. 'You know what these foreigners are,' it seems to say; 'don't blame me if they've got hold of the wrong end of the stick this time' . . ."

The leader-writers pay their respects to British phlegm amid emergency: "A recent incident at Penzance county court . . . is a reminder that man's mastery of the unexpected is not confined to the realm of fiction . . . The registrar approached the matter . . . in a discreet and unruffled manner. His question [to the witness], 'Are you smoking?' . . . paid due regard to the proprieties of the court . . . Having been answered in the negative there followed the conclusion delivered in unemotional monosyllables: 'Well, then, your head is on fire.' "

"It Could Be Worse." The burdens imposed by England's austerity and bureaucracy haunt many of the paragraphs: ". . . There was a time when rations were things that only soldiers were expected to live on . . ." Sympathizing with civil servants who dwell in "bedsitting rooms,"' the Times asks: "Is it really possible to entertain with any degree of elegance in a room that contains one's pyjamas, and one's butter ration, one's hair oil and one's Empire sherry . . .?"

But the fourth leader rejects the insinuation, by a Czech correspondent, that Britain is in a complete funk because its citizens usually answer the question, . "How are you?" with, "It could be worse." The Times explains that the phrase is not a sign of discouragement at all. Fully expanded, it means: " 'Here am I, a man like other men, with rather more health and rather less money than most--or the other way round--neither expecting nor deserving the smile of fortune. Income tax is nine shillings in the pound; there is a depression approaching from the Azores; and I have a bet on a horse which will infallibly lose. The Government is notoriously inefficient, but since Governments always are there is no reason for astonishment or indignation . . .' Having completed this catalogue of disaster there is a certain satisfaction in [concluding] 'it might be worse'--and since it is a phrase which . . . has served very well from the Spanish Armada to the London blitz we are not likely to abandon it now."

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