FROM THE PULPIT

CHRISTMAS IS A time when the well-to-do, traditionally, were encouraged to brood about the poor. I am not sure whether this is still the case. The Church nowadays seems to interpret its mission as being most particularly addressed to the young - the kids , as they

AUBERON WAUGH

Another Long Look at the Great American Riddle and glory in its own culture, I found myself brooding gloomily on the question of whether we Europeans should not drop our frozen attitudes of politeness or anti-snobbery and start asking ourselves whether Americans can seriously be considered as human beings at all.

are affectionately called whereas for modern kids, Christmas will always be remembered as the festival of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer . December's David Bayliss Grand Poetry Competition invites those who have no particular affection for reindeer, and would prefer them not to have red noses in any case, to write a poem on the subject of the poor. Competitors do not have to be in favour of the poor, or even sorry for them - I am prepared to believe they can be very boring and unpleasant people - and I do not want, on this occasion, any Dickensian contrasts between the rich and the poor, between the gross commercialisation of Christmas and the simple manger where It All Happened . In his owri way, Rudolph represents a return to the manger. We all stand around this shrine where the sacred red-nosed reindeer calf lie s. Nowadays Rudolph's cot will be made of bright, cheerful plastics, his bottle will be full of cherry-coloured , penicillin-flavoured soft fizz, but the assembled clerics must sing their Jingle Bells softly as they dance around the red-nosed reindeer, because I do not. want the poets to mention Christmas or kids or Jesus or any of the 'positive' sides of this gruesome season. I just want them to write about the poor.

In previous incarnations, as a wine correspondent, I have urged people sitting down to contemplate the poor at Christmas time to prepare themselves with a glass of sound vintage port, but I am not sure this would help the poets with their composition. Some delicious 10-year-old Tawny, however, is available as prizes for Philip Oakes's Miss Ravoon Competition on page 52.

At any rate, you can love them or hate them, weep with them or laugh at them, but the first prize of £350 will go to the best poem which rhymes, scans and makes sense on the subject of the poor and which reaches the Literary Review at 51 Beak Street, London WlR 3LF by first post on Wednesday December 18th, 1991 , with 'Poor'written in the top left-hand corner of the envelope. The sum of £100 will go to the second best, and £10 to all printed.

My obsession with poverty has nothing to do with Christmas. I t arises from my so far unsuccessful efforts to raise rather big sums for this lovely magazine. Can any reader think of someone who might like a share of our stupendous losses?

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Reading yet another miserable article by Charles Bremner in The Times about how America should drop its Anglophile snobbery

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To judge by their television , one would not suppose so. It is unfashionable and might even be thought immodest to praise anything British, and I must emphasise that in talking of good, better or best in this context we are in fact talking about lesser or greater evils , but it seems to me British television is unquestionably the best in the world, while American television , specially written by cynical delinquents for 12-year-old morons, must be among the worst. Much the same considerations apply to the Press. The choice of newspapers in the United States is tiny, and what few exist divide into those which are abominably laid out, boringly predictable and priggish, like the New York Times and those which are wildly inaccurate and illiterate . . . I f the culture in which Americans are invited to glory refers to their pictorial or plastic arts, then it might be worth pointing out that it is only American Jack of judgement which keeps all the hideous rubbish in circulation which only American stupidity and American money insist in identifying as 'modern art'.

But perhaps my perception of this matter is sharpened by the fact that not a single American publisher has yet seen fit to make an offer for my book of memoirs , Will This Do? (Century, £15.99), despite the acres of coverage it has received in this country, despite the fact that even without a review in this magazine, it has reached the top of the Evening Standard bestseller list and, as I write, has climbed from eighteenth to tenth to sixth on the Sunday Times list . . .

I t would be easy to decide that Americans were not human beings . But then I think of Joseph Papp, the New York theatrical producer who died last month . He produced the annual free Shakespeare productions in Central Park, bursting with eccentric improvisation, energy and a zany enthusiasm of which only New Yorkers are really capable. He also founded the Public Theatre in Manhattan, with its five auditoriums, and kept the whole show on the road with fierce resistance to any strings attached to subsidy - not to mention a deep suspicion of any public subsidy at all.

Perhaps he will be best remembered in Britain for the amazing Pirates ofPenzance he brought to Drury Lane about ten years ago -later turned into a surprisingly rotten film . The energy, zest and flamboyance of that production certainly justified the existence of the United States for another decade or so. Take them away from Charles Bremner, their accountants , their lawyers and their stinking modern art, and young Americans can be the best interpreters in the world of the great dead white European male masters. 0

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LITERARY REVIEW December 1991