Life in England

When talking about the war understating Britons sometimes refer to the "little difficulty we are having with Germany," the "current spot of bother" or the "Adolf agitation." Even the fact that magnetic mines and flying mine layers were about last week did not change the tone since few citizens of that seafaring island could be really worried about matters which they felt could be solved by their sailors and scientists.

What worried Londoners more than anything else last week was the fact that the British Isles went back on winter time and on that day came a 4:30 p.m., instead of a 5:30 p.m., blackout. That produced plenty of grumbling about stale air inside shuttered offices and renewed demands that the blackout be modified. Blackout grumbling caused London's first sizable wartime strike. Four hundred fifty trolley busmen refused to work until their schedules during blackouts were eased. By & large, however, life in England after two months was adjusted to wartime conditions.

>London's reopened shows prospered again. Most popular were Little Dog Laughed, at the Palladium; Black Velvet, at the Hippodrome; French for Love, at the Criterion, and a revue at the Gate which features cracks about the U. S. profiteering from the war and the recent "stay-out-of-war" speech of Colonel Charles Augustus Lindbergh.

> This week will end registration of Britons for ration cards which will entitle them to buy bacon, butter, ham, sugar when the rationing comes. The Ministry of Food experimented meanwhile with bacon made from mutton, which the London Daily Express quickly labeled "macon." Minister of Food "Shakes" Morrison was pictured devouring a plateful and saying: "It tastes a lot better than it looks."

> Railroads announced cheap fare "reunion trains" to 38 towns in evacuation areas, where parents who stayed in London could meet their children, who were moved out.

> Onetime Senior Lord of Appeal Lord Dunedin celebrated his goth birthday with cocktails in his Sloane Street home. Guests viewed the film His Lordship took in the Black Forest (Germany) last summer.

> Senior Laborite M. P. Colonel Josiah Wedgwood, who has given the House of Commons many an unorthodox thought on Palestine, taxes, President Roosevelt and India, bet Laborite M. P. Richard Stokes -L-5 ($20) that London would not be bombed during the War's first six months. Owner of big, money-making Josiah Wedgwood & Sons Ltd., Colonel Wedgwood has nevertheless recently howled about Britain's "ferocious income tax." As retrenchment he plans to move out of his sumptuous home and live in a trailer at Barlas-ton, near his constituency.

> Sure sign that almost normal times were at hand was the resumption by Queen Mary, mother of King George VI, of her shopping for antiques in London.

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