As I Please - Topics in As I Please Articles

Topics in As I Please Articles

Incomplete list - 1946 onwards only

8 November 1946

• American fashion magazines
• Road safety - futility of "Keep Death off the Roads" campaign
• Bread rationing - strange case of a crofter having a lower ration because he is a farmer rather than a labourer

15 November 1946

• Popular feeling against foreign immigration - because of Government's failure to publicise itself properly
• Hanging of war criminals and apparent use of slow death strangulation rather than the "drop"
• Source wanted for a Checkhov quotation from Shakespeare "Happy is he who in his youth is young"

22 November 1946

• Newspapers - including two lists ranking the nine leading national dailies by "Intelligence" and "Popularity"

29 November 1946

• Prevalence of "Bad News" stories in newspapers - mainly caused by the desire for power
• Shortage of watches and clocks and the resulting price inflation
• Return of the Jews to Palestine

6 December 1946

• Trilby by George du Maurier and the antisemitic tone in the description of Svengali
• Writers should retire and stop writing when they reach middle age - referring specifically to H. G. Wells
• Printing of four letter words

13 December 1946

• How the day-to-day humbug of UNO and other international conferences resembles a board game, while in the real world the issue of national sovereignty is not resolved

20 December 1946

• Christmas - in praise of indulgence and conviviality in disregard for vegetarians and teetotallers, but with no cause for celebration given the state of the world at Christmas 1946. Wishes for a better celebration at Christmas 1947

27 December 1946

• How modern knowledge has to depend on authority rather than reasoning
• Laski's libel case, an appeal for financial support and the issue of libel in general
• Disgusting American 'comics'

3 January 1947

• On a liner to Burma when a quartermaster scavenges a custard pie
• Literary purge in the USSR and expulsion of writers from the Writer's Union
• Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius as an incentive to getting up in the morning

17 January 1947

• Flawed report in the Daily Herald on Indians who broadcast on Nazi radio
• In Darkest Germany - Gollancz book on post-war starvation in Germany
• Uncommented quote about hints for dogs over-indulged at Christmas
• Stupid expressions and the use of "certain" meaning "uncertain"

24 January 1947

• Scottish businessmen and their attitudes to Polish refugees
• Recollections of significant events - Petain at Foch's funeral and Queen Mary in Windsor

31 January 1947 (As I Pleased)

• Personal experiences of Tribune as a reader, writer and observer

7 February 1947

• The need for a good D-I-Y guide
• Dirtiness of snow
• Burmese independence and the problem of autonomy of minority groups within minority groups
• Misprints in H. G. Wells books and his lack of self-criticism

14 February 1947

• Scottish Nationalism as a form of race-hatred and the case for keeping the Gaelic language alive
• Political content in a commercial circular letter from a whisky distiller
• Amusing epitaphs

7 March 1947

• The need for an improved anthology of modern English poetry

14 March 1947

• Problems with the idea of simplifying English spelling and the advantages of traditional imperial units
• How a party of Germans, given food parcel by trade unions, had them confiscated by customs
• An experience in teaching history

28 March 1947

• "Mass Observation", social surveys and the financial determination of what is surveyed
• Venereal diseases
• The first signs of spring