A correspondent informs us that the playbill of IBSEN’S Ghosts at the Pavilion Theatre bears the following words:  “Mr. Neville Chamberlain says, ’It is essential there should be provided amusements and recreations which can take people for an hour or so out of themselves and return them to their work refreshed and reinvigorated.’”

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SOCIETY NOTES.

BY THE HANGER-ON.

AIR-RAIDS AND OTHER DIVERSIONS.

A promising young poet of my acquaintance, who in the midst of war’s obsessions still finds time and taste for the exercise of his art (he is in a Government office), has allowed me to see the opening couplet of what I understand to be a very ambitious poem.  It runs as follows:—­

  “Though overhead the Gothas buzz,
  Stands London where it did?  It does.”

Many good judges of poetry to whom I have quoted these lines think them very clever.

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A witty friend of mine tells me that he is thinking of bringing out a handy and up-to-date edition of the Almanach de Gotha, special attention being paid to the changes of the Moon.

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Society is always on the look-out for some new distraction from the tedium of War.  The latest vogue with smart people is to get up little air-raid parties for the Tube, to be followed by auction or a small boy-and-girl dance.  Sections of tunnel or platform can be engaged beforehand by arrangement with the Constabulary.

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I hear that my friend, ARTHUR BOURCHIER, continues to draw crowds to the Oxford.  I was dining the other day with a young and brilliant officer, who has seen two months’ active service in the A.S.C. and won golden opinions at the Base, and he assured me that there is no “Better ’Ole” than the Oxford during an air-raid.

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Now that London is part of the Front, with a barrage of its own, one has to be careful to censor one’s correspondence.  It is advisable not to mention your actual address, but just to write “Somewhere in the West-End.  B.S.F.” (British Sedentary Force).

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The Winter season has begun exceptionally early.  Last Sunday at Church Parade I saw Lady “Nibs” Tattenham, looking the very image of her latest photograph in The Prattler, where she appears with her pet Pekie over the legend, “Deeply interested in War-work.”

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