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Britons had varied examples of royal stamina during the week. In London, Queen Mary celebrated her 85th birthday. Queen Mother Elizabeth, who is honorary Air Commodore for the City of London's auxiliary R.A.F. squadron, announced that her recent ride in the new Comet jet airliner had been put to good use. She had sat at the controls and piloted the plane for several minutes, flying at better than 500 m.p.h. ("What the other passengers thought, I really would not care to say"). And on a short vacation in Scotland, Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh slipped into old jack ets and hip boots to try their fishing tackle in the River Dee. The Duke got his catch the first day out; the Queen hooked a husky salmon the second day.
Questions & Answers
Greek Cinemactress Irene Poppas, who first made tabloid headlines last month when she hopefully announced that All Khan might ask her to marry him, arrived in Paris for some shopping. Ali had not popped the question yet, she admitted, but a girl has to look her best; she was on her way for a visit to his Riviera chateau.
Novelist John Steinbeck, 50, asked what he was doing in Paris, replied: "Collier's asked me to go to Korea. I told them I was too old, too lazy, too scared. I wanted to go to Europe instead."
Back from a European trip, Pundit Walter Lippmann good-naturedly confessed that eminence in journalism is not always an advantage to a reporter: "Among the pitfalls which a visiting correspondent in foreign countries must look out for, none is more insidiously dangerous than . . . to do most of the talking himself. The song of the sirens which lures the journalists . . . to destruction is —more often than not—the beautiful, the restful, the infinitely comforting sound of their own voices. I must confess that for some ten days out of about 40 . . . abroad, I can remember having heard almost nothing except what I was saying myself. The rest of the time, however, I fought a brave and partially successful battle to shut myself up . . ."