Word: alf
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...other positions in business can match the chairmanship of Britain's huge National Coal Board, held for six years by blunt, ebullient Baron Robens of Woldingham, 56. "Lord Coal" or "Honest Alf," as he is known to Britons, runs a mammoth operation that has a work force (420,000) twice the size of the British army, ranks No. 3 on FORTUNE'S list of the 200 biggest non-U.S. companies. Because the company has been nationalized since 1947, the N.C.B. chairman is also a political appointee serving at the pleasure of the government. So last week, when...
...Dear Alf." The controversy erupted when a government tribunal issued a long-awaited report on the catastrophe, in which 144 died when a water-weakened tip suddenly slid down its precarious mountainside site. In 151 emotion-charged pages, the report told a "terrifying tale of bungling ineptitude," scourged the National Coal Board for neglecting "the stability of tips," cited seven N.C.B. staffers (all of whom have been shifted to new jobs) as "blameworthy." Lord Robens himself got off with only a sharp rebuke for having insisted that the company "could not have known" of trouble...
Barry Goldwater of Arizona (five electoral votes) won a presidential nomination, and so did Alf Landon of Kansas (nine electoral votes in 1936). Goldwater, of course, had some special things going for him. He had been a Senator with a national platform, and for eleven years he used it to expound a distinctive philosophy that became totally identified with his name and appealed powerfully to the conservative wing of the G.O.P. His chairmanship of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee for six years gave him virtually unlimited access to the banquets and bankrolls of party members all over the country...
...best shows on BBC television is a situation comedy called Till Death Do Us Part. Its protagonist is a sort of Everyslob, an odiously vulgar xenophobe named Alf Garnett (played by Warren Mitchell). Every Monday night at 7:30, old Alf gets on and starts sputtering away. West Indian cricket players? "It's amazing how them sambos have picked this game up." The Labor government? "Right load of pansies, they are." Prince Philip? "Well, he's a different sort of Greek; he isn't one of your restaurant Greeks...
There is not a sponsor in all U.S. television who would countenance that sort of gritty billingsgate, but in Britain Alf is not only on the air but is also the most popular character on television. Or rather the most talked-about, for he either outrages viewers or spills them laughing on the floor. "The amusing thing about Alf," says BBC Director-General Sir Hugh Greene (brother of Novelist Graham Greene), "is the intense fury aroused among those who share his prejudices. The program offends a great many people-but those one is glad to offend...