Word: cowardly
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London's impertinent music halls lampoon Joe McCarthy, Noel Coward or anybody else (except royalty) who crosses the news. But last week a songwriter got too saucy with Anthony Eden and ran afoul of the Lord Chamberlain, who has power to grant or refuse theatrical licenses without explanation. Three days before the opening of an obscure new revue called Light Fantastic, the Lord Chamberlain ordered the offending song lyrics dropped. The net result: London's tabloid Daily Mirror, which needs no by-your-leave from the Lord Chamberlain or anyone else, printed the ditty...
After two weeks' work as British propaganda agent in Paris at the start of World War II, Noel Coward decided to report back to London on his progress. On a supersecret telephone, Agent Coward muttered a strictly hush-hush number-to which the operator responded with "a shrill scream of laughter" that set poor Noel's conspiratorial nerves jangling. A few seconds later, however, Coward found himself connected with his superior officer, Dallas Brooks, in London and started to unburden...
...Diplomat," repeated Agent Coward firmly, and pressed on: "I [have] interviewed 'Lion' . . . established successful contact with 'Glory,' [have] not yet been able to get into touch with 'Triumph' j) "What the bloody hell are you talking about?" Brooks roared back...
...Coward patiently repeated his spiel, this time "articulating very, very slowly as though I were talking to an idiot child." But Brooks only sighed wearily and said: "It's no good, old boy. I can't understand a word." By the Numbers. Brooks "explained some weeks later . . . that he had been asleep when I rang up and thought I was [someone named] Reggie!" He also tried to atone by teaching Agent Coward a new code consisting "entirely of numbers" and of such awful complexity that "if ever I had been captured by the Gestapo they would certainly have...
Winston Churchill had realized this from the beginning. After Coward had pulled up a chair to the Churchill piano and had sung Mad Dogs and Englishmen and Don't Put Your Daughter on the Stage, Mrs. Worthington, Winnie said irascibly: "You'd be no good in the intelligence service." He then waved his hand and barked dramatically: "Get into a warship and see some action! Go and sing to them when the guns are firing-that's your job!" Coward wanted to explain that this would be "impracticable, because during a naval battle all ships' companies...