Word: impromptu
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...choir of touring American college students, concluding that London could do with some cheering up, gathered in the portico of St. Martin -in-the-Fields church one afternoon last week, and offered an impromptu rendition of Oh Dear, What Can the Matter Be? For Londoners who paused to listen in the rain, it seemed like a good question. As the nation suffered through its second three-day work week, decreed by the government because of a coal miners' slowdown, Britons swapped opinions about darkened streets, frigid flats, gutted paychecks-and ways to endure the energy shortage...
Shockley could, if he had picked a different cause, have been just an amusing nut. All of his crazy side effects--the incessant tape-recording, the impromptu I.Q. tests given over the phone--might have been funny. But because of his racism, he has to be seen in a far different light. He's not harmless. He's not just "controversial" or "provoking". He is, instead, a destructive force who should not be lent respectability by colleges and television stations that allow him to speak. His Nobel prize and pseudo-scientific trappings don't make him any different from...
...search for rising air often leads to unanticipated landings-most often in the fields of surprised farmers. One pilot who touched down on a private ranch airstrip in Nevada found himself at the center of an impromptu cocktail party for 20 and was invited to dinner. Not all forced landings turn out so well. Industrial Engineer George Asdel recalls putting down at a military base where nuclear weapons were stored; he was greeted by machine guns and kept under armed guard for five hours. "We are always in trouble," says Dan Danieli, a grocer who practices his best manners...
...policy was not being well enforced. Last week soldiers on a house-to-house search of Santiago's San Borja district-a fashionable leftist stronghold -broke through locked doors and tossed thousands of books and papers out of apartment windows. Among the works consumed in impromptu street bonfires were Mao's Little Red Book, novels by Mark Twain, economic studies by John Kenneth Galbraith-and old copies of TIME...
...founder of the first nonreligious elementary school in predominantly Roman Catholic Chile. Allende's father was a notary who died while his son was serving one of many prison terms for socialist activity. Allende was allowed to attend the funeral. At the graveside he delivered an impromptu speech pledging himself to seek freedom for the people and social justice. He became a doctor but gave up medicine for politics. He campaigned doggedly until, on the fourth attempt, he was finally elected President...