Word: portents
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Everything is delightfully off the record. The very important person outlines succinctly a few things he would like the public to know without having to broadcast them himself. They can't come from him. Spontaneously you understand. The columnist's eyebrows bristle with portent. The very important person has finished his brandy. Time to join the ladies. After a short Scotch fizzed with generalities, the wife of the very important person rises to her feet. Once they have gone, there is nothing left to say. As if the house were on fire, the less important guests are handed...
While U.S. voters this week looked to the northeast (New Hampshire) for the national political portent, the signs in Germany last week were in the southwest. Germany's Socialists, led by vituperative Kurt Schumacher, have long insisted that the bulk of Germany's people are dead set against Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's plans to tie Germany into the Western European defense. A local election for assembly members in the southwestern state newly formed from the merger of Württemberg-Baden, Baden and Württemberg-Hohenzollern gave them, they thought, an ideal chance to prove their...
Potluck may be a portent that BBC is nerving itself for the plunge into commercial broadcasting. The Labor Party had planned to renew BBC's simon-pure license for another 15 years, but the Tories got in and granted only a six-month extension while they take time to think things over. To solve BBC's chronic money troubles (income is limited to a small annual tax on radio and TV sets, profits from BBC publications, and appropriations by Parliament), the Tories are considering such radical departures as one all-commercial frequency for radio and, possibly, two hours...
Another possible portent was the fate of the white doves that Tenor McKinley, as the magician, was supposed to release in the second act. When the doves were delivered to McKinley's apartment, the cook baked them for dinner. And there were a lot of other things cooking that Menotti did not learn about till the curtain went...
...colonel rallies the underprivileged Southerners, converts Adventuress Lamarr to righteousness and does his bit to bind the nation's wounds by quoting Lincoln on "malice toward none." What is especially depressing about Copper Canyon is not so much its dreary reprise of movies best forgotten as its dreary portent of movies still to come...