DLA095-0074  Transcription

‘Life and Letters. The Silly Season (From a Correspondent’ [London, July 31st] , The Irish Times, 2 August 1924

The silly season has begun—somewhat earlier than usual, it is true; but, then, nothing this year has been up to time. Wembley opened in an unfinished condition. Spring, if it happened at all, happened at the end of May. Summer has passed us by and a premature Autumn seems to be upon us, with more than its common share of wet and cold. The end of August is the customary time for the silly season, when politics are more or less in abeyance and the last word has been written about Goodwood, Cowes and the grouse moors on the Twelfth; but when we find so serious an organ as the Morning Post already devoting space in its front columns to a correspondence between two old ladies as to the best place to buy sensible, high-necked woollen underwear, we may lately assume that, be it early or late, the silly season has begun.

It is likely that, this year, the silly season will seem of unusual fatuity and length by comparison with the occurrences which have preceded it. The many visitors, Royal and otherwise, who have flocked from overseas to view the wonders of Wembley, the entertainments in their honour; the consecration of Liverpool Cathedral, art exhibitions of exceptional merit, such as those of M. de Laszlò, of Sargent, Gauguin, and even of the Academy, have combined to render the social season of 1924 a memorable one, to which the deeply impressive naval pageant at Spitheád last week formed a fitting climax, even though all other spectacles will seem tame in comparison for some time to come.

MD

11/12/2007