Well, he's my pity either way,
Poor little wretch!
HOW TO IMPROVE LONDON.
We were discussing London's needs. Each of us was suggesting some long-felt want which most appealed to him or her.
Some had declared that what London chiefly wanted was a tube from Victoria to Chelsea. Someone else said that what it chiefly wanted was a glass roof over Bond Street and the chief shopping area. Someone else said that what it chiefly wanted was perforated pavements to let the rain through at once—and so on.
"What I want," said a pretty girl—so pretty that I almost got up and set about providing her with it—"is a guide to the cinemas. I adore cinemas, but there is no means of knowing what is on unless you go to the place itself. Then very likely it's some stupid long play, with more printed descriptions than deeds and more letters to read than people to see. Now there ought to be a list of all the cinema programmes on sale at the bookstalls, like The Times and Spectator."
"Wouldn't you have a cinema critic too," someone asked, "like Mr. Walkley, to say how the films amused him, and so on?"
"No, I don't want that," she said. "But I should like information as to how long they were, and if they were American or Italian or French or English, and I should like a star to be put against those which Mr. Redford had not thought splendid."