It used to be thought that only the rich and famous needed style. Television has changed all that. We can now see that there are people in our society who can earn vast sums of money, become the world's sweethearts, be photographed at airports, and be known by name to hotel proprietors, without displaying talent of any kind.

This phenomenon cannot be regarded as an unmixed blessing. Television is certainly to blame for contributing to the madness of young people by bombarding their consciences with the lurid spectacle of worldwide injustice. Even so it would be futile and, worse, styleless to attempt to limit its activities.

At the very least it should be treated like Chinese rape. As it is inevitable, we should relax and enjoy its influence upon our lives. This attitude would at least have the effect of calling the bluff of newscasters. The spreading of shocking news is not a denunciation of war and similar so-called evils. It is a way of selling television sets. It is a parallel activity with the making of pornographic films. The publicity for such movies is pseudopuritanical but the audience is invariably pleased to see that debauchery fills the screen for nine-tenths of the film's showing time, at the end of which retribution gets to work faster than a clip joint warned that there is going to be a raid.

Further passages from this great, but sadly out of print, book will be reproduced here on a fortnightly basis.