Now that London is part of the Front, with a barrage of its own, one has to be careful to censor one's correspondence. It is advisable not to mention your actual address, but just to write "Somewhere in the West-End. B.S.F." (British Sedentary Force).
The Winter season has begun exceptionally early. Last Sunday at Church Parade I saw Lady "Nibs" Tattenham, looking the very image of her latest photograph in _The Prattler_, where she appears with her pet Pekie over the legend, "Deeply interested in War-work."
A gallant Contemptible has been complaining to me that the Press shows no sense of proportion in the space that it allots to air-raids. Our casualties from that source, he said, are never one tenth as heavy as those in France on days when G.H.Q. reports "Everything quiet on the Western Front." I naturally disagreed with his attitude. Nothing, I told him, is more likely to discourage the Hun than to see column after column in our papers proving that these visitations leave us totally unmoved. Besides it must be very comforting to our troops in the trenches to learn in detail how their dear ones at home are sharing the perils of the other fronts. In any case nobody who knows our Press would doubt the purity of their motive in reporting as many air-raid horrors as the Censor permits.
_À propos_ of the Patriotic Press, no praise can be too high for some of our society weeklies. They have set their faces like flint against any serious reference to the War. When I see them going imperturbably along the old pre-war lines, snapping smart people at the races or in the Row, or reproducing the devastating beauty of a revue chorus, I know that they have their withers unwrung and their heart in the right place. I always have one of these papers on my table to be taken as a corrective after the daily casualty lists.
A striking feature of the Photographic Press is to be seen in the revival of the _vie intime_ of popular idols of the stage. The human life of our great actors and actresses as revealed in some simple rustic _villeggiatura_ has always had a fascination for a public that does not enjoy the privilege of their private friendship. And in these strenuous War-days it is well to bring home to the theatre-goer how necessary is domestic repose for those who are doing their courageous bit to keep the nation from dwelling on the inconveniences of Armageddon.