After long basking on the French Riviera, Somerset Maugham returned to London for a ten-week chill in Britain's foggy-foggy autumnal dews. At 86, Author Maugham is possibly as acidly opinionated as ever in his life. He himself never published anything that was censorably naughty, and he apparently has no patience with those who do, or did. Said he of Lady Chatterley's Lover: "Rather boring. As for the scatological parts, they didn't tell me anything I didn't know before." Of Lolita: "I read the first 74 pages. Then I was too bored to go on. Shocked? Damn it, it takes more than that to shock me. Nothing shocks me except cruelty." And what does he think of women these days? "As far as I can judge, with women it is all take and no give. There must be some women who are not liars. I do know a few women I am extremely fond of, but at my age one's attitude is rather different from a young man's." One London attraction: "A crematorium for my personal use" nearby.

Positive proof that Sweden's Cinemactress Ingrid Bergman is an admirer of France's favorite adult bedtime storyteller, supreme Triangulator Franc,oise Sagan, came last December when Ingrid agreed, without haggling about acting conditions or money, to star in a movie version of Franc,ois latest bundly bagatelle, Do You Like Brahms? Francoise, visiting the movie's set at Paris' Boulogne Studios, obviously reciprocated the admiration.

All but signed on the dotted line as president of the National Association of Broadcasters was Florida's genial Demo cratic Governor LeRoy Collins whose $22,500-a-year term expires in January. After his effective chairing of the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles earlier this year, Collins hinted that he was open for an ambassadorial or Cabinet post if the Democrats win. Best guess as to why Collins would choose October's birdinhand instead of waiting for the iffy outcome of November's election: $100,000 a year.

At London's Covent Garden Royal Opera House, Swedish Soprano Birgit Nilsson wowed almost everyone--critics and public alike--with her passionate singing of Bruennhilde in Wagner's Die Walkuere. But one listener was unimpressed--Critic Peter Branscombe of London's Financial Times, which takes a passing interest in music. Pronounced Branscombe: "She is not yet the perfect Bruennhilde, but her sense of the stage is deepening." That one sour note was enough for Birgit to conclude that London is a town with rocks in its head. Cried she caustically: "I will not sing the part again in London until I'm more matured." But it was merely a fit of pique: at week's end Birgit was back on the London stage.

At an off-Broadway theater, sultry Singer Lena Home dropped in on opening night to catch her daughter, Gail Jones, 22, in a musical titled Valmouth and having to do with the antics of a mixed bag of aristocrats, plebeians and Far Eastern visitors at an English seaside resort. The critics thought the show "tired" and "a mess," but one allowed that Gail might ride more handsomely in another vehicle. Tersely observed the New York Times: "Gail may turn out to be a singer."

Back home in Utah, where most G.O.P. strategists hope he will remain inconspicuous during the campaign, long-embattled Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson got a pleasant surprise. Some folks in Utah are still very fond of him--so much so that they would like Benson to be their next Governor. His return set off a drive by anonymous backers to wage a write-in campaign for Benson, as it was too late to get his name on the Utah ballot by petition. Oddly, Benson might have had a slender chance of election: Utah voters warm little to grey-toned Republican George Clyde, running for reelection, or to his opponent, Democrat William Barlocker, a brash and green small-town politico. "It's news to me," muttered Ezra Taft Benson in pleased perplexity. But later he came out foursquare for drab George Clyde.

After spending only two days of a scheduled four in Moscow, bodkin-tongued Comic Mort Sahl packed up and lammed for Denmark, scared and indignant. Noted for his sardonic comments on U.S. life, Mort was outraged by the quick slice of Soviet life that he sampled. Moscow is "a huge, grey, plodding society with everybody shuffling up and down the streets," his hotel room was "filthy, impossible," the food "uneatable and indigestible," all else "decrepit." Breathing the pure Danish air, he Sahliloquized: "They left us no privacy. It reminded me of George Orwell's 1984 society, really frightening. I can use a lot of this in my show, but I'm afraid most of it will be on the same line as Bob Hope's recent crack about his TV set in Russia--it watched him."

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