"I only write when the mood comes," said Sir John Betjeman, "and it was just about to come when the phone started ringing and the television cameras arrived. Now I'm showing off like mad." At 66, Betjeman had just been named England's 19th poet laureate. The royal appointment, which pays $170 a year plus $66 "in lieu of a butt of sack," filled him first with "surprise, then a feeling of being humbled, and then pleasure." Perhaps England's most popular contemporary poet, Betjeman said he had no intention of carrying out the laureate's ceremonial duties. "I would not, for instance, be at all interested in writing a poem about Britain's entry into the economic market, or whatever it is. I want to write about such wonderful things as bees on ivy leaves and the golden light of a beautiful autumn evening."

"I didn't marry a King, I married a professor," the late Queen Louise of Sweden once remarked about her husband's lifelong search for archaeological treasures. Now 89, King Gustaf VI Adolf still enjoys an annual exploration in Italy. His latest dig is at Viterbo, 50 miles north of Rome, where His Majesty donned a jaunty hat, seized pick and chisel, and set forth to unearth the secrets of an Etruscan burial ground.

One of the most pleasant sights in Paris these days is the Catherine Deneuve menage--Catherine herself, Good Friend Marcello Mastroianni, their baby daughter Chiara, and Christian, 9, Catherine's son by former Good Friend Roger Vadim--all out for a Sunday stroll. Catherine rarely talks about her private life, but in the current Pageant, she offers some pungent opinions: "Men are real Arabs. All men. They want to keep women submissive. Even the best of them. I really think it's in the blood. I myself happen to be for free love. I have absolutely no regret and no shame regarding any relationship I have ever had with any man."

Aboard the night ferry to Martha's Vineyard, a strange voice called out to World Bank President Robert S. McNamara that a phone call awaited him in the wheelhouse. As the former Defense Secretary started up the ladder, a young man attacked him and tried to throw him overboard. At 56, McNamara is still a strenuous New Frontier-era skiing and mountain-climbing enthusiast; he easily beat off the younger man, whose agility appeared somewhat addled by wine. The unidentified attacker was then restrained by friends. Why the attack? Apparently McNamara has dismayed the Vineyard's community of nude swimmers by buying a beach where they like to congregate. McNamara has promised to keep a stretch of the beach public, but in the swimmers' view, life will never again be so jolly.

"Ah, it's going to be great," rumbled Saloonkeeper Toots Shor as he opened the doors of his new watering hole for Manhattan's sporting set (Toots' last place was shut down in 1971 for nonpayment of taxes). Bending elbows and ears at the festivities were some 1,000 friends and customers, including Secretary of State William P. Rogers, Ed Sullivan, Rocky Graziano, Frank Gifford, W. Averell Harriman, and Larry O'Brien (who held up a T shirt emblazoned: I'M A DEMOCRAT--DONT BUG ME). "Hello, Big John!" Toots roared as he bussed fellow Restaurateur Jack Dempsey. The former champion answered with a playful right to the jaw. Said one guest as the mid-afternoon party neared midnight: "I'll probably be here for breakfast."

"I do hereby accuse the United States Supreme Court of high crimes and treason, namely of mocking the Constitution, trammeling Freedom of the Press. . ." And so on. With this flourish, Ralph Ginzburg, self-publicist supreme, informed the world that he had just been paroled after eight months of a three-year sentence for sending obscene material through the mail. Actually, Allenwood Prison camp was not all that bad--Ginzburg even served as a sexton at the prison church--but it was all very depressing. "I felt psychically castrated. I lost 30 lbs. I spent plenty of nights weeping into my pillow." Now liberated and dry-eyed, Ginzburg vowed to reopen his case. "My reputation has been besmirched," said he. "I will be vindicated."

Is it true, that legend about Howard Hughes having a druidical beard and toenails two inches long? Indeed it is, according to Bob Rehak, who says that he skippered an 83-ft. yacht that spirited the millionaire recluse from Paradise Island to Miami last February. When Hughes arrived on board, Rehak told the Miami Herald, he was on a stretcher, and his five aides "had him under some sort of dope. He'd open his eyes and they would roll to the back of his head." Rehak adds: "He had this real stringy beard. His hair was down over his shoulders. He stood up and fumbled with his old bathrobe--didn't have a stitch on underneath--and that's when I noticed his long toenails. They were so long they curled up."

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