Plain Dull?

"While newspaper editorials have been waxing indignant about the rudeness of some students in Wellington who didn't take any notice of the Prime Minister when he walked past, they've missed the worst point.

"Which is, we think, that this rudeness is neither clever nor original.

"An old-time journalist we knew in Wellington used to recount the days when he was reporting a capping ceremony in the capital.

"The speaker was notorious for giving long speeches. And so, after a decent interval had passed and the speaker was still droning on, several hundred students in the audience simultaneously took out newspapers, unfolded them, and began to read. Several hundred newspapers turned simultaneously made the point.

"Obviously, students these days are not so much rude as plain dull."—The Tribune (Palmerston North), Sunday, July 10, 1966.