I have long pondered the motive with which Michael Wharton, for long the author of the Daily Telegraph’s Peter Simple column, gave a memorable detail in his second volume of memories, A Dubious Codicil, about the habits of his rival Colin Welch: ‘He had a habit of picking his nose, occasionally tasting the extracted mucus or “bogey”, without any attempt to conceal himself, as most people would, behind a newspaper.’ Since they are both dead, I am unlikely to find out.
But I have been piqued recently by another kind of pick, mostly relating to Donald Trump, and now spilling over into British affairs. The choice for one of his cabinet posts was widely called a pick, even by British correspondents.
There was Trump’s ‘pick for ambassador to Israel’, ‘his pick for secretary of energy’, and, as a Guardian headline ran: ‘Health secretary pick Price pressed at hearing on stock deals’.
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