There is a review by Raymond Tallis (Gerontology, Manchester) of Mary Midgley’s autobiography, The Owl of Minerva (Routledge 2006) in the current (Apr.26) Times Literary Supplement.  The review offers an interesting perspective upon the the era we might call Wittgenaustinian England:

There is a striking story from her time at Oxford, where she was an
undergraduate between 1938 and 1942, and [for a time] after the war. She was part of an extraordinarily talented cohort of
students that included Mary Warnock, Iris Murdoch, Philippa Foot and
Elizabeth Anscombe, all of whom remained lifelong friends. Midgley
recounts a discussion in Lyon’s Café between herself, Murdoch and
Anscombe, about “rudeness”.

Notions such as rudeness are powerful
reminders that description and evaluation, facts and values, are not
separable and independent – an important point in a world dominated by
philosophers who regarded moral judgements as lacking in empirical
content and hence as meaningless or having “only emotive” meaning.
Murdoch mentioned, by way of preliminary, that some people might
describe Anscombe (who was famously brutal in social intercourse) as
sometimes being rude. Anscombe froze, was silent, withdrew herself “to
an arctic distance” and then, after a short speech, walked out in
dignified silence.

Midgley reflects: “People who go about treading on
other people’s toes are peculiarly unaware of what it is like to be
trodden on, so that they are naturally much surprised when it happens
to themselves”. Then, characteristically, she adds: “But of course what
one got from Elizabeth was something unique and hugely worthwhile”. She
also blamed the influence of Wittgenstein: “Tolerance was not in his
repertoire and he liked to remove it from other people’s”.

It is tempting to speculate how much of the horror that analytic philosophy tends to inspire stems from the waves of rudeness that certain influential philosophers set in motion decades ago.  Those waves are no longer evident in England, I am pleased to report.  I can’t help wondering, though: Did Midgley mean to tread on Anscombe’s toes?