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A Hymn To Him?
Yet again, the use of the English language is on my mind. On this occasion, it is because of a perceived inclusivity deficiency in the Church of England.
A group of clergy wishes to introduce gender-neutral hymns and prayers. God, they argue, is neither male nor female, so it is, therefore, not appropriate to use gender-specific pronouns. Not, of course, unless there is proper balance. Thus the Lord’s Prayer should begin “Our Father and Mother”, instead of “Our Father”. This idea will, they hope, be discussed by the Church of England’s ruling body, the General Synod. They hope for a ruling which will instruct the church’s Liturgical commission to authorise material for services which contains more “inclusive” language.
Whilst to some people, it seems straight forward, there are complications. A substantial number of hymns can’t be sensibly modified to bring them into line with this kind of thinking. How, for example, should “Praise, my soul, the King of heaven” be re-worded? Neither “monarch” nor “sovereign” scan, so “Praise, my soul, the Monarch …” and “Praise, my soul, the Sovereign of heaven” are both out. Should corporate terminology be used, thus “the Chair of heaven”? What on earth should be done with “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind”, the 23rd psalm, or the Magnificat? Although “They’ve got the whole world in Their hands” works. Mind you, I see no need to keep torturing primary school children, or their teachers, with that particular piece of tedium, regardless of which pronouns are used.
To be fair, these priests want this to apply to new hymns, but that could still pose a problem. Most successful changes are made gradually, not suddenly. A new liturgy and new hymns would be too much change for many. A new liturgy and old hymns could present a jarring contrast.
And how far would the changes have to go? Would the Holy Trinity need a slight re-labelling – “Parent, Son and holy Spirit”? Or would trinitarianism no longer be part of Church of England doctrine? Would it go beyond references to the Most High, and mean that a person would only ever be a godparent, never a godmother or godfather?
Many traditionalists are still upset by the use of modern translations of the Bible, and long for the splendour of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. But they understand that less complicated language might help to “spread the Word”. However, asking them to accept a new liturgy in order to accommodate current social mores, risks alienating them.
The counter to that, of course, is that change is necessary. The Church of England now allows divorcees to remarry, blesses civil unions, and ordains women. So why not allow some variation in God’s pronouns?
But does any of this really matter? After all, as we can’t know for certain whether or not God exists, it necessarily follows that we can’t know with any certainty about God’s gender. Perhaps Anglicans should accept what the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said in 2018? “All human language about God is inadequate and to some degree metaphorical. God is not a father in exactly the same way as a human being is a father. God is not male or female. God is not definable.”
So, should the Church of England accept the idea by musically and liturgically embracing the genderlessness of God? Or, given the fact that theology is already an intellectual minefield without having to try and determine how many, and which pronouns to use when referring to the Almighty, should the whole idea be quietly shelved?
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We Are All Hypocrites
Last weekend, I enjoyed the book, Confessions, the autobiography of the broadcaster and journalist, Edward Stourton. You may recall my mentioning him with regard to accents a couple of months ago.
Amid all of the tales of his early years spent in various British colonies on the cusp of independence, his prep school (the now defunct Avisford), his public school (Ampleforth College), his time at university (Trinity College, Cambridge), and his illustrious career at both ITN and the BBC, Stourton made a linguistic point which particularly struck me. He remarks on the shift in meaning of the words “posh” and “elite”.
When he was growing up in the 1960s, and for that matter, when I was growing up two decades later, “posh” meant smart or glamourous. A particularly fine shirt, or a fountain pen, or a car, might be described as “posh”.
Similarly, “elite” meant the best. A national cricket or rugby team would be made up of an elite group of players taken from various clubs. Special forces were elite troops.
But these days, both words have taken on negative connotations. Posh people are derided as a group of people totally out of touch with reality. Depending on a person’s politics, either the “ruling Tory elite” or the “woke metropolitan elite”, must be distrusted and despised. Ownership of posh cars isn’t a sign of success any more, but rather that the owner is terribly pretentious, and has more money than sense. Elite schools are no longer outstanding places of learning to which parents can send their academically gifted children, but are evil hothouses for the sons and daughters of the rich where they will be taught how to maintain a downward tread upon the masses.
The two meanings of both words caused me to think about snobbery. In particular, its universality.
We are all familiar with the fact that there are those people who dismiss others, because they’re not from the “right sort of family”, or didn’t go to the “right kind of school”. Similarly, we are familiar with aspirational snobs, as lampooned to brilliant effect by Roy Clarke through his character, the appalling social climber, Hyacinth Bucket, in the sitcom, Keeping Up Appearances.
But of course, snobbery goes the other way too. So-called “reverse snobbery” is that which derides the “posh” and “elite”, as mentioned above. The Daily Mail, then later other newspapers, referred to Edward Stourton as “Posh Ed”. It wasn’t intended to flatter, but to pander to those who objected to well-educated, well-spoken people. The well-educated are, indeed, despised in certain quarters. Years ago, I knew someone who wouldn’t allow his daughter to accept a full scholarship to a private school. Such a school would, in his opinion, “make her forget who she is, and where she comes from”.
We all consider snobbery to be a deeply unpleasant human characteristic. It either angers us, or we have to laugh at the likes of Hyacinth Bucket, or the quip made by the one-time England cricket captain, the late Ray Illingworth about Jim Swanton, the distinguished cricket correspondent for The Daily Telegraph. “Jim’s such a snob that he won’t even travel in the same car as his chauffeur.”
Yet although we are all revolted by the snobbery of others, we fail to recognise it in ourselves. The music we listen to, the books and newspapers we read, the films and television programmes we watch, the clothes we wear, the food and drink we buy, the shops we patronise, the schools we choose for our children, and the cars we drive are just a few of the things that contribute to our own views of ourselves and our standing (whether that be cultural, intellectual or social), how we view other people, and how we are perceived, believe we are perceived, or would like to be perceived, by others. None of it should matter. But it does. Terribly.
Why are we all snobs, even though we believe that we abhor snobbery in all its forms? Perhaps it gives us a sense of belonging? If we adopt the manners, views and tastes of our chosen group, we will fit in better. Perhaps we need to feel superior to someone? If we are, or feel, superior to some, it compensates for being, or feeling, inferior to others. Or perhaps, it is simply that deep down, whether we like it or not, life conspires to make hypocrites of us all?
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The Game of the Name
Do our names say anything about us? Or do they reveal more about our parents? Do parents consider the consequences of the names they bestow on their progeny?
The easy answer to the former question is I don’t know. The answer to the latter is probably not. Consider the names that celebrities choose, such as those given by David and Victoria Beckham for their brood – Brooklyn Joseph, Romeo James, Cruz David, and Harper Seven. Ah, how people laughed at the parents, and felt a little bit sorry for the children.
Then, in 2008, we heard about the couple from New Zealand, whose nine-year-old daughter was taken into court guardianship as a result of them naming her Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii. “What”, we all wanted to know, “were these people thinking?” It was not only an unforgivably stupid name to inflict on a child, but a deeply distressing one. As a result of the level of mockery she had to endure, she started introducing herself to any child who didn’t know her as Kate.
The judge expressed his displeasure at the “growing trend” of parents choosing out-of-the-ordinary names for their offspring. In his ruling, he revealed that names such as Stallion, Yeah Detroit, Fish and Chips, Twisty Poi, Keenan Got Lucy, and Sex Fruit had been prohibited by registration officials. Thank goodness for that. However, officials had allowed a pair of twins – presumably bred by chain smokers – to be named Benson and Hedges, and a collection of other children to be named Midnight Chardonnay, Number 16 Bus Shelter, and, appallingly, Violence.
But was the good Judge right to say that it was a “new trend”? The short answer is no.
In his delightful book, Morecock, Fartwell, and Hoare, Russell Ash reveals the silly, unfortunate, ironic, filthy, and yes, funny names he discovered in genealogical lists while researching his ancestry. They range from the brutally tragic Not Wanted James Colvill, to the frankly ridiculous New Year Beadle, the optimistically boastful Mary Goodlay, and the magnificently grandiloquent Dancell Dallphebo Marc Antony Dallery Gallery Caesar Williams. The aforementioned Mr Williams for one, was not the son of a pretentious, millennial hipster, but was baptised in the 17th century.
I could, with the greatest of pleasure, give you pages of these names. However, If I were to do so, Mr Ash might take me to court, which would be something of a nuisance. So I shall present a few of them for your delectation and delight.
The book is divided into various themed sections. The one concerning animals contains such delights as: Baboon Dalbert Anson, Liz Ard, Otter Bloodworth, Tom Cat, Dorothy Spider De La H Maddocks, Trout Holdsworth, Albatross Louisa Kingston, Kitty Litter, Emu Luckwill, Rubin Toad Pinkney, Ostrich Pockinghorn, Sarah Jane Shrew, and Clement Sparrow Wham.
If food and drink are your thing, you can read about the likes of: Ann Apple, Tom Ato, Mary Caramel Boot, Virtue Bible Curry, Louisa F De la Sausage, Al Dente, Sue Flay, Colly Flower, Margarine Fryer, Edith Mary Hudson Whis Key, Basil Leaf, Margret Coffee Maxwell, Trifle Muddock, Hazel Nutt, Agnes Etta Pepper, Bovril Simpson, and Agnes Semolina Thrower.
Ash also devotes a section to rhyme. There one comes across: Harry Carry, Agnise Chemise, Richard Stoat Float, Norman Gorman, Willy Nilly, Hugh Pugh, and Herbert Sherbert.
If you are linguistically squeamish, this paragraph may not be for you, as it concerns those names with have anatomical or sexual connotations, and therefore contains some very naughty words which some fools thought should be adopted as surnames, or be used as christian names for their children. Taken from various sections, we have: Betsy Cockin Beevers, Rebecca Bonks, Erasmus Bugger, William Deviant Christie, Everard Cock, Rhoda Cock, Willy Droop, Fanny Filling, John Knobs Henry, Mary Ann Cunt Hunt,, Francis Pervert Leconte, Thomas Fondle Manning, Pudendiana Ryan, Silly Trollope, Henry Twiceaday, Jane F Ucker, and Elizabeth Experience Withall. And for singletons and frustrated halves of couples who might need a helping hand, there are: Dick Handler, Jack Off, and Bertram H Wankwell.
Why? Why would people do that, to themselves or their children? Granted, a number of the above are surnames, so there are whole tribes of people with them, but that can, and in some cases should be changed. Some of the forenames though, seem cruel.
Yes, these names are funny. But most of us don’t have to live with them. The humour isn’t there for those who do. Heaven only knows what they had to endure, and what the unfortunately named children of our own time have to put up with. Having had to hear, when people discover my name, endless failed imitations of Prunella Scales, not to mention numerous attempts at vulpine-related humour from people who genuinely believe that they are the first person to have thought of one or other, I have an awareness of how things must have been, or must still be. But my name is not especially unusual, nor, I believe, is it ridiculous. I have, therefore, got off very lightly.
So, if you’re in the process of breeding, or are planning to do so, please think very carefully. When ploughing through books of names, laugh long, hard, joyfully and guiltlessly at all of the funny and strange names. Then move on. Pick something sensible. Otherwise, you will, as Rob Murfitt, the Judge in the “Talula” case might put it, expose your children to ridicule from their peers. It gives them what, in his ruling, he called, “a social disability and handicap”. That really isn’t a kind thing to do. Naming a child is not a game. A moment of humour can create a lifetime of misery.
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No Mates
What’s in a word? Can an attempt to be friendly, or to describe someone, truly offend, or do them harm? I don’t mean pejorative terms, but ordinary, everyday language, where no malice is intended.
The reason I ask, is that material has been leaked to the Guido Fawkes website, pertaining to a presentation given one lunchtime to a particular department at the Home Office. The subject of the presentation, was the dos and don’ts of language in relation to gender, sex, and sexuality. Given what follows, I should make it clear that the Home Office has stated that the suggestions made in the presentation are those of the person conducting it, not government guidelines.
We are becoming used to seeing, in email signatures, and even social media profiles, “preferred pronouns”. Were I, for example, to conform to such fashionable modernity, my email signature might read, “Basil Clement, he/him”. Someone identifying as a woman might write, “she/her”. A person identifying as nonbinary might opt for, “they/them.”. So far, so relatively uncomplicated. But then there are “mixed”, or “split” pronouns. Somebody’s preference might be for, “he/them”, or “they/her”.
But it can get worse. There are things, God help us,, called “neopronouns”. There are, apparently, people who wish to be referred to as “zie” or “ey”. Ghastly, aren’t they? I have no idea what they mean, but, I suppose, it doesn’t really matter. And to be fair, there is no law that says that a person’s comfort has to be euphonically pleasing.
Those who attended the presentation were also advised not to use the term “homosexual”. It is, apparently, perceived as a medical term, and people might get offended by being reduced to purely sexual terms. Instead, “gay” should be used. How that avoids doing the same thing, given that in this context, one is a synonym for the other, I don’t know. Sweet, merciful heavens. What a minefield.
But the most fascinatingly, fabulously, fantastically fatuous feature of this presentation, is the foolish notion that it is fundamentally wrong to address someone as “mate”. Yes, dear reader, you read that correctly. “Mate” is, it seems, a very, very bad word. True, there are times when it could be considered inappropriate. One wouldn’t write formal letters to the King, or the Prime Minister, or the editor of a newspaper, and begin them, “dear mate”. But in everyday conversation, it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to call someone.
A mate can be either a friend or a partner. And of course, there are numerous other kinds of mates including: “shipmates”, “housemates”, “roommates”, “classmates”, “workmates” (although these days, they are more often called “colleagues”, or the unnecessarily sesquipedalian “co-workers”), and “teammates”. The employees/trainees of electricians or plumbers are “mates”, prisons are filled with “inmates”, and the siblings of cats are “littermates”.
The word “mate” denotes neither gender nor sexual preference. People of all genders and none refer to their friends as “mates”. As do people of all sexual orientations. Should other synonyms for “friend”, such as “buddy” or “pal” be discouraged too? If “sir” or “madam” can’t be used because they are too gender-specific, terms of endearment should be avoided because they might be interpreted as inappropriate sexual advances, and “mate” is just wrong, what word should be used if one doesn’t know a person’s name?
You may be wondering, dear reader, what the exact problem is with the word “mate”. You would not be alone. Nobody seems to know. It wasn’t made clear in the presentation.
There were a number of other dos and don’ts. But they were all so banal that they are, quite frankly, beneath contempt, so I shan’t elevate your blood pressure or mine by chronicling them here.
As I have said, these are not government guidelines. And quite right too. They are utter nonsense, and therefore shouldn’t be. It is possible to treat everyone with curtesy and respect, without having to permeate discourse with linguistic trip hazards. They may be fashionable at the moment, but fashion is, by definition, ephemeral.
Civil servants should be left to get on with their jobs, and not be pestered by proponents of verbal virtue signalling. Goodness knows, it can be difficult enough to get anything out of the Civil Service at the best of times. But if they are forced into spending an inordinate amount of time on finding the current week’s acceptable terminology, it will be impossible.
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Whole Lot Of Shakin’ … Not Goin’ On
And so, dear reader, the day has not only come, but it has gone. The publishing event of the year – or the decade, or century, or epoch, or possibly the most important one since Moses came down the mountain clutching is collection of stone tablets – has happened. After what seems like an indecently prolonged spell of torture or anticipation, depending which, if any, side you’re on, a certain ghost has finally acted as a reverse medium for a certain living person. By that, of course, I mean that the ghost-written memoir of the Duke of Sussex has been released. It is now available to you, should you really wish to read it.
It will not, I fear, go down as one of the great literary masterpieces. But this isn’t the place to discuss its literary merits, or the lack thereof. There are plenty of reviews you can find should you need to be reassured that it is, indeed, a four-hundred-and-sixteen-page whinge. Or, if audio books are your thing, a whinge lasting fifteen hours and thirty-seven minutes, and read by the man himself.
Instead, I shall dwell upon some associated nonsense.
Before I do, however, I must acknowledge an important fact. For a book of this kind, or indeed of any kind, there are commercial imperatives. If publishers believe that a proposed book has no commercial possibilities, they won’t touch it. This means that hard selling is necessary.
Hyperbole, therefore, is the name of the game. An unpleasant story is a “searing account”. A book filled with immoderate language is “hard hitting”. Allegations are “revelations”. A catalogue of assertions is an “exposé”, or “the truth that they” – whoever they may be – don’t want you to know about”. All rather tiresome, really.
The hyperbolical claim concerning the Sussex tome, made by a great many people, is that the “revelations” contained therein, will “shake the Monarchy to its very core”. No they won’t. And here’s why.
Although the Duke of Sussex is the son of the King, and brother to His Majesty’s most probable successor, he is, constitutionally speaking, fairly unimportant. The heir to the Throne has, in turn, three heirs, in the persons of his children. So Spare, the title of the disgruntled Duke’s book, is, therefore, rather apt. He is currently fifth in line to the Throne, and one shudders to think of the type of accident that would cause him to be crowned.
True, the book is likely to prove distressing reading to the King and Queen, the Prince and Princess of Wales, and anyone else portrayed in a negative light. No doubt some relationships have been damaged beyond repair. But that is a family crisis, not a constitutional one.
I have two other reasons for suggesting that the institution of the Monarchy remains resolutely unshaken. The first of these is the deafening silence from politicians. As you will know, dear reader, they are a class of people for whom verbal incontinence is an essential characteristic. Usually, they won’t shut up under any circumstances. But on this matter, they have nothing to say. Yes, Government MPs are the King’s ministers, and Opposition MPs wish to become the King’s ministers, so criticism of the Sovereign, his heir or his spare, would be somewhat imprudent. But many of them wouldn’t shrink from airing their views if there were a constitutional crisis.
The second reason is that people had made up their minds long before the book even went to press. Since the royal migration to California, people have divided into two camps. In one are those people who believe that the Duke, poor lamb, has had a lifetime of abuse from his cold father and his overbearing brother, not to mention Satan’s emissaries based in newspaper offices the world over. As a child, he suffered the indignity and distress of being part of a global spectacle, days after the tragic death of his mother. Because of this, so their argument goes, we must show him nothing but tolerance and compassion.
The other camp is full of people who believe that the Duke is a petty, whining brat. A hypocrite who will revile the media one minute, then accept millions for dozens of interviews the next, during which, he’ll abuse his family. They argue that the sooner he is stripped of all of his royal titles, the better.
But the book hasn’t done anything to change people’s minds. They were, and remain, either pro or anti the Monarchy, and the outpourings from the Duke aren’t going to change anything. Indeed, most people, according to opinion polls, are in favour of the institution.
So, dear reader, plough through the book or not, as you choose. But don’t be fooled into thinking that it will shake the Monarchy. That idea is mere commercialist propaganda.
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Time And Food Wait For No Man
In the late 1950s, the American activist, singer and songwriter, Pete Seeger wrote the antiwar song, Turn! Turn! Turn! It remained a fairly obscure folk song until the Byrds had a worldwide hit with it in 1965.
Apart from the refrain, and six words at the end of the song, Seeger lifted the text, almost verbatim, from the King James version of the Old Testament book, Ecclesiastes. Specifically, he used the first eight verses of Chapter 3.
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.”
But what neither the author (or authors) of Ecclesiastes, nor Seeger mention, doubtless for reasons of relevance to their respective points, is that there is also a season to food.
At the time of writing, the 2022-23 festive season is being wound up. People are hastily consuming the last of the mince pies, taking their last, guilty bites of chocolate, and surreptitiously slurping the dregs of the Christmas booze. Arguments about whether to have sprouts for dinner are being mentally folded up and put away, not to be brought out again and recapitulated for another eleven months. Those who have been blithely quaffing alcoholic libations from breakfast time onwards, will now resume the habit of passing moral judgements on anyone who drinks earlier in the day than they do, only to forget their scruples again in fifty weeks’ time. People who enjoy turkey or rich fruit cake at any time of the year, are dismissed as “weird” by those who routinely feed their children Turkey Twizzlers and gorge on rich chocolate cake.
Yet, although, largely as a result of overindulgence, people are relieved to get to the end of the festive food – the season is over – and they will then go out and buy unseasonal food. They will counter the yuletide stodge with lightly dressed lettuce and strawberries. Just the thing for cold, January evenings. Honest.
But why? Why strawberries in January, but not turkey in June? Why its that culinary symbol of Good Friday, the hot cross bun, available in supermarkets all year round, yet the mince pie is not? Neither makes sense. In the UK, strawberries don’t grow in January, so they have to be imported, at considerable cost, both financial and environmental. Home-reared turkeys are available all year round, but as I’ve already said, people who eat them at times other than Christmas, are unfairly considered “weird”. There is nothing uniquely Christmasy about mince pies, yet we are denied them for most of the year. There is a good deal of symbolism surrounding hot cross buns which is specific to Easter, but they are freely available to us whenever we want them.
Surely we should have some kind of standard? If we can abandon all seasons for fruit and vegetables by importing them when they won’t grow here, why must we have rules concerning the seasonality of baked goods? If we must have rules about pies, should we not revert to having strawberries and lettuce in the summer, and more filling fruits and vegetables in the winter?
Perhaps, if the subject had been important to biblical authors, Pete Seeger might have written a song about it?
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And The Winner Is …
It must be acknowledged that politicians, as a species, are not only distrusted, but heartily disliked. People express their dislike in all kinds of ways, especially on social media. They use a politician’s ideology as a pejorative term, doubt his or her parentage, accuse them of lying/being greedy/corrupt/self-serving/out of touch simply because they are a politician, or call them “evil” if their point of view is different. There are regular, and inexcusable, threats of rape, child abduction, and death. Tragically, there have been actual killings – two duly elected members of Parliament, Labour’s Jo Cox and the Conservatives’ Sir David Amess, during the past six years.
So, as it is the festive season, I shall, in a typically back-handed way, offer a little love to the political classes. I shall reveal to you, dear reader, the winner of the Buffoon Of The Year award. This is, of course, an entirely notional award. The winner only gets the kudos of being laughed at by me, which, now I think about it, probably isn’t worth having. Ah well. Never mind. But before I tell you who has hypothetically won this equally hypothetical trophy, there are several other politicians who deserve a right honourable mention.
Akwasi Addo Alfred (Kwasi) Kwarteng
You may remember him. He was the third of the four chancellors of the Exchequer inflicted on the UK this year. His piece of idiocy was to undo, in twenty-five minutes, twenty-five years’ worth of economic consensus, causing panic in the stock market, and the Pound to plummet to its lowest recorded level against the US Dollar. This he did with considerable aplomb. However, I do have a little sympathy for Mr Kwarteng, as he was dismissed from his post by the very Prime Minister whose instructions he was obeying to the letter. But you will be glad to know that my sympathy is tinged with a lot of schadenfreude. Sadly, the modicum of sympathy means no award.
Mary Elizabeth (Liz) Truss
To quote the King, “dear, oh dear”. Never can a prime minister have failed so spectacularly due to their own ineptitude. Hers was the shortest official premiership, during which she managed to both hire and fire the aforementioned Kwasi Kwarteng. It only lasted a derisory fifty days, sixty-nine fewer days than the previous record-holder, George Canning, who was PM from April to August 1827. Although in Canning’s case, it was death (his own), rather than pathological incompetence, which caused him to leave office. Actually, the shortest serving PM was Lord Bath, appointed by George II on 10th February 1746. However, the noble Lord could only find one person willing to serve under him, so resigned two days later. At least Ms Truss was able to form a cabinet, even if it did resemble one of those hopeless MFI creations with half of the screws missing. Sadly, her stupidity has proved to be too consequential to merit a Buffoon of the Year award.
Angela Rayner
Hmm. I hope, dear reader, that you haven’t just eaten. This isn’t pleasant. Or perhaps, I’m just revealing one of my prejudices?
In April, The Mail on Sunday, a journal not known for incisive reasoning or nuanced debate, published an allegation that Mrs Rayner had been provocatively crossing and uncrossing her legs after the manner of Sharon Stone in the film Basic Instinct. This was supposed to be an overt display of sexuality designed to distract the then Prime Minister, the priapic Boris Johnson. The article was condemned by politicians from all sides. However, a further article was published in The Spectator, by someone claiming to have over heard Mrs Rayner suggesting, while drinking with colleagues on the terrace of the House of Commons, that she should “distract Boris” by flashing her “ginger growler” – her words apparently – at him. Oops. Awkward, isn’t it? Especially as no attempt was made to refute the Spectator article. However, she doesn’t get the award because, quite frankly, the Rayner “growler”, whether it’s ginger, or some other colour, really isn’t an appealing thought.
And so, dear reader, as you have been very patient, I shall now reveal to you, the winner of the 2022 Buffoon of the Year award.
Dominic Rennie Raab
Had this hypothetical award been hypothesised last year, it would also have gone to Mr Raab, owing to his bizarre assertion that he couldn’t return from his Holiday because “the sea was closed”. Had that been the case, he would have successfully defended his title. However, as it is a brand new hypothetical trophy – I should explain that I’m far too tight with my money to have bought a real one – Raab is the inaugural hypothetical winner.
In order to show what a caring, sharing, and all-round good chap he is, Mr Raab circulates a newsletter to his constituents. This is to highlight what he has done for them, and what he intends to do for them. Not a bad idea, you might think. And I wouldn’t disagree with you if you did.
Recently, it has come to Mr Raab’s notice – and do remember, dear reader, that he is His Britannic Majesty’s Deputy Prime Minister – that train services are not very good at the moment. On the ball, isn’t he? Well, actually, no. Let me explain.
In his latest newsletter, Mr Raab informs his readers that he intends to discuss the paucity of local train services with South Eastern Railway in the new year. A fine idea in principle, but, alas, not in reality. The flaw in his plan is that his constituency, Esher & Walton, which he has represented since 2010, is served by South Western Railway. One would have thought that, after twelve years of representing the area, he would know who the local train operator is, even if, these days, he is chauffeured around everywhere. Thus he is my Buffoon of the Year.
Congratulations to Mr Raab, commiserations to Mrs Rayner, Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng, and a happy New Year to you, dear reader. And let us hope for some further glorious examples of political buffoonery during the ensuing twelve months.
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Guide Dogs And Englishmen
Given the fact that blindness is mentioned in the title of this blog, it seems reasonable that from time to time, I should write a post which has something to do with it. As I have only mentioned blindness once since I started bombarding you all with my weekly witterings, and then only in passing, I thought that I should do something about it.
As every blind reader will know, there are a number of questions which we are all asked with monotonous regularity. For the benefit of those of you who are not blind, and who haven’t spent a lot of time around at least one blind person, please be kind enough to look, read and attend. I shall provide you with some examples of questions, and possibly some of the answers.
“Can you see light?” yes. “So, you’re not really blind then?” Actually, yes I am. Only about 4 per cent of blind people have no light perception at all. I am not one of the 4 per cent.
“How do you know that your clothes go together?” Rather boringly, for those seeking a profound and interesting answer, I buy sensibly, so that all my garments will go together.
“From listening to my voice, how old do you think I am?” Dear reader, if you ever ask me that question, I shall either say something annoying such as, “twice half your age”, or “as old as your tongue, and a little older than your teeth”, or, if I’m feeling less polite, I shall, with the aid of a number of profanities, urge you to remove yourself from my presence. What an utterly ridiculous question!
“Can you hear better than a sighted person?” Possibly. Possibly not. That would depend on which person the interlocutor had in mind, and then on the findings of an audiologist. However, I can often, although by no means always, listen better. By that I mean that I pay more attention to what I’m hearing than most people, in the same way that a professional wine taster pays more attention to flavour than most people do. If you’re willing to make the effort, you too can learn to pay more attention to sound or flavour.
“How do blind people have sex?” Yes, dear reader, I have been asked that. Twice. I’d like to think that it was a clumsy way of asking how blind people are attracted to others. After all, eyes meeting across a crowded room isn’t likely. Not unless prosthetic eyes are being used in a game of marbles. But given the inherent gormlessness of the individuals concerned, I fear that that would be over charitable. So, a silly question gets a silly answer.
But the question that makes me want to hurt people, and to curse the fecundity of their forebears, is “a guide dog would be better for you than a cane, wouldn’t it?” No. No it would not. Having had a guide dog, I know this for a fact.
Now, before any guide dog owners, or any other dog lovers for that matter, get cross with me, I am not being critical of guide dogs. I fully recognise that they really are excellent at what they do. Walks through town centres are often made immeasurably easier by being guided by a dog than they would be when negotiating every single piece of pavement furniture with a cane. Walks from A to B are consequently much quicker. Many people report that having a guide dog massively increases their confidence when they are out. These are great and wonderful things. But to me, through no fault of its own, a guide dog is a damn nuisance, and not for any obvious reasons. True, it’s a relief not to have to make sure I leave home with quantities of canine paraphernalia, or to have to worry about whether or not a dog will fit under a seat on a train, or a table in a restaurant. I’m also happy that I no longer have to crawl around in the rain, hunting for stray turds. Guide dogs are very clever, but they can’t clear up after themselves. No. The problem is people. With minimal effort, they used to release my, admittedly barely suppressed, inner misanthrope.
Almost from the moment I got my dog, people started coming up to me to talk about, or more accurately, ask about him. “He’s a handsome boy, isn’t he? What’s his name? How old is he? What breed is he? They’re amazing, aren’t they? May I stroke him? Aww, he’s gorgeous. Do you love him very much? He’ll get you to Sainsbury’s if you tell him to, won’t he? Is he a babe-magnet? Aww, he’s gorgeous. I bet you spoil him rotten, don’t you? I know I’m not supposed to feed him, but may I give him some of my sandwich? Will he tell you that you’re at your bus stop? Aww, he’s gorgeous.”
At first, this was fairly pleasing. Then it became routine. Then tedious. Then irritating. Then extremely annoying. I went from happily engaging in pleasant conversations, to being merely polite, to being obviously grumpy, to displaying overt annoyance. I think, although I can’t be sure, that I managed to avoid swearing at anyone. Out loud that is.
Yes, the dogs are cute, and yes, they know that they’re cute, and they adore the fuss. In fact, I’m convinced that some fiendish genetic engineer, no doubt closeted in some subterranean laboratory in deepest, darkest Over Wallop, has caused every guide dog to have the vanity gene found in cats. But these inquisitions are not only inconvenient for humans, but they are distracting for dogs. It’s bad enough when all of this happens in a queue. But when random people approach while one is walking down the street, thus interrupting a journey, and possibly making one late for an appointment, it is not only deeply irritating, but highly discourteous. And as I said, it can distract the dog, which in turn can have consequences ranging from the frustrating to the dangerous. People need to stop it. immediately.
I’m sure, dear reader that you will now understand that a guide dog would not be better for me than a cane. People would raise my blood pressure beyond acceptable limits, the treatment of which would put an unnecessary strain on both the National Health Service, and the public purse. Now, would you really want that on your conscience?
I’m both a confident and a competent cane user. Other people are not, and are much happier with a guide dog. People need to stop making assumptions and passing judgments, and to start minding their own business. They must let the guide dog owners get on with their lives unmolested, and get over their disappointment that canes are neither cute nor cuddly.
Oh yes. I nearly forgot to tell you what the silly answer to the silly question was. With the light off.
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Quid Est Veritas?
In 1970, the country music star, Johnny Cash, released a song entitled What Is Truth? A very good question. For an increasing number of people in the dying embers of 2022, the answer appears to be whatever anyone believes it to be. Let me explain what I mean, and point out how utterly absurd people’s thinking is becoming. Two examples of this kind of stupidity will suffice to illustrate my point.
On 20th January 2017, Donald Trump was sworn in as the forty-fifth president of the United States. Every media outlet, including those which were supportive of Trump, reported that the crowds attending the President’s inauguration were unusually small. Nobody questioned this. Nobody that is, except a gentleman by the name of Sean Spicer, the new White House Press Secretary. He stated that the crowds were much larger than they actually were.
Two days later, on an edition of NBC’s Meet The Press, Kellyanne Conway, a lady rejoicing in the job title of Senior Counsellor to the President, took it upon herself to defend Spicer’s demonstrably false claim. Of course, she could have said that he was given unreliable information, which would never happen again. Not a soul would have believed her, but it’s the kind of polite fiction which might have been, albeit grudgingly, stomached by the viewing public. But no. Mrs Conway decided that obfuscatory language of the most appallingly ridiculous kind was in order. She asserted, on national television, in the age of the viral internet video, that her colleague had been giving what she was pleased to call “alternative facts”.
She was immediately challenged on this point by her interlocutor, Chuck Todd. “Look,” quoth Mr Todd, “alternative facts are not facts. They’re falsehoods.”
Naturally, howls of derision followed the interview. She was accused of dishonesty, stupidity, and using Orwellian “doublethink”, which in turn caused sales of George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984, to rocket. Then there was the backlash from Trump’s supporters, that poor, dear Kellyanne was being victimised, and that alternative facts were perfectly reasonable, and that the mainstream media were poisoning public discourse by feeding us a diet of “fake news”. Oh yes. “Fake news”. That phrase beloved by Trump and Trumpians everywhere. What a way to shut down a lost argument.
Then there is my second example. This one is topical.
Unless you have had the good fortune to be living in a cave, you can’t fail to have become aware of the Sussex Circus. I’m not referring to any entertainment which may or may not be taking place in either East Or West Sussex, but rather the latest self-aggrandising and spiteful, not to mention lucrative temper tantrum of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, half of which has been delivered to, and the remainder of which is due to arrive at, a Netflix account near you. Of course, like me, you might not have a Netflix account, but they surround us.
I’m not going to comment on the veracity or otherwise of the claims made in the series. Partly because they are not relevant to this post, and partly because I wasn’t there. And neither, dear reader, were you.
Tempting though it is to focus on the staggering hypocrisy of the Duke in particular, I shall, instead, concentrate on the nonsensical language use of his wife, and the foolishness and double standards of her supporters.
The Duchess refers to “my truth”. “My” truth? No. Truth is not, indeed cannot be, subjective. No possessive or indefinite article can or should be applied to truth. Only a definite article, that is to say, “the truth”.
But Meghanites won’t have it. They cheer their heroine on, loudly proclaiming her bravery as she speaks “her truth”, and deposits a large cheque with her bank. Yet many of those who delight in this erroneous way of referring to her version of events, were complaining about the stupidity and dishonesty of Kellyanne Conway and her chief. And of course, there are Trumpians who are critical of the Duchess’s semantic contortions.
The Trumpians are quite right. There is no such thing as subjective truth, nor does the truth belong exclusively to any individual. Equally, the Meghanites are correct, a piece of information is either a fact or a fallacy. However, both of these fatuous factions are also wrong. Their respective poster folk are not tragically misunderstood victims of a pernicious establishment, but are, in fact, at least as fatuous as, and quite possibly more fatuous than, both sets of acolytes.
There is also a sinister side to all of this nonsense. If this fashion for flexibility really takes hold like some insidious weed, fact checking will be countered by “alternative fact checking”. The cruel lunacy of holocaust denial will have to be accepted as an expression of “someone’s truth”. Court cases will routinely collapse as witnesses swear to “tell my whole truth, and nothing but my whole truth”. The madness must stop.
We need to remind ourselves that however disagreeable or inconvenient facts might be, they are still facts, and that people may be telling the truth, but they are not telling “their” truth. Only then can we return to being the tolerant, reasonable, rational society we all miss.
So, Johnny Cash’s original question is still valid. What is truth? One suspects that JK Rowling, through her character Albus Dumbledore, answers that question better than anyone else. “It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and must therefore be treated with great caution.”
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Call A Spade A … Shovel
If you have read these outpourings before – thank you for coming back – or if it’s your first time, but you already know me – where have you been? – you will have gathered that I am rather a logophile. Or if you prefer, a lover of words. If, however, this is, by some sad mischance, the first time you have come across this blog, and you don’t know me, permit me to inform you that I am rather a logophile. I have, since early childhood, enjoyed, played with, loved and cherished words. There is no word too long or too short, too good or too bad, or, indeed, too anything else to be used. I love them all dearly.
However, the cruelty to, or the improper deployment of words, can grievously displease me. One of the most egregious of these linguistic sins, beloved by corporate fools and the squeamish, is the euphemism.
Of course there are times when crude terminology should be replaced by something more gentle. It is perfectly reasonable to hold the view that lavatorial or sexual activities, for example, ought, in polite society, to be couched in euphemistic terms. But it is ridiculous to have to handle every other aspect of life with metaphorical kid gloves. Or should that be “metaphorical manual protection garments constructed from the leather of juvenile caprines”?
“Corporate speak” is generally irritating. Products and services are “monitised”, appointments are “diarised”, and, according to some woman who wrote a report for her employers, those on the margins of society have been “minoritised”. God help us! But the endless euphemisms in vogue in the business world do nothing but artificially inflate a person’s job or position. They create corporate delusions.
Not that long ago, companies had “personnel” departments. Now those departments are called “Human Resources”, thus “commoditising” people. Not kind. “Bin Men” are now “Waste Collection Operatives”. Cashiers in supermarkets are now in possession of some ridiculous job title such as “Customer Service Operative”, or “Personal Financial Depletion Executive”. The man who polishes the shoes of American senators has been declared to be a government functionary, and been furnished with the magnificently over the top job title of “Chief Footwear Maintenance Engineer”. It’s certainly less prosaic than his former job title of “Shoe Shine Boy”, even though one suspects that the pay is similar. There are a whole host of other operatives, executives, engineers, managers, supervisors and consultants. Aren’t these things horrible? I could give you more disgusting examples, but I don’t want to be responsible for damaging you in any way.
The other area of life filled with irritating euphemisms is, well, actually the opposite, death. This is, of course, nothing new. Such things occur in both testaments of the Bible. Man “goeth to his long home”, according to the author of Ecclesiastes, and the writers of the Gospels tell us that Jesus “yielded” or “gave up the Ghost”. There are so many of them. Of course, dear reader, if you wish to be reminded of a fine collection of examples, you could do worse than find Monty Python’s “Dead Parrot” sketch.
In April 2018, I phoned someone to let him know that my father had died. Please note, dear reader, that I said “died”. I didn’t say that he had “shuffled off this mortal coil”, nor that he had “ceased upon the midnight”. He couldn’t have. He didn’t die at midnight. And quite frankly, saying that he had “ceased upon the 17:35 hours” would have sounded stupid. At the end of the conversation, I was thanked for “letting me know about your father’s passing”. Hmm. His passing? Given the fact that he was lying immobile in a stationary bed at the crucial moment, what or who did he pass? Or was it a delicate reference to his bowels? I beg to state herewith, for the benefit of the recipient of my 2018 phone call, that dying is not the same as shitting. Although I do concede that the former necessarily leads to the latter.
Not only are these cloying, sickly-sweet terms and expressions, to my mind, inherently revolting. But they are also unhelpful. If we insist upon sugar-coating life’s bitter pills, we will, if we haven’t already done so, create a society of conversational diabetics.
As I said above, there are times when euphemisms are necessary. Or can, at least, reasonably be considered necessary. Usually, these are for the sake of good manners. However, for the most part, we need to recognise that sesquipedalian words and needlessly prolix, pleonastic, and often tautological phrases are both ridiculous and superfluous, and that in the vast majority of cases, an unloquacious and diminutive linguistic utterance or inscription, will more than satisfactorily meet any and all communicational necessities.
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