R01   1 **[492 TEXT R01**]
R01   2    |^*0Jones, it need hardly be said, stopped that off at once.
R01   3    |^The days have gone when foreigners copied the British.
R01   4    |^With Jones in power, the British are encouraged to copy the
R01   5 foreigner.
R01   6    |^The foreign-made muck, which British quality goods were supposed
R01   7 to be pushing out of the market, is now being pushed out of the market
R01   8 by British-made muck.
R01   9    |^Jones does not believe in quality. ^He believes in low prices.
R01  10 ^He is not interested in the old slogan, ~*"British is Best**". ^He is
R01  11 interested in the new slogan, ~*"Jones is Best**", and the fact that
R01  12 Jones is British will, he believes, reflect prestige upon Britain. ^He
R01  13 is not interested in goods that last a lifetime, a tradition started
R01  14 by snobbish manufacturers who wanted their children and their
R01  15 children's children to reap the benefit of their impeccable trading
R01  16 probity. ^Jones wishes to reap the benefit himself, in his own
R01  17 lifetime, and let his brats and brats' brats fend for themselves. ^To
R01  18 this end, he is interested in goods that do not last a lifetime, but
R01  19 which require large replacement orders to be made every five years.
R01  20 *<*1Foreign contacts*>
R01  21    |^*0When Jones goes abroad, he does not go as a member of any
R01  22 group, delegation or coach-party. ^He goes alone.
R01  23    |^Jones goes alone, secure in the knowledge that wherever he goes,
R01  24 his arrival will not go unannounced or his stay unnoticed.
R01  25    |^At the hotel, in a capital that he has never visited in his life
R01  26 before, he will meet an old American friend whom he last met in Paris,
R01  27 God, it must be years ago, and soon that old American friend is
R01  28 introducing him to the local Joneses right, left and centre.
R01  29    |^At Harry's Bar, in any foreign city, it turns out that the
R01  30 particular Harry of the joint used to be the barman of a little club
R01  31 in London that Jones used to use in the days when Joneses still used
R01  32 little clubs, and this same Harry gives him the lowdown on where the
R01  33 native Joneses are currently eating and drinking.
R01  34    |^At the American Express, which is a very Jones place in which to
R01  35 cash your travellers' cheques, Jones just happens to run into an old
R01  36 army pal who has now got this amusing job of showing the yobbos around
R01  37 the night-clubs. ^The old army pal takes Jones to a number of
R01  38 night-clubs, most of them specialising in one sexual eccentricity or
R01  39 another, to which the yobbos would not be admitted, whether with or
R01  40 without paper hats.
R01  41    |^From the fact that Jones never fails to meet contacts such as
R01  42 these on his foreign travels, it is obvious that there must be an
R01  43 International Jones Organisation (Interjones), whose agents disguise
R01  44 themselves as barmen, old army pals and roving Americans.
R01  45    |^However Interjones may be organised, it is certainly a powerful
R01  46 and influential body.
R01  47    |^Thanks to Interjones, it is now possible for Jones to travel
R01  48 throughout the world without losing any of his status, modifying his
R01  49 standard of living, or, out of sheer loneliness, being compelled to
R01  50 sit in the reading-room of the British Embassy doing the crossword in
R01  51 the air-mail edition of *1The Times.
R01  52    |^*0Thanks to Interjones, it is possible to cross the Equator
R01  53 either way without leaving air-conditioning behind. ^Chains of new
R01  54 hotels, indistinguishable from one another, have sprung up in the
R01  55 capitals of the world, and*- without actually being called the
R01  56 Jones-Plaza or the Jones-Carlton*- they are Jones all right, because
R01  57 look at the showers, look at the swimming-pool, look at the arcade of
R01  58 shops, look at the express elevators, look at the six or seven
R01  59 restaurants, one of them on the roof from which it is possible to get
R01  60 a panoramic view of London, Beirut, Madrid, Bonn, New Delhi or
R01  61 Copenhagen, as the case may be.
R01  62    |^Thanks to Interjones, Jones in any foreign city can hire a car,
R01  63 use a credit card, send a transfer-charge cable, or get a ringside
R01  64 seat for the student riot in the course of which the British Council
R01  65 building is burned to the ground.
R01  66    |^Thanks to Interjones, Jones can now travel from airport to
R01  67 airport, from hotel to hotel, from Harry's Bar to Harry's Bar,
R01  68 *1without ever setting foot outside the Jones country.
R01  69    |^*0Jones ideas are now so firmly established abroad that as
R01  70 primitive states develop, it is not the Old Country on which they
R01  71 model themselves, but the New Jones.
R01  72    |^In Africa, Jones hotels spring up even as the Prime Minister
R01  73 elect is being let out of prison. ^In the Middle East, oil royalties
R01  74 are turned into Jones amenities, such as ice, big cars, and
R01  75 night-clubs that would not be out of place on Miami Beach. ^In Brazil,
R01  76 an entirely new capital has been hacked out of the jungle as a living
R01  77 monument to Jones and all he stands for.
R01  78 *<*1Foreign visitors*>
R01  79    |^*0Interjones naturally works on a reciprocal basis, and when
R01  80 Monsieur Jones, Herr Jones, Signor Jones, Jones Pasha or Don Jones
R01  81 arrive at the Westbury, *1whom *0should they meet in the lobby but
R01  82 Jones, only this minute back in London himself.
R01  83    |^In this context it is worth noting that, although Interjones
R01  84 maintains branches in all countries, some nations do not appear to be
R01  85 signatories to the Interjones Treaty. ^There are nations which are
R01  86 exclusively Robinson nations, such as the Dutch, the Bulgarians, and
R01  87 the Burmese.
R01  88    |^The French are essentially a Jones nation, but like to be
R01  89 governed by Robinsons. ^The Germans are essentially a Robinson nation,
R01  90 but like to be governed by Joneses. ^The Italians are Jones when
R01  91 abroad, but Robinson when at home. ^The Swedes are the Jones-nation
R01  92 among the Scandinavians, and the Norwegians are the Robinsons.
R01  93    |^England, which bred the first Joneses, is Jones. ^Wales, from
R01  94 which the Joneses took their name, is Robinson. ^Southern Ireland is
R01  95 Jones. ^Northern Ireland is Robinson. ^Scotland is Jones to come south
R01  96 from, but Robinson to remain in. ^The Isle of Wight is a compound of
R01  97 Robinsons.
R01  98    |^Extremely small countries, such as Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, San
R01  99 Marino, \0etc., are Robinson to be born in, but Jones to be a foreign
R01 100 resident of. ^(This applies particularly to the Channel Islands.)
R01 101    |^The Russians are ideologically Robinson, but throw up
R01 102 Jones-deviates from time to time. ^All Iron Curtain countries, except
R01 103 Czechoslovakia, are statutorily Robinson.
R01 104    |^Iceland is not only Robinson to be born in, Robinson to live in,
R01 105 Robinson even to have correspondence with, it is also the only country
R01 106 outside the tourist belt that it is Robinson, and not Jones, to visit.
R01 107    |^Spain is unique, inasmuch as there it is Jones to be a
R01 108 monarchist, the reason being is that Jones is always on the side of
R01 109 the future. ^Portugal is entirely Robinson.
R01 110    |^Switzerland is Robinson to visit, but Jones to bank with. ^Egypt
R01 111 is Robinson, but is studying to be Jones. ^India fought to become
R01 112 Jones, but did not succeed. ^South Africa is fighting to remain
R01 113 Robinson. ^Australia revels in being Robinson.
R01 114    |^By a trick of light, Canada is Jones when seen from London, but
R01 115 Robinson when seen from the United States. ^Within the United States,
R01 116 it is Robinson to appear like a Jones. ^In Latin America, Jones and
R01 117 Robinson live in a constant state of revolt against each other; it is
R01 118 always possible to know when Jones is revolting against Robinson,
R01 119 because then we hear about trams being overturned, and Jones detests
R01 120 trams.
R01 121    |^China, with superhuman effort and against all odds, remains
R01 122 Robinson. ^Japan, despite all those paper flowers that blossom in a
R01 123 jam-jar is becoming Jones.
R01 124    |^The North Pole is Jones. ^The South Pole is Robinson.
R01 125 *<*2CHAPTER FIVE*>
R01 126 *<TO JONES ACCORDING TO HIS NEEDS*>
R01 127    |^*4T*2HE *0political pundits, the literary weeklies, the more
R01 128 telegenic Members of Parliament, the leader-writers and the
R01 129 public-opinion polls*- to say nothing of various summer schools,
R01 130 conferences, congresses and other centres of political group-therapy*-
R01 131 have devoted some attention to the question of who will rule Britain
R01 132 in the future.
R01 133    |^Jones may occasionally join in these discussions if the beer is
R01 134 good. ^But for him there is no question to be argued. ^Jones will rule
R01 135 Britain in the future.
R01 136    |^Whether Labour or Conservative, the next Government*- or it may
R01 137 be the next but one*- will be a Government of Joneses.
R01 138    |^What are the facts behind this political reshuffle?
R01 139    |^There is only one fact, and that is that Jones feels unable to
R01 140 lend his allegiance to any one political party.
R01 141    |^Tory Jones likes the idea of free enterprise, but can't stand the
R01 142 idea of class privilege.
R01 143    |^Labour Jones likes the idea of equality, but can't stand the idea
R01 144 of regimentation.
R01 145    |^The Labour Party, as we know, is in decline. ^What we may not
R01 146 know is that the Tory Party is also in decline. ^*1The Jones Party is
R01 147 slowly emerging, composed of the Jones-elements from both these
R01 148 declining bodies.
R01 149    |^*0Already Jones has established his position in both camps.
R01 150 ^There are Labour Joneses and there are Tory Joneses *1in power today.
R01 151 ^*0(There are no Liberal or Communist Joneses, since Jones is not
R01 152 interested in causes but in politics.) ^The Labour Joneses write for
R01 153 Tory papers. ^The Tory Joneses write for Socialist papers. ^The two
R01 154 Joneses, Labour and Tory, appear on the same television programmes and
R01 155 unite against trade union Robinsons from the Left Wing and backwoods
R01 156 Robinsons from the Right Wing.
R01 157    |^Between them, Labour Jones and Tory Jones are forging a new
R01 158 policy. ^And that policy will be the Jones Policy for Britain.
R01 159 *<*1Why you should vote for Jones*>
R01 160    |^*0At present, Robinson has a clear majority in the House of
R01 161 Commons. ^Robinson {0M.P.}s go about on buses, hold dreary clinics
R01 162 in their constituencies, ask dreary questions about peat, and go on
R01 163 dreary fact-finding missions to dreary countries on either side of the
R01 164 Iron Curtain.
R01 165    |^What, in contrast to this, has Jones got to offer? ^Why will
R01 166 Jones make a better Member of Parliament than Robinson?
R01 167    |^(*1a*0) Jones does not waste time on dreary routine. ^Everything
R01 168 he touches he makes exciting, and he is able to create enthusiasm,
R01 169 which helps the electorate no end.
R01 170    |^(*1b*0) Jones is in touch. ^Where other politicians have to
R01 171 consult polls, statistics, graphs, fortune-tellers, to find out what
R01 172 people think, Jones trusts his instinct and is always right.
R01 173    |^(*1c*0) Jones lives in the present. ^He will cheerfully agree
R01 174 that his party has a shocking record, for his party's past history is
R01 175 of not the slightest interest to him. ^Neither does he make sweeping
R01 176 promises for the vague future. ^If Jones says he is going to do
R01 177 something, he means tomorrow.
R01 178    |^(*1d*0) Jones has the gift of the gab.
R01 179    |^(*1e*0) Jones is a good mixer. ^It is only on the Jones level
R01 180 that Tories and Socialists can mix as equals, and consequently he is
R01 181 able to avoid all those unprofitable stalemates that politicians are
R01 182 always running into.
R01 183    |^(*1f*0) Jones is very good on television.
R01 184    |^(*1g*0) Jones is always positive. ^He would rather be a supporter
R01 185 than an opposer, and he will always endorse good ideas, whichever side
R01 186 they come from.
R01 187    |^(*1h*0) Jones knows all about images, and in fact invented them.
R01 188    |^(*1i*0) Jones is always ready to re-think.
R01 189    |^(*1j*0) Jones is very good at inventing slogans. ^And the slogan
R01 190 of the Jones Party might well be:
R01 191 *<*3WHAT'S GOOD FOR JONES IS GOOD FOR BRITAIN*>
R01 192 *<*1The Future Jones Offers You*>
R01 193    |^*0The Joneses, Socialist and Tory alike, believe in an
R01 194 egalitarian society (within the limits of the Jones Practical
R01 195 Democracy, outlined on \0pp. 83-87), where the best brains (\0i.e.
R01 196 Jones) rise to the top, but where there is wealth and opportunity for
R01 197 all.
R01 198    |^Jones has no wish for Britain to be a major power, so long as she
R01 199 can hold first place in the markets of the world.
R01 200    |^He is all for co-existence, peace in our lifetime, and anything
R01 201 that might come under the heading of progress.
R01 202    |^He is against outmoded traditions, gunboat-diplomacy, and
R01 203 monopolies.
R01 204    |^He would take the tax off coloured refrigerators.
R01 205    |^Let us examine in detail some of the Jones Policies for Britain:
R01 206 *<*21. THE JONES FISCAL POLICY*>
R01 207    |^*0There will be no significant fall in income tax, since Jones
R01 208 does not, in fact, object to paying income tax.
R01 209 *# 2003
R02   1 **[493 TEXT R02**]
R02   2 ^*0He had long sensed injustice in the distinctions drawn between
R02   3 ordinary wage-earners and those self-employed. ^By the time his
R02   4 monthly salary arrived, the Inland Revenue had already taken their
R02   5 share, and there were precious few reductions in tax save for wives,
R02   6 children, life-insurances or any of the other normal encumbrances
R02   7 which Cecil had so far avoided. ^He read the film star's sorry story
R02   8 and frowned at the provisions of Schedule D taxation which not only
R02   9 allowed her to claim relief on the most unlikely purchases, but also
R02  10 postponed demanding the tax until her financial year was ended,
R02  11 audited and agreed by the Inspector. ^The process could, and often did
R02  12 take several years. ^At one point the astute Miss Cheesecake had
R02  13 claimed tax relief on the purchase of several mink coats which, it
R02  14 seemed, were necessary to further her career. ^Alternatively, it was
R02  15 reported, she tearfully claimed that the warm coats were heating
R02  16 appliances and therefore susceptible to a depreciation tax allowance
R02  17 as plant and machinery. ^The Commissioners of Inland Revenue wisely
R02  18 refrained from asking how she paid for the mink coats but demanded a
R02  19 receipt instead. ^Between all the interested parties, the final
R02  20 agreement had been delayed long enough for Miss Cheesecake to spend
R02  21 all the money which by rights should have been reserved for her tax.
R02  22 ^Discounting one chinchilla jacket, a Rolls-Royce and a Sussex manor
R02  23 house, all three of which were in her husband's name, she now declared
R02  24 herself bankrupt.
R02  25    |^The train drew into another station and Cecil, with a further six
R02  26 stops to go, was left almost alone in the coach. ^He fumed as he
R02  27 recollected the long correspondence he had had with the Inland Revenue
R02  28 in an effort to obtain tax relief for a jacket used solely in the
R02  29 office. ^*'If the jacket is a condition of your employment,**' the
R02  30 Inspector had written, *'it may qualify for relief.**' ^Cecil snorted
R02  31 aloud. ^So long as he did his job satisfactorily, Frask and Kitsell
R02  32 \0Ltd could hardly have cared less if he wore even a bikini in the
R02  33 office. ^In fact, the previous summer, his girl comptometer operator
R02  34 had done so. ^It led to no end of a muddle with the figures.
R02  35    |^Then there was that long wrangle with the Inland Revenue over
R02  36 travelling expenses. ^The journey from Bank to Norbiton took a large
R02  37 slice out of Cecil's surplus spending power. ^He had tried to obtain
R02  38 tax relief for that too, only to be told that journeys from home to
R02  39 work did not qualify for relief. ^So Cecil had pursued the matter on
R02  40 the grounds that he took his work home and, for a week or more, he
R02  41 took a bundle of record-cards each night in the hope that a passing
R02  42 Inspector might see it. ^The final word, as always, came from the
R02  43 Inland Revenue who fell back once more upon the *'condition of
R02  44 employment**' clause.
R02  45    |^Again Cecil glared at Miss Cheesecake who was not only allowed
R02  46 travelling expenses but was also allowed to buy herself a Rolls-Royce
R02  47 *'on the Tax**'. ^No wonder she could not pay up; one half of her
R02  48 money seemed to have gone into purchases designed to defray the tax
R02  49 incurred by the other half which was, in any case, earmarked for
R02  50 normal living expenses such as publicity parties, beauty treatment and
R02  51 frequent foreign holidays to the right places.
R02  52    |^The train drew to a halt. ^Cecil's sole companion, the
R02  53 parcel-laden housewife, staggered to the door and prepared to alight.
R02  54 ^*'Madam!**' he called after her. ^*'You've left your briefcase.**'
R02  55 ^His public duty performed, he pointed at the seat opposite without
R02  56 making any effort to hand it to her.
R02  57    |^The housewife turned a baleful eye and gazed at him over a large
R02  58 hat-box which, to judge from the Bond Street label, had taken a large
R02  59 bite out of her husband's taxable income. ^*'It's not mine. ^I wasn't
R02  60 sitting there.**' ^She blinked disdainfully at him and stepped out.
R02  61    |^It was a new briefcase, and as the train jogged along the shiny
R02  62 clasp twinkled invitingly at Cecil. ^He wondered what it contained.
R02  63 ^Probably the remains of someone's lunch or a few secret files. ^He
R02  64 smiled at his own joke. ^Of course, it might be holding wads of five
R02  65 pound notes earned on the black market, if there was still such a
R02  66 thing as a black market. ^It might be a shady cash deal though,
R02  67 specially designed to avoid passing through the books. ^Perhaps the
R02  68 case belonged to one of those fellows who were organising those girls
R02  69 who operated from cars. ^There could be a lot of money in the
R02  70 call-girl racket, and not many expenses either, just a telephone, some
R02  71 wear and tear on the girls and a change of address from time to time.
R02  72 ^The briefcase must be crammed with money.
R02  73    |^Cecil realised that four minutes of solitary running time
R02  74 separated him from the next stop, his home station and, after an
R02  75 unnecessary glance around, he stepped across the car and tried to open
R02  76 the briefcase. ^It was locked. ^Eager fingers felt bulky contents and
R02  77 when he shook the case there was a rustling thud of wads of paper.
R02  78 ^*'Cor!**' he muttered aloud, *'there's five thousand at least.**'
R02  79    |^He felt in his jacket pocket and pulled out a key ring. ^In
R02  80 succession he tried his own briefcase key, a suitcase key and a device
R02  81 designed to lock typewriters. ^Cecil searched in his pockets once more
R02  82 and came up with two paper-clips. ^After a few seconds of twisting, he
R02  83 roughly thrust a bent wire loop into the lock and waggled it around
R02  84 vigorously. ^There was a click and the briefcase opened.
R02  85    |^Cecil thrust an eager hand inside, his fingers groping after wads
R02  86 of five pound notes. ^They closed on a single bundle and, fumbling
R02  87 with nervous excitement, he pulled it out. ^His eye rested on a wad of
R02  88 stiff white paper printed on one side. ^*'Old fashioned fivers!**' he
R02  89 muttered again, and tried to recall if they were still legal tender.
R02  90 ^Surely the \0Gov*:r**:. and \0Comp*:a**:. of the Bank of England
R02  91 would never break their promise to pay on rude demand, let alone on
R02  92 polite request. ^Cecil frowned in disappointment as he focussed upon
R02  93 the printing to find no \0Gov*:r**:., no \0Comp*:a**:., in fact no
R02  94 five pound notes at all. ^He was holding a paper booklet, the top
R02  95 sheet of which bore, in large Baskerville type, the words
R02  96    |*2METROPOLITAN MONOTECHNIC INSTITUTE
R02  97    |ADVANCED ACCOUNTANCY
R02  98    |COURSE \0NO. 3.
R02  99    |^*0He ruffled the sheets irritably and glowered at his own breach
R02 100 of social morality. ^There are few people who would not jump at an
R02 101 opportunity to rationalise away the theft of a briefcase full of
R02 102 illicit fivers, but to sell one's soul for a handful of lecture notes
R02 103 presented quite a different kettle of metaphysics.
R02 104    |^The train slowed down for Norbiton station and Cecil hastily
R02 105 repacked the briefcase. ^There was a hiss of opening doors and Cecil
R02 106 carried his conscience out upon the platform. ^He climbed the stairs,
R02 107 eager to unload the guilt-symbol upon the ticket-collector and then to
R02 108 emerge carrying his shame unseen, but burning, into the night.
R02 109    |^He reached the barrier and fumbled for his contract before
R02 110 thrusting the briefcase at the ticket-collector with the firm
R02 111 intention of playing the dutiful citizen retrieving lost property.
R02 112 ^Before he could open his mouth, the collector stretched out a hand.
R02 113 ^*'Watch your step there, sir! ^Your briefcase is hanging open.
R02 114 ^You'll have someone shoving their hot little hands inside. ^Here,
R02 115 I'll do it.**' ^The collector pressed the twinkling catch home with a
R02 116 click.
R02 117    |^Cecil, irretrievably laden with both briefcase and conscience,
R02 118 stumbled away into the darkness.
R02 119 *<*4*=2*>
R02 120    |^*'H*2ELLO, CECIL. ^HAD *0a busy day?**' ^His mother came into the
R02 121 hall as he opened the front door. ^He nodded irritably and, turning
R02 122 his back to her, contrived to slide the briefcase into hiding between
R02 123 the do-it-yourself cupboard and the polished brass fourteen-pounder
R02 124 shell-case which served respectively as coat cupboard and umbrella
R02 125 stand.
R02 126    |^*'You're later than usual, aren't you?**' ^His mother tidied her
R02 127 grey hair in the hall-mirror they had once obtained as a free gift in
R02 128 exchange for the labels from half a hundredweight of Trunk and Greppes
R02 129 Tannin-free Tea. ^Cecil shook his head and hung up his raincoat and
R02 130 hat inside the cupboard. ^*'Aren't you going to say hello?**' ^His
R02 131 mother stood and faced him with a smile. ^*'I've got some lamb chops
R02 132 for you this evening.**'
R02 133    |^*'Hello, mother.**' ^He kissed her cheek perfunctorily. ^*'Lamb
R02 134 chops, indeed. ^Any letters come?**'
R02 135    |^She grimaced. ^*'Only the electric bill. ^It's up again. ^We'll
R02 136 have to go easy on the immersion heater next quarter.**'
R02 137    |^Cecil gritted his teeth and glowered at the inequity of Miss
R02 138 Cheesecake well-nigh bathing in tax-free champagne whilst he had to go
R02 139 easy on the immersion heater. ^*'What is it, Cecil? ^Don't you feel
R02 140 well?**' his mother asked solicitously. ^*'You do look tired. ^Go and
R02 141 get yourself a drink.**'
R02 142    |^*'Don't fuss, mother! ^I'm quite well and no more tired than
R02 143 usual, and we finished the gin last week, you know that.**' ^Cecil
R02 144 stepped towards the dining room.
R02 145    |^*'I'm sure you must be tired,**' his mother insisted. ^*'You're
R02 146 very irritable, anyway.**'
R02 147    |^*'I'm *2NOT *0tired and I'm *2NOT *0irritable.**'
R02 148    |^*'Very well then.**' ^His mother nodded with understanding.
R02 149    |^*'You're not tired. ^Nobody's tired. ^Now just you run along
R02 150 upstairs and wash your hands whilst I get dinner ready.**' ^Cecil
R02 151 wriggled irritably under the misplaced management of a mother who had
R02 152 failed to realise that a son who is nearly bald is no longer a baby.
R02 153 ^He started to climb the stairs, stamping with unnecessary vigour upon
R02 154 the treads. ^*'And don't wipe the dirt off on the towel like you did
R02 155 yesterday. ^Your Auntie Edie's coming in for a cup of tea later and
R02 156 you know how she has a good look round everywhere.**'
R02 157    |^There was a tinkle and a thud from beside the coat cupboard.
R02 158 ^Cecil's mother turned around in time to see the briefcase collapse
R02 159 against the brass umbrella stand. ^*'Well now!**' ^She hurried towards
R02 160 it and picked it up. ^*'What have we here? ^A new briefcase! ^So
R02 161 *2THAT'S *0what it's all about.**'
R02 162    |^Cecil halted in mid-step near the top of the stairs and clenched
R02 163 his fists. ^*'So that's what *2WHAT'S *0all about?**' he hissed
R02 164 without turning round.
R02 165    |^She pointed to the briefcase. ^*'So that's why you are so
R02 166 irritable. ^You thought that I'd think you'd been extravagant.**'
R02 167    |^*'But I'm *2NOT *0irritable!**' ^He rushed down the stairs and,
R02 168 snatching the case, ran back upstairs with it. ^*'And I've *2NOT
R02 169 *0been extravagant.**'
R02 170    |^*"Naughty!**' she called after him. ^*'Mother knows her boy
R02 171 better than he does himself.**' ^She smiled at herself in the mirror
R02 172 and reflected how mothers always know their dear impulsive boys better
R02 173 than anyone*- especially better than not so dear, not so impulsive
R02 174 daughters-in-law. ^Her smile faded at the thought of female
R02 175 competition, but brightened again in the belief that her son was not
R02 176 cut out for that sort of nonsense. ^Widowed mothers often expect their
R02 177 only sons to be very lone rangers.
R02 178    |^Dinner was taken as usual before the television. ^Cecil's mother
R02 179 had arranged the receiver to face two armchairs by the fire. ^They sat
R02 180 uncomfortably hunched in mutual inclination, and ate at arm's length
R02 181 from a common occasional table placed opposite their adjacent knees.
R02 182 ^In the days when he had still a liking for cigarettes, Cecil had
R02 183 well-nigh proved the statistical relationship between them and lung
R02 184 cancer in an effort to obtain the table free by smoking his way into a
R02 185 collection of six hundred gift tokens. ^The flush of achievement had
R02 186 long passed and as Cecil sat, eyes on the television screen, not even
R02 187 the napkin tucked into his neck could prevent lamb-chop gravy from
R02 188 carelessly bespattering the table he had risked so much to obtain.
R02 189    |^Mother and son gazed in fascination at the story, unfolding
R02 190 before their eyes, of corn cultivation in Capokoland. ^*'What time's
R02 191 the \5Olde \5Tyme Dancing on?**' she asked absently. ^*'My goodness,
R02 192 look at those women planting things, isn't it primitive?**'
R02 193    |^*'About ten-o'clock, I suppose, the \5Olde \5Tyme stuff.**'
R02 194 *# 2001
R03   1 **[494 TEXT R03**]
R03   2 ^*0He did, however, give her the name and address of a very good
R03   3 lawyer who had got him an injunction to restrain a firm from
R03   4 publishing a book until the author had removed a passage attacking him
R03   5 for some slander which had been, in fact, a case of Privilege.
R03   6    |
R03   7    |^In spite of all the transferred maternity she was endowed with by
R03   8 her patients, poor Serena was an infant-in-arms as a buyer of
R03   9 property. ^No, not even an infant-in-arms but a new-born babe, a
R03  10 premature piece of frailty in an oxygen-tent of utter innocence.
R03  11    |^The complexity of that innocence was colossal. ^It had layer
R03  12 after layer of illusion to be peeled off and replaced with sad
R03  13 knowledgeability. ^It was a nakedness of nai"vety to be clothed leaf
R03  14 by leaf with the disappointment of experience.
R03  15    |^Her first illusion consisted in the belief that all she need do
R03  16 was to go to an agent, visit half a dozen houses in one day, choose
R03  17 one, make an offer, put it in the hands of a lawyer and go away on her
R03  18 holiday while the whole transaction was put through. ^At the worst,
R03  19 she could postpone their holiday, if she didn't find anything she
R03  20 liked at once. ^August would after all be a little hot for Greece.
R03  21 ^All that mattered was moving. ^For quite suddenly she couldn't stand
R03  22 their flat any more. ^She must come back to something new, even if it
R03  23 meant shortening their trip abroad or taking an extra week off to get
R03  24 settled in.
R03  25    |^She soon found that Tom Stevens was right about the prices,
R03  26 whatever their cause. ^The market, moreover, seemed more like one of
R03  27 her graph representations of a psychotic's dream world than a rational
R03  28 state of affairs carefully calculated by a handful of wicked
R03  29 speculators, though she supposed that these latter might well be the
R03  30 chosen instruments of the city's collective unconscious. ^For the
R03  31 prices of houses bore no relation whatsoever to their size, beauty, or
R03  32 convenience, only to some lunatic hierarchy of districts by which any
R03  33 area, however traffic-ridden, that could by any considerable wrench of
R03  34 the imagination be called a Village, was also the most plutocratic in
R03  35 its price-range; that is, any piece of town with one pretty street,
R03  36 square, corner, stretch of river, bit of heath, common or park, round
R03  37 which lesser, uglier streets clustered hopefully, borrowing the same
R03  38 name for themselves as crescents, gardens, garden-crescents, rises,
R03  39 hills, hill-rises, ways and ends, mewses, lanes, groves and vales,
R03  40 could aspire to and perhaps eventually earn the name of Village. ^Slum
R03  41 terraces and workers' cottages would be bought up, sometimes by
R03  42 enterprising individuals but more often by the wicked speculators for
R03  43 a profitable sale to less enterprising individuals, and one by one the
R03  44 black brick houses would turn white, or pink or blue, with bright
R03  45 yellow doors and flower-boxes in the windows. ^*"This street,**" the
R03  46 agents would say, *"hasn't quite come.**" ^When it did so, and several
R03  47 more around it, the area would at last receive by way of final
R03  48 decoration and of course price-promotion, the name of Village.
R03  49    |^Second to Villages were the Best Residential Areas, where the
R03  50 affluent middle class had always lived, but they were, after all,
R03  51 limited and unexpandable, and now that practically everyone was
R03  52 affluent middle-class, the Best Residential Areas were so much in
R03  53 demand that prices shot up well beyond the range of the affluent
R03  54 middle-class, and only the milk-bar millionaires lived there,
R03  55 expense-account experts, some of the more successful comedians, the
R03  56 odd reckless film-star, and of course the speculators themselves.
R03  57 ^Fortunately, however, the fashion for Victorian architecture which
R03  58 \0Mr. John Betjeman had started several decades before had caught on
R03  59 at last and therefore saved the situation for the affluent
R03  60 middle-class, who now had plenty of lovely-ugly to be coldly elegant
R03  61 in.
R03  62    |^All this Serena discovered, and more, but in stages. ^For the
R03  63 first thing she did was to make an offer on a small pink terraced
R03  64 cottage, two beds, two \0inter-comm. \0rec., \0mod. \0k. and \0b.,
R03  65 \0sep. {0W.C.} small back yard, newly \0dec., near shops and tube in
R03  66 up-and-coming Camden Town Village, *+6,000 Freehold.
R03  67    |^The next thing that Serena discovered was that she could not
R03  68 afford to buy a house at all. ^And this in spite of having at last
R03  69 managed to save the ten percent needed. ^Or so she thought, being then
R03  70 in possession of what seemed to her the princely sum of six hundred
R03  71 pounds.
R03  72    |^The lawyer said:
R03  73    |^*"Of course you must count about two hundred for legal charges
R03  74 and stamp duties, maybe less, depending on the price of the house, and
R03  75 whether it has been registered. ^I take it you have a mortgage lined
R03  76 up, then, \0Mrs.*- er*- Buttery?**"
R03  77    |^*"Not yet, but the bank would give me a loan, I'm sure.**"
R03  78    |^*"Er, yes. ^You have some securities, then?**"
R03  79    |^*"Well, no. ^Just my work. ^And my husband's.**"
R03  80    |^*"No ... life insurance?**"
R03  81    |^Serena had more in common with Stella than she realised, for the
R03  82 word security had meant little to her until now, when she felt this
R03  83 sudden urge to buy property, paying off a mortgage like rent for
R03  84 twenty years and then living free of expense, she thought, when they
R03  85 were *"old and grey and full of sleep**"*- though she hoped she would
R03  86 never be as psychologically asleep as all that. ^All she had ever
R03  87 bothered to insure was her conscious self against just such a
R03  88 submerging sleep.
R03  89    |^She shook her head at \0Mr. Clacton, who seemed asleep enough
R03  90 himself, both in her terms and his, for it was a hot day and his
R03  91 office was stuffed to its low ceiling with undisturbed books,
R03  92 undisturbed files and dust from probably Dickensian times. ^His aspect
R03  93 was as dusty as his office, with scurf from dusty hair on the dusty
R03  94 shoulders of his black suit, cigarette ash down the front, an ashen
R03  95 face and yellow sleepy dust in the corners of his pale grey eyes. ^His
R03  96 finger-nails were dirty, though he tried to make up for it by
R03  97 constantly paring them with the finger-nail of the opposite hand. ^His
R03  98 voice was like his black and pin-stripe, a grey superimposition of
R03  99 respectability over the original colour of his own natural vowels, the
R03 100 result being somehow as ineffective, not just dusty-grey but muddy,
R03 101 slimy even. ^His digressions too, seemed to have no other purpose than
R03 102 the throwing of dust in his client's eyes, the dust of fake security,
R03 103 of the fake friend of the family, like the puffs from his Gauloises,
R03 104 which said ~*'Don't you worry your fluffy little head about that, just
R03 105 lull back in the layers of my experience,**' as he told her how he had
R03 106 saved one of his clients from buying a house in which he somehow owned
R03 107 all the bricks and mortar but not the joists, which had been omitted
R03 108 from the Deeds, and how he had learnt from another client who was a
R03 109 greengrocer that all greengrocers cheat the income-tax by a
R03 110 complicated system of unrecorded purchases which has become the norm
R03 111 at Covent Garden.
R03 112    |^*"Yes, well....**" ^He judged that she had been sufficiently
R03 113 dazzled and gave a long raucous cough. ^*"Only cigarettes worth
R03 114 smoking, these. ^Most unhealthy, English ones. ^Well, now, let me see.
R03 115 ^I think I can put you onto some people who might, I say might, let
R03 116 you have a mortgage on this property....**"
R03 117    |^*"But, they're safe, are they? ^I mean, they're not*-
R03 118 money-lenders?**"
R03 119    |*"\0Mrs.*- er*- Buttery, all mortgage companies are money-lenders.
R03 120 ^That's rather the point, isn't it?**"
R03 121    |^*"No, but I mean*-**"
R03 122    |^*"I know what you mean. ^You may trust me, \0Mrs. Buttery. ^I
R03 123 think, however, that you might have to revise your ideas about*- er*-
R03 124 the type of property you intend to purchase.**"
R03 125    |^She revised them.
R03 126    |^The little man from the Inter-Insular (British Archipelago)
R03 127 Insurance Company soon saw to that. ^He was bald and bouncy, jumping
R03 128 up from her sofa with each explanation, whether because of the sherry
R03 129 she offered him or from a passionate interest in his work she couldn't
R03 130 tell. ^When he had jumped up some twenty times, talked of premiums,
R03 131 policies, tax exemptions and survey fees, worked out sums rapidly on
R03 132 Inter-Insular Insurance Company sheets of paper which he produced from
R03 133 a shiny black brief-case, asked many questions about Rupert's age,
R03 134 health and income, even his salesman's patter failed to smooth over
R03 135 the traumatic experience undergone by Serena's relatively sheltered
R03 136 psyche that afternoon.
R03 137    |^Poor Serena. ^In spite of the good marks she had brought home
R03 138 from school she had never grasped the implications or practical
R03 139 application of compound interest. ^She used to solve all the problems
R03 140 set of course, but her conscious mind must have refused to accept the
R03 141 moral shock of it all, so that even now at the age of forty and eleven
R03 142 months, she still assumed that if one borrowed six thousand pounds at
R03 143 six per cent, one paid back, in the end, six thousand plus six per
R03 144 cent of six thousand, that is, six thousand three hundred and sixty
R03 145 pounds. ^The meaning of the words *"{6per annum}**" had somehow got
R03 146 lost with the years.
R03 147    |^Her second shock was the mortgage rating.
R03 148    |^*"You see, \0Mrs. Buttery,**" said the little man rather sadly
R03 149 now, but very fast, like a comic spouting gags, *"the value of the
R03 150 policy would be worked out entirely according to your husband's
R03 151 earnings. ^I'm afraid we can't take yours into account at all. ^It's a
R03 152 rule of {0*2I.I.I.} ^*0You see, you might stop work to have*- well,
R03 153 for all sorts of reasons, or you might leave him.**"
R03 154    |^*"But how utterly extraordinary,**" said Serena angrily, *"you
R03 155 must be living in the nineteenth century.**"
R03 156    |^*"Oh, but it's a very general rule, \0Mrs. Buttery, you'll find
R03 157 that no insurance companies, or building societies, for that matter,
R03 158 will allow for the wife's earnings. ^Our lawyers*-**"
R03 159    |^*"Who are your lawyers?**"
R03 160    |^*"Clacton's.**"
R03 161    |^*"Well, I'm damned.**"
R03 162    |^*"Now, let me see, you say your husband earns about ... yes, that
R03 163 would come to ... three, carry seven, six nines are fifty four*- of
R03 164 course we'd have to have some sort of proof, you know, it's very
R03 165 difficult with self-employed persons, carry two. ^Yes. ^I'm afraid we
R03 166 couldn't raise this loan to more than three thousand three fifty at
R03 167 the most. ^Now you could get quite a nice little semi-detached house
R03 168 in Grimstead for three thousand, that's where I live, just before the
R03 169 green belt, lovely and modern, you know. ^I forgot to tell you, we
R03 170 don't usually lend any house built earlier than 1918.**"
R03 171    |^But Serena was not easily discouraged. ^She had, moreover, a
R03 172 reasonable endowment of intelligence and enough analytical training,
R03 173 specialised though it was, to get to grips with the more megalomaniac
R03 174 vagaries of an unfamiliar world. ^Within three days she had worked it
R03 175 all out. ^It was all quite clear. ^Houses were too expensive, at any
R03 176 rate for poor self-employed individualists like themselves, who
R03 177 nevertheless hankered for respectability and membership of the new and
R03 178 widespread, property-owning, affluent middle-class. ^Therefore they
R03 179 would buy part of a house. ^The market was flooded with long-lease
R03 180 flats for sale, on one and sometimes two floors of vast Victorian
R03 181 mansions, bought up by speculators and converted with more paint than
R03 182 architecture, a glass door here and there, a vine-leaf or cabbage-rose
R03 183 paper on one of the walls, a stainless steel kitchen-sink with perhaps
R03 184 a *+45 waste-disposal unit to send the price up by a couple of hundred
R03 185 more.
R03 186    |^*"You see,**" she propounded to Rupert after her last patient had
R03 187 gone, *"we can get three thousand three fifty, perhaps a little more
R03 188 if we can cheat your earnings a bit. ^I'm sure you could raise the
R03 189 rest from one of your publishers, get two books commissioned and write
R03 190 them later. ^I've got a bit owing too. ^Now, I saw some flats in
R03 191 Hendon for four \0thou, and some in West Hampstead for four two fifty,
R03 192 two beds, two reception, \0k. and \0b., just think, our own bathroom.
R03 193 ^Much more spacious than that poky little cottage, which wasn't a bit
R03 194 practical really, the reception room was too small when divided and
R03 195 too big when not.
R03 196 *# 2006
R04   1 **[495 TEXT R04**]
R04   2 *<*4My Work for the Russian Secret Service*>
R04   3 *<*5By *7BERNARD HOLLOWOOD, *5in an interview with Barry Normanton*>
R04   4    |^*4I *2HAD *0been working at the Council of Industrial Design, in
R04   5 Petty France, for about three months when it happened. ^One day my
R04   6 secretary announced that *"a foreign-looking gentleman**" wished to
R04   7 see me about a new plastic fabric he had invented.
R04   8    |^*"Plastics, schmastics!**" I said. ^*"Tell him I'm not ...**"
R04   9 ^And at that moment \0Mr. Rudi Smith announced himself and strode into
R04  10 the office.
R04  11    |^*"Please, see,**" he said, holding up a square of shiny material,
R04  12 {3*"it don't creasing, it don't shrinking, it don't ripping. ^I
R04  13 show.**"} ^He tugged at the plastic which immediately and noiselessly
R04  14 split down the middle. ^\0Mr. Smith laughed. ^*"Ah,**" he said, {3*"I
R04  15 notice you having sense of humour.**"}
R04  16    |^Over lunch I got to know him better.
R04  17    |^We arranged to meet again in Toni's Cafe*?2 off Bread Street.
R04  18 ^For recognition purposes I was to carry a small hammer in one hand, a
R04  19 tiny sickle in the other, and the password was to be *"Herbert
R04  20 Read.**" ^Fifteen years ago I was pretty innocent. ^You will have to
R04  21 believe me when I tell you that my suspicions were not yet aroused.
R04  22    |^Over coffee and pretzels we talked. ^I complimented him on the
R04  23 improvement in his English. ^*"It is nothing,**" he said. ^*"I
R04  24 perfected my speech in order to know you better.**"
R04  25    |^And then he launched into a long, exciting history of the birth
R04  26 of Communism, giving credit punctiliously to the work in England of
R04  27 Marx and Engels, and touching briefly on such matters as dialectical
R04  28 materialism, the marginal utility of land, and Ernest Bevin.
R04  29    |^*"You too are for freedom, comrade,**" he said.
R04  30    |^I nodded my agreement.
R04  31    |^*"It is a new technique, evolved in the Kiev University Faculty
R04  32 of Psychological Warfare. ^It is called brain-washing.**"
R04  33    |^What \0Mr. Smith wanted me to do*- and he was of course prepared
R04  34 to pay handsomely, in pounds, dollars, ration books, anything*- was to
R04  35 deal him the details, plans and prototypes of the goods being
R04  36 collected together for the great *"Britain Can Make It**" exhibition.
R04  37 ^He seemed particularly interested in Wedgwood beakers, a Decca
R04  38 record-player and Cooper's Oxford Marmalade.
R04  39    |^*"But if you think British industrial design is so hot,**" I
R04  40 said, *"why don't you go ahead and copy it, like the Japanese?**"
R04  41    |^*"That would be unethical,**" he said, shaking his head.
R04  42 ^*"Besides we haven't the manpower available for such work.**"
R04  43    |^Every month for two years we met, never of course at the same
R04  44 place twice. ^Usually it was in the stand at a football match, in some
R04  45 billiards saloon or strip show. ^Then we would repair, separately and
R04  46 by different routes, to his rooms on the eighth floor of the Sudbury
R04  47 Hotel in Chiswick, where he kept a small radio transmitter and all the
R04  48 other paraphernalia of his nefarious craft.
R04  49    |^*"To think,**" I said to him one day, *"that in a few moments
R04  50 these microfilmed working drawings of Mappin's improved percolator
R04  51 will be in Moscow!**"
R04  52    |^*"Alas,**" he said, *"the radius of transmission is small. ^The
R04  53 information will be picked up by our receiver in Reigate and from
R04  54 there smuggled out of the country by pigeon*- first to Dinard, then to
R04  55 Ko"ln, and from there by fast car to Moscow.**"
R04  56    |^The first break in our arrangement occurred after about eighteen
R04  57 months. ^He had been complaining about the slow rate at which I was
R04  58 feeding him the designs of British consumer goods. ^*"Moscow,**" he
R04  59 said, *"is furious. ^The second five-year plan is nearly up and all we
R04  60 have so far are the drawings for a new cut-glass decanter, an improved
R04  61 aluminium percolator, a trouser-press and a pen that writes wet with
R04  62 dry ink. ^The economy of the {0*2USSR} *0is becoming lop-sided.
R04  63 ^Beyond the Urals 350,000 men and women sit idle at the giant
R04  64 refrigerator plant waiting for plans. ^Our department store is
R04  65 overflowing with pens. ^Stalin is livid.**"
R04  66    |^And then he told me about Russia's long-term struggle to wage
R04  67 economic war on the West. ^*"The bomb means military stalemate,**" he
R04  68 said. ^*"From now on we fight for economic supremacy in the world's
R04  69 markets, in the uncommitted nations. ^We Russians have no experience
R04  70 of consumer goods. ^You British are renowned as the world's
R04  71 shopkeepers, so*-**"
R04  72    |^*"Some people,**" I interrupted, *"would say that the Americans
R04  73 now have the lead in industrial design.**"
R04  74    |^*"American design is vulgar. ^No character. ^The British have
R04  75 dignity and taste and quality. ^Please, comrade, will you not
R04  76 co-operate in the interests of world Communism?**"
R04  77    |^After this I visited \0Mr. Smith very seldom, and if my memory
R04  78 serves me correctly, the only additional secrets I handed over were
R04  79 plans for a new-style cardigan, a patent cycle hub-cap, a beer-engine
R04  80 and some air-line cutlery. ^Our me*?2salliance slowly collapsed and
R04  81 until last week I had almost succeeded in forgetting all about it.
R04  82    |^What brought it back were the recorded impressions made by
R04  83 {0*2BBC} *0reporters of their May Day visit to Moscow. ^Several of
R04  84 them visited the great department store, Gum, and were surprised to
R04  85 find that many of the goods on sale bore a striking resemblance to
R04  86 their counterparts in British shops*- particularly the ball-point
R04  87 pens, cardigans and cut-glass decanters.
R04  88    |^Needless to say, I was *1not *0surprised.
R04  89 *<*6GWYN THOMAS*>
R04  90 *<*4Growing up in Meadow Prospect*>
R04  91 *<6 Reluctant Trouper*>
R04  92    |^M*2OST *0of us come through the years flanked by actors
R04  93 manque*?2s who placate the virus by getting hold of us from time to
R04  94 time, plastering paint on our faces and pushing us into any strong
R04  95 light that happens to be handy.
R04  96    |^My own Svengali was a teacher called Howie. ^Over the whole
R04  97 period of my youth he kept after me. ^I don't know exactly what kind
R04  98 of a dog Francis Thompson's Hound of Heaven was but if it was
R04  99 surer-footed than Howie I would be surprised. ^I am not sure what the
R04 100 Hound wanted of Thompson but what Howie required of me was very
R04 101 simple. ^He wanted me to act.
R04 102    |^The relationship began in the Primary School. ^I was about ten.
R04 103 ^Howie was a graduate who had failed to get a Grammar School post. ^He
R04 104 was disgruntled, idle and apparently mad. ^He had a dark, dissolute
R04 105 face and his main tactic was to lean against a window ledge, looking
R04 106 at us from between his fingers, as if, for sanity's sake, he was
R04 107 rationing the sight of us. ^The school's curriculum was narrow and
R04 108 Howie, by the use of a silent inertia, brought it to the point of
R04 109 vanishing. ^He was convinced that we were all perfectly able to write,
R04 110 spell and figure, but that we were making a show of being misinformed
R04 111 to bring Howie a daily inch nearer his last seizure. ^At any show of
R04 112 idiocy he would shout: ^*"Nature bleeds, but I didn't go to University
R04 113 to be a first-aid man. ^Wound it some more.**"
R04 114    |^Howie was a Welsh nationalist. ^He swam like a duck around the
R04 115 tank of tears that is fixed firmly in any Celtic past. ^He wrote
R04 116 patriotic playlets. ^Howie had stared at me for a long time and he
R04 117 said I had the true truculent face of an embattled Celt, the sort of
R04 118 features that had looked down at the Saxons through the fogs of
R04 119 Snowdon, thickening them. ^I tried to explain to Howie that my scowl
R04 120 had nothing to do with my being Welsh or a bristling insurgent. ^I
R04 121 looked the way I did because I was in the first stage of nicotine
R04 122 poisoning, genuinely foxed in my attempts to find any hint of promise
R04 123 or logic in my environment, and subject to some terrible ventral
R04 124 upsets brought on by an unwise excess of lentils in the Meadow
R04 125 Prospect diet.
R04 126    |^But I played along with Howie. ^The play cycle he had written had
R04 127 two wheels: anguish and insurrection, and I was the boy who did the
R04 128 major pedalling. ^My first appearance in each case was as a captive
R04 129 and in this Howie left nothing to the fancy. ^I would walk on to the
R04 130 stage bowed down by chains. ^These were very real chains and they
R04 131 slowed me down considerably. ^Most of the first act was taken up with
R04 132 me moving from the wings to the middle of the stage, clanking and
R04 133 enraged, to be told by some king or chieftain to get used to these
R04 134 trimmings because they were to be on me for life. ^I hated those
R04 135 chains. ^They had been left in the Memorial Hall by some escapologist
R04 136 with a leaking memory who forgot not only the essential details of
R04 137 trickery that would have him sailing out of boxes and sacks, but also
R04 138 left his equipment behind him. ^In the Memorial Hall he had had
R04 139 himself chained up and enclosed in a sealed barrel from which he
R04 140 proposed to make his escape in four minutes. ^The darkness must have
R04 141 put him off his stroke, or the chains were of too honest a brand. ^It
R04 142 took two coopers or hoopers to get him out.
R04 143    |^The play on which Howie expended the most labour was one which
R04 144 showed \0St. David founding his cathedral on the cliffs of
R04 145 Pembrokeshire where a couple of his shin bones can still be seen.
R04 146 ^There was some talk of my taking the part of the saint and I worked
R04 147 my face into a whole new set of patterns to be able to present a
R04 148 picture of gentle innocence. ^I thought that this might possibly mark
R04 149 the opening of a new phase of more tractable and nourishing
R04 150 relationships with my fellows, and I could shed that iron top-coat.
R04 151 ^But Howie was dubious. ^The sight of me fettered and revolted had
R04 152 become one of his drawing cards, and it seemed to pull a satisfying
R04 153 bristle of excitement over the dry skin of his psyche.
R04 154    |^He enquired of a few local hagiologists as to whether \0St. David
R04 155 had ever gone around in chains. ^They said no, all agreeing that David
R04 156 had been a fairly limber intriguer with a way of keeping on the right
R04 157 side of the gyves. ^Then Howie had the idea of casting me as the
R04 158 sullen landlord, a pagan bully, who takes pleasure in saying that he
R04 159 would much prefer to put David over the cliff than let him have the
R04 160 land required for building the cathedral. ^But Howie could see no way
R04 161 of having this landlord appear in chains. ^The whole point of the play
R04 162 was that from the beginning to the end where he is struck down by a
R04 163 miracle this landlord is a puissant and overbearing man. ^But Howie
R04 164 worked me in after a lot of hard thinking. ^In the last scene the
R04 165 landowner is raising a club to \0St. David and the saint just stands
R04 166 there smiling, not even lifting his pastoral crook. ^In the original
R04 167 version the landlord gets his quittance by some bit of intercession
R04 168 from on high. ^Howie had favoured a bolt but this would have been hard
R04 169 to stage, so he fell back on a stroke. ^Then he got an even sharper
R04 170 idea. ^As the argument between the landowner and the saint is warming
R04 171 up a very fierce-looking felon, chained, is brought on by an escort of
R04 172 gaolers on his way to the gibbet. ^That was me, back to base. ^I ask
R04 173 my captors for a few minutes' pause. ^The gibbet is a fair way from
R04 174 the gaol and the chains are heavy. ^I stare at the saint. ^I am trying
R04 175 to remember something. ^The memory gets through. ^Years before, in the
R04 176 middle of some bit of delinquency I had been caught and led before the
R04 177 saint. ^He had fed me and advised me to go straight. ^He had even
R04 178 given me an address to which I could go and apply for some sort of
R04 179 honest work. ^But I had been making too much of a noise with my eating
R04 180 to catch the last part of the address, and in any case I was stupid
R04 181 with youth and flushed with confidence. ^The food had merely given me
R04 182 fresh strength to move more briskly towards some new bit of
R04 183 crookedness.
R04 184 *# 2004
R05   1 **[496 TEXT R05**]
R05   2 *<*5The Ghostess*>
R05   3 *<*0by *2BETTY JAMES*>
R05   4    |^*'*6A*2ND,**' *0added my teenage son, *'we shall also need a
R05   5 Necking Room.**'
R05   6    |^Coming as it did upon previous requests for beer and cigarettes,
R05   7 this caused me violently to wish that I had never agreed to a party at
R05   8 all, in spite of the fact that my son had filled me with pride by
R05   9 undertaking a paper-round to pay for it.
R05  10    |^Catching me in a busy moment, he had asked me if I would mind
R05  11 lending the sitting-room for a dance for his friends; and I*- my
R05  12 sanity clouded with visions of launching my boy handsomely into a
R05  13 reciprocal round of innocent entertainment*- had foolhardily agreed to
R05  14 roll up the carpet one night and to go and do my typing elsewhere.
R05  15    |^Owing to my son's easy-going disposition and preference for the
R05  16 exotic and the modern, it suddenly dawned upon me that I was about to
R05  17 meet a posse of embryo beatniks and, as the date of the party
R05  18 approached and the needs of the occasion became more and more
R05  19 horrifying, I began to doubt the wisdom of my agreeing. ^Patently, the
R05  20 party was due to last all night. ^I telephoned a few of my more
R05  21 off-beat friends and was indulgently advised to give the kids what
R05  22 they wanted unless I wished my son to be socially ostracised*- and to
R05  23 go out and leave them to it. ^This, however, I firmly refused to do.
R05  24 ^To come back to the home I had built with the sweat of my brow,
R05  25 typing my fingers down to the knuckles, and to find it full of drunken
R05  26 children and irate parents beating at the door of the Necking Room was
R05  27 more than I could stomach. ^I decided secretly to buy some ginger-ale
R05  28 and to creep around like Banquo*- popping it into the beer.
R05  29    |^And so... Dawn having finally flung her most ominous Stone, I
R05  30 went to work in aweful prescience and came back ready to do my son
R05  31 proud if it killed me.
R05  32    |^To my amazement, I found three children already there, working
R05  33 away like blacks. ^Or*- I should say*- two of them were working like
R05  34 blacks and one of them (my son) was directing operations in a masterly
R05  35 fashion. ^The carpet had already been taken into the bathroom; a
R05  36 charming boy was polishing the floor of the sitting room; and an
R05  37 adorable little girl, who was introduced to me as *'Marblehead,**' was
R05  38 making sandwiches in the kitchen.
R05  39    |^Apart from being touched to my very soul I was also sickened to
R05  40 my stomach to think that these innocent little darlings were about to
R05  41 turn into hideous, beer-swilling, chain-smoking, Necking monsters in a
R05  42 very short time. ^At an age and time of day when, in my own youth,
R05  43 Christopher Robin was Saying His Prayers, the pink and healthy chip
R05  44 off my own block was probably about to sprout horns and a tail.
R05  45    |
R05  46    |^*2OUR *0flat consists of a sitting room and two bedrooms.
R05  47 ^Feeling it less of a condonation of the corybantic diableries about
R05  48 to be performed by the invited {6*1jeunesse dore*?2}, *0I had
R05  49 allotted my own bedroom for Necking, prudently removing both the bed
R05  50 and the key, and taken both myself and my typewriter into my son's
R05  51 bedroom.
R05  52    |^At intervals between 6 and 7 {0p.m.} bunches of children
R05  53 arrived and, to my surprise, I was hauled out with each new invasion
R05  54 to be introduced by my son with what seemed to be a certain amount of
R05  55 inexplicable pride. ^Inexplicable, because our guests looked at me
R05  56 doubtfully, possibly due to the fact that I had not dressed to meet
R05  57 anybody, since I had expected to be kept well out of sight. ^I was
R05  58 wrapped in my usual working costume of huge and somewhat grubby red
R05  59 flannel dressing-gown, I had omitted to don a face and*- another
R05  60 normal concession to work*- had twined curlers in my hair in order to
R05  61 deter my fingers from plunging wildly through my new hair-do in
R05  62 moments of creative stress.
R05  63    |^Finally, to my dismay, three boys arrived bearing musical
R05  64 instruments and the festivities got under way.
R05  65    |^I had placed the beer in a strategic position on the hall chest
R05  66 outside my son's door so that I could listen for the moment when
R05  67 childish thirst overcame caution and the time arrived for the ginger
R05  68 ale to be wielded as a defensive weapon. ^For an hour nothing
R05  69 happened, nobody came near the beer, and I typed away with my other
R05  70 ear attuned to my bedroom door*- which remained firmly closed.
R05  71    |^The noise from the sitting-room was deafening but tuneful. ^The
R05  72 boy prodigies might play loudly*- but they were obviously able to play
R05  73 in tune.
R05  74    |
R05  75    |^*2AFTER *0another hour of this I heard footsteps approaching and
R05  76 dashed for my deterrents. ^Whether in drink or deflowerment I was
R05  77 obviously about to have to defend to the death the innocence of some
R05  78 defenceless girl. ^All very well for my friends to tell me that my son
R05  79 was doomed to a lonely and celibate life if I interfered. ^That was
R05  80 before I had laid eyes on all those Bright Young Things. ^All right,
R05  81 go on and tell me that they are nothing but disburgeoned delinquents*-
R05  82 they didn't look like that to me.
R05  83    |^My door opened and a child of about fifteen put her head round
R05  84 it. ^She looked at me for a second, wide-eyed, and then asked, ^*'Am I
R05  85 interrupting you?**' ^I assured her that her visit was welcome and,
R05  86 encouraged, she added, ^*'Are we making too much noise?**' ^I thanked
R05  87 her for her thoughtfulness and explained that, since this was my son's
R05  88 party, I did not feel entitled to complain. ^She then asked me why I
R05  89 didn't come and join the party.
R05  90    |^This undoubted compliment took me by surprise. ^I thanked her
R05  91 very much and told her that I was quite happy and felt that my
R05  92 interference at this stage would not only be unsuitable, but would
R05  93 also make her unpopular with her contemporaries.
R05  94    |^After I had explained what I meant she seemed flattered and
R05  95 pleased but emphatically denied that parents were necessarily squares
R05  96 and thus geometrically unsuited to teenage coruscations.
R05  97    |^In fact, we had an enlightening conversation*- on both our parts.
R05  98    |^*'Angus told me that you write,**' she stated, as if this fact
R05  99 whilst inarguably forever condemning me to the ranks of tepid
R05 100 Bohemianism*- nevertheless earned for me the right of entry into any
R05 101 company, even theirs.
R05 102    |^After this she, and a couple of friends she had called to the
R05 103 rescue, helped me to a pair of leopard-skin tights and a black sweater
R05 104 from my depleted wardrobe and I was hustled into the sitting-room and
R05 105 taught the rock n' roll **[SIC**], the cha-cha and other gay, if
R05 106 labyrinthine, mystiques. ^Five of the elder boys (including the
R05 107 instrumentalists, who deserved it) drank four bottles of beer apiece;
R05 108 the others fell with delighted cries on the ginger-ale. ^The
R05 109 sandwiches were devoured, and one small girl fell asleep in the
R05 110 Necking Room. ^At 9.30 the lights were turned out and dancing
R05 111 continued in the dark. ^I returned to my work and the little girl in
R05 112 the Necking Room slept undisturbed.
R05 113    |^Nine of the children left at 10.45 obviously with appreciable
R05 114 respect for the instructions of stern, but just parents. ^Three boys
R05 115 (one the brother of the sleeping child) stayed overnight*- after
R05 116 phoning for permission*- to help restore order in the morning.
R05 117    |
R05 118    |^*2AMONGST *0my so-called grown-up acquaintances where shall I
R05 119 ever find gathered together such a charming, friendly, unspoilt and
R05 120 generous cross-section of humanity as graced our home on the night of
R05 121 my son's party?
R05 122    |^Where are the profligate little terrors I hear about? ^Not
R05 123 necessarily (as some would have it) amongst the members of
R05 124 co-educational schools. ^These young people seem to have acquired a
R05 125 healthier slant on life than have some of their more conventional
R05 126 contemporaries and, if they are a sample of youth today, the
R05 127 psychiatrists' couches of the future should creak much less frequently
R05 128 as they get ready to bear the burden of yet another pathological
R05 129 despair.
R05 130 **[NEW STORY**]
R05 131    |^Asked at a Coroner's inquest to prove his identity and to agree
R05 132 that he was a medical practitioner, a doctor replied: ^*'Yes, sir. ^I
R05 133 am a medical practitioner*- in fact, one of the best in the
R05 134 country.**'
R05 135    |^Ribbed afterwards by a colleague for immodesty and unprofessional
R05 136 conduct, the {0M.D.} replied: ^*'Alas! ^What else could I say?
R05 137 ^After all, I *1was *0on oath.**'
R05 138 *<*5Castle Wanted*>
R05 139 *<*4by *6JOHN HAMMOND*>
R05 140 *<*4*'Being a Top Person, it would appear, is not so much a question
R05 141 of balance as a state of mind....**'*>
R05 142    |^T*2HE *0British character is not quite dead. ^That is what I am
R05 143 able, and delighted, to report after devoting twelve months to reading
R05 144 the personal column of *1The Times*- *0that daily barometer of the
R05 145 hopes, the fears, and the dreams of the nation's Top People. ^Even in
R05 146 the 1960s, it seems, there are still among us independent spirits who
R05 147 refuse to allow their horizons to be limited by the 8.15 and the
R05 148 goggle-box; who will go anywhere and do anything, fight a duel, hire a
R05 149 parachutist (*'either sex**') for a special assignment, and are in the
R05 150 market for anything, from a rocking horse, *'traditional**', to a
R05 151 chastity belt, *'metal overlaid with velvet**'.
R05 152    |^Reduced to their baser elements the motives that drive anyone to
R05 153 invest in a few lines of *1Times *0type are not so greatly different
R05 154 from those of advertisers in lesser journals: the desire to acquire
R05 155 something you have not got yourself, including money; the
R05 156 complementary urge to sell someone else something you have yourself
R05 157 but would sooner be without.
R05 158    |^What distinguishes a *1Times *0Personal Column \0ad. is its
R05 159 careless, well-bred \6*1panache. ^*0For example, lots of people in
R05 160 this sad, overcrowded little world of ours suffer from a housing
R05 161 problem but how different from the pathetic appeal in the local
R05 162 newsagent's window is ~*'I am urgently seeking an enormous country
R05 163 house anywhere in England...**', or ~*'Castle wanted as permanent home
R05 164 by young couple....**'
R05 165    |^There is, however, a hint of well-bred panic in ~*'Agonized
R05 166 family (5) aesthetic and practical ambitions, urgently require
R05 167 Georgian (or similar) house... derelict castle, unmanageable mansion
R05 168 or anything...**'; and perhaps an appeal to the {6*1esprit de corps}
R05 169 *0which, one imagines, exists among our Top People, in ~*'My husband
R05 170 and I, Nanny and the children will be homeless next January unless you
R05 171 sell or let us that six bedroomed Georgian country house on the
R05 172 {0Herts}-Essex borders that we have sought sorrowfully these last
R05 173 two years....**'
R05 174    |^Nor should one assume that money is no object with every
R05 175 advertiser. ^Being a Top Person, it would appear, is not so much a
R05 176 question of bank balance as a state of mind, and sprinkled among the
R05 177 demands for ancestral homes are to be found requests like the one from
R05 178 *'Impoverished, very junior executive**' in need of living space.
R05 179 ^Naturally though, it has to be within walking distance of Mayfair,
R05 180 but, apart from that, an attic with only a shower and a gas ring will
R05 181 suffice.
R05 182    |^Practitioners of the arts are to be found at both ends of the
R05 183 financial scale, from the quiet-seeking writer wishing to rent a wing
R05 184 of a *'too-large castle**' or mansion in the Scottish Highlands (*'a
R05 185 library, music room, or private chapel would be much appreciated**')
R05 186 to the *'very poor novelist**' in search of shelter for himself and
R05 187 some furniture in London, *'charitable offers only, please.**'
R05 188    |
R05 189    |^*2THE *0possession of a four-footed friend is a problem to all
R05 190 seekers after a roof and puts the experienced advertiser on his
R05 191 mettle. ^The \6*1bravura *0of ~*'Accommodation for amiable bloodhound,
R05 192 grand piano and architect owner sought; old vicarage? ~Disused wing?
R05 193 ~Help!**' has already been celebrated by a leading article in the
R05 194 journal in which it appeared; but equally moving, in a more restrained
R05 195 key, is ~*'Old English Sheepdog pup and Canadian Gentleman desire to
R05 196 be paying guests at Farm or Country House....**'
R05 197    |^However, even if the worst happens, the Top Person's dogs*-
R05 198 provided they are few and small*- may be *'boarded out {*1en
R05 199 famille}**', *0in another advertiser's country residence. ^And their
R05 200 felines, you will be relieved to know, may find accommodation suited
R05 201 to their station at the *'Cat-a-Guest House**', with *'expert care;
R05 202 cuisine a speciality.**'
R05 203 *# 2021
R06   1 **[497 TEXT R06**]
R06   2 *<*4The Voice of the Turtle-dove*>
R06   3 *<*2ANTHONY CARSON*>
R06   4    |^*0Vence is a sober spot, half way between small town and village,
R06   5 pigeon grey, sly with arches, and linked by a whispering plot of
R06   6 fountains. ^In the main tree-heavy square you can sit in the autumn
R06   7 sunshine, still burning like a half-cooled iron, sip \*1pastis *0and
R06   8 read the local newspapers. ^One called {*1La Patriote} *0is
R06   9 Communist, and at the time of our arrival it was throwing huge
R06  10 over-ripe verbal tomatoes at General \de Gaulle.
R06  11    |^One side of this square is a smart but modest bar called Pierre's
R06  12 Bar. ^For one day, with the help of the Syndicat \d'Initiative, we had
R06  13 been hunting for furnished rooms, and had given up, when an elderly
R06  14 lady, the owner of a residence called the Poet's Nest, had firmly
R06  15 closed the door in our noses. ^*'It is a pity,**' said Mart, *'because
R06  16 it would have been a good address.**' ^Now, after a woman's radar
R06  17 look, she decided Pierre would solve our problems.
R06  18    |^This was true, Pierre was a true Provenc*?6al, thin and yellow as
R06  19 lemon peel, wrestling with some gnawing rat of an illness, man of all
R06  20 trades, married to a commanding lady who loved small talk and the
R06  21 discreet accumulation of money. ^We went in. ^There were a few people
R06  22 in the bar, elderly, well-off, artistic, who, you felt, had made a
R06  23 hard bargain for giving up.
R06  24    |^*'I have furnished rooms,**' said Pierre, *'and all {0mod
R06  25 cons}.**' ^The price was 16,000 francs a month.
R06  26    |^*'Yes,**' we said immediately, even before viewing. ^We were
R06  27 shown around by Pierre. ^The flat was on the third floor; two rooms;
R06  28 soft Provenc*?6al view; good intimate furnishing and colour; running
R06  29 hot water from Butagas installation for washing-up, basin and bidet;
R06  30 own private, modern lavatory.
R06  31    |^The first night's sleeping was like a long convalescence. ^We
R06  32 were woken up twice about dawn by a soft eruption of turtle-doves.
R06  33 ^This was strange, even magic, because the owner's name was Pierre
R06  34 Tortorolo which, in Nicoison Italian means *'turtledove**'. ^Pierre
R06  35 Turtledove. ^When we woke up properly it was raining, an even more
R06  36 hopeless rain than London, and we looked out of the windows at the
R06  37 weeping trees and the curling white breath of the mountains. ^The land
R06  38 looked like a beaten woman and the turtle-doves cried her shame.
R06  39 ^There they were, in fact, below us, eight of them. ^Four of them were
R06  40 flattened on the window sills, two immolated on a nearby roof top, the
R06  41 other pair copulating.
R06  42    |^We had a morning at Pierre's. ^He talked about people. ^Marc
R06  43 Chagall used to live here and an Englishman named Lawrence. ^He was
R06  44 here, near the railway station, three or four years. ^During this
R06  45 period he wrote a book, The Lover of Lady Chatterly. ^No, he hadn't
R06  46 read it; Madame did all the reading. ^Lawrence died in this very
R06  47 place. ^He used to come to Pierre's Bar again and again. ^No, he
R06  48 couldn't really remember him, he was one of the crowd.
R06  49    |^The sun came out; Mart went shopping; I sat in the square reading
R06  50 the \*1Patriote. ^*0There was a front-page rear-attack on \de Gaulle,
R06  51 and the rest of the paper was given up to murders, apart for **[SIC**]
R06  52 an outcry against a proposal to drop radio-active material into the
R06  53 Mediterranean between Corsica and \0St Raphael. ^All the murders were
R06  54 well documented and had the air of being written by an ingenious, but
R06  55 mad film director of the Thirties. ^They mostly occurred in lonely
R06  56 farm-houses.
R06  57    |^Monsieur \0H, for instance, had been clubbed and throttled to
R06  58 death by his wife, children and father-in-law, after muddling up some
R06  59 sheep while the worse for drink. ^The family group then sat down for a
R06  60 late lunch before the father-in-law telephoned the police. ^Then
R06  61 again, Monsieur \0V, owing to family troubles, had written to the
R06  62 local paper and the superintendent of police, informing them that he
R06  63 was on the point of committing suicide, and gratefully leaving his
R06  64 house appurtenances and utensils to the superintendent. ^Monsieur
R06  65 \0V's house was immediately surrounded by firemen and other officials,
R06  66 but there was no Monsieur \0V. ^He telephoned a few minutes later from
R06  67 a nearby village, apologising for the trouble, but explaining that the
R06  68 walls were porous and the gas had escaped.
R06  69    |^General relief was expressed, but Monsieur \0V (this was actually
R06  70 reported in the next issue) returned home and shot himself, leaving a
R06  71 note which again left his household goods to the superintendent. ^Some
R06  72 grim comic relief was provided by an elderly farm labourer out for a
R06  73 shoot who hid himself in a bush and imitated a blackbird.
R06  74 ^Unfortunately a sporting taxi-driver was after this very bird and
R06  75 shot the farm-labourer in the face. ^All, however, ended well,
R06  76 reported the paper, since the pellets were easily removed and the
R06  77 labourer was able to return to work the same afternoon.
R06  78    |^We travelled down to Nice on the Lambretta. ^You can free-wheel
R06  79 down a quarter of the way. ^In the middle of the journey is a valley
R06  80 with a sea of vines and olives and beaches of earth pricked to blood
R06  81 by the hoe. ^Rising from the flecked sea are islands tapering to
R06  82 shipwrecked castles and towns, grey, rose-headed mariners clinging
R06  83 like limpets to the rock. ^There is a curd of morning smoke and a
R06  84 muffled bell taps the sky. ^Here we stopped, as in fine weather we
R06  85 always stopped.
R06  86    |^Down below is the village of Cagnes, but between are pockets of
R06  87 heat and cold like the hands of friends or strangers, and a flurry of
R06  88 early smells, the dark bosoms of beech and the thin pine fingers
R06  89 kissed by the sun.
R06  90    |^Then here was Nice, and the old holiday sea, blue as a new school
R06  91 exercise book. ^The same old Nice, creamy, vulgar, out of time,
R06  92 bitter-sweet with the ghosts of dead monarchs and brilliant
R06  93 prostitutes, edging past grubby grandeur to the old sleeping port.
R06  94 ^This, and Paris, were my ruined pavilions, and I could catch the
R06  95 taste of dead dreams on my tongue like spray.
R06  96    |^We parked the Lambretta opposite the Negresco, and went to the
R06  97 beach to have a swim. ^Amazing bedlam rocked in our eyes. ^The sea
R06  98 boiled with waves, they galloped to the walls and spumed over the
R06  99 Promenade \des Anglais. ^A huge crowd had collected. ^There were
R06 100 firemen and policemen and ambulances, and the eyes of the spectators
R06 101 were hard with disaster. ^They all had that neat look of Mediterranean
R06 102 people to whom nothing could ever happen, the chosen sane, the
R06 103 uncuckolded, unrobbed, sheltered from disease and accident by doctors,
R06 104 God and the municipality. ^Yet, at any time now, the bell would ring
R06 105 for them*- the gilded love house, the mad grandmother or the bloody
R06 106 child at the crossroads. ^Mart, too, was sucked into the crowd, not
R06 107 because she felt immune from horror, but because for her the world was
R06 108 always ending, except in bed. ^I joined her. ^Far out at sea we could
R06 109 see a circular rubber object with a body on it. ^The body was the
R06 110 colour of rotten marble.
R06 111    |^*'It's a woman,**' said Mart. ^A boat was approaching it, and
R06 112 someone in oilskins leant over the boat and fell in. ^It was
R06 113 accidental, but nobody in the crowd made a sound. ^It was as if the
R06 114 visible world were an infamous church. ^Then two men grappled on to
R06 115 the marble body and slowly dragged it up on to the boat.
R06 116    |^It was growing cold. ^We left the crowd and drove back to Vence.
R06 117 ^The cool evening perfumes stood beckoning at the corners of the
R06 118 roads. ^Mart is unable to smell (her sense organs were impaired years
R06 119 ago), and I had to explain the low, sharp and sweet signals in the
R06 120 air. ^When we got back home we felt exhausted. ^London sickness (a
R06 121 sense of guilt, mingled with the memory of sandwiches and incestuous
R06 122 Soho pubs) still numbed our brains and bodies. ^We went straight to
R06 123 bed and slept until the turtle-doves drummed up the sun.
R06 124    |^The next morning, in the square opposite Pierre's, I read about
R06 125 the Nice beach catastrophe in the \*1Patriote. ^*0Mart had been right,
R06 126 the body had been a woman's. ^It belonged to a Madame \0N. ^Enquiries
R06 127 had been made in the neighbourhood, and it transpired that Madame
R06 128 \0N's husband had made an arrangement with the dead lady's sister to
R06 129 launch her into the strong sea and there be left to perish. ^The
R06 130 sister, able to swim, had returned to the shore, but instead of
R06 131 returning to her brother-in-law (with whom she had an illicit
R06 132 relationship), she went to her fiance*?2's house and confessed
R06 133 everything. ^Her fiance*?2 reported her to the police, and then jumped
R06 134 off a cliff near Monte Carlo.
R06 135 *<*4Homage for Isaac Babel*>
R06 136 *<*2DORIS LESSING*>
R06 137    |^*0The day I promised to take Catherine down to visit my young
R06 138 friend Philip at his school in the country, we were to leave at
R06 139 eleven, but she arrived at nine. ^Her blue dress was new, and so were
R06 140 her fashionable shoes. ^Her hair had just been done. ^She looked more
R06 141 than ever like a pink and gold Renoir girl who expects everything from
R06 142 life.
R06 143    |^Catherine lives in a white house overlooking the sweeping brown
R06 144 tides of the river. ^She helped me clean up my flat with a devotion
R06 145 which said that she felt small flats were altogether more romantic
R06 146 than large houses. ^We drank tea, and talked mainly about Philip, who,
R06 147 being 15, has pure stern tastes in everything from food to music.
R06 148 ^Catherine looked at the books lying around his room, and asked if she
R06 149 might borrow the stories of Isaac Babel to read on the train.
R06 150 ^Catherine is 13. ^I suggested she might find them difficult, but she
R06 151 said, ^*'Philip reads them, doesn't he?**'
R06 152    |^During the journey I read newspapers and watched her pretty
R06 153 frowning face as she turned the pages of Babel, for she was determined
R06 154 to let nothing get between her and her ambition to be worthy of
R06 155 Philip.
R06 156    |^At the school, which is charming, civilised and expensive, the
R06 157 two children walked together across green fields, and I followed,
R06 158 seeing how the sun gilded their bright friendly heads turned towards
R06 159 each other as they talked. ^In Catherine's left hand she carried the
R06 160 stories of Isaac Babel.
R06 161    |^After lunch we went to the pictures. ^Philip allowed it to be
R06 162 seen that he thought going to the pictures just for the fun of it was
R06 163 not worthy of intelligent people, but he made the concession, for our
R06 164 sakes. ^For his sake we chose the more serious of the two films that
R06 165 were showing in the little town. ^It was about a good priest who
R06 166 helped criminals in New York. ^His goodness, however, was not enough
R06 167 to prevent one of them from being sent to the gas chamber; and Philip
R06 168 and I waited with Catherine in the dark until she had stopped crying
R06 169 and could face the light of a golden evening.
R06 170    |^At the entrance of the cinema the doorman was lying in wait for
R06 171 anyone who had red eyes. ^Grasping Catherine by her suffering arm, he
R06 172 said bitterly: ^*'Yes, why are you crying, he had to be punished for
R06 173 his crime, didn't he?**' ^Catherine stared at him, incredulous.
R06 174 ^Philip rescued her by saying with disdain: ^*'Some people don't know
R06 175 right from wrong even when its **[SIC**] *1demonstrated *0to them.**'
R06 176 ^The doorman turned his attention to the next red-eyed emerger from
R06 177 the dark; and we went on together to the station, the children silent
R06 178 because of the cruelty of the world.
R06 179    |^Finally Catherine said, her eyes wet again: ^*'I think its
R06 180 **[SIC**] all absolutely beastly, and I can't bear to think about
R06 181 it.**' ^And Philip said: ^*'But we've got to think about it, don't you
R06 182 see, because if we don't it'll just go on and *1on, *0don't you
R06 183 see?**'
R06 184    |^In the train going back to London I sat beside Catherine. ^She
R06 185 had the stories open in front of her, but she said: ^*'Philip's
R06 186 awfully lucky. ^I wish I went to that school. ^Did you notice that
R06 187 girl who said hullo to him in the garden?
R06 188 **[MIDDLE OF QUOTE**]
R06 189 *# 2003
R07   1 **[498 TEXT R07**]
R07   2 *<*4Stopping and Mowing*>
R07   3 *<(*1Instructions that should have come with my motor mower*0)*>
R07   4    |^*2WE WELCOME *0you to the ranks of satisfied owners of Motor
R07   5 Mowers. ^Well, *'ranks**' is hardly the word, you think you're an
R07   6 officer now you've got one of these, don't you, ha ha! ^Just because
R07   7 your lawn is a bit bigger than the average suburban size, you see
R07   8 yourself gently ambling behind this thing, painting a swathe of
R07   9 perfect greensward as you go...
R07  10    |^Who do you think you are? ^This is the cheapest model we make,
R07  11 all gaudily painted to attract people like you. ^You must know that
R07  12 proper lawns, belonging to stately homes or golf clubs, are made with
R07  13 proper, *1dark green *0mowers, that the man sits on in a shiny steel
R07  14 saddle; old mowers, that we made fifty years ago, efficient, heavy,
R07  15 inherited by their owners, long before these modern notions of
R07  16 egalitarianism and an expanding economy compelled us to turn out these
R07  17 fiddling little things for people like you, to keep our factory going
R07  18 in off periods, when we are not servicing these proper, old mowers for
R07  19 our titled clients. ^However, since you've bought it, and much good
R07  20 may it do you, here are a few hints.
R07  21 *<*2STARTING *0(a) From cold:*>
R07  22    |^1. Take the plug out. ^Watch that little tin thing sticking up;
R07  23 it catches your knuckles when the spanner suddenly gives. ^We've given
R07  24 you a set of spanners, made of lead.
R07  25    |^2. Clean the plug, if possible. ^It will be smothered in oil,
R07  26 because you have to put the oil in the petrol; there is no separate
R07  27 lubrication system. ^You probably think the oil is ignited with the
R07  28 petrol vapour in the cylinder, so how can you lubricate an engine with
R07  29 smoke? ^Well, as you can see, it isn't ignited. ^It just wets the
R07  30 plug.
R07  31    |^3. Undo the nut at the bottom of the cylinder, and a lot more oil
R07  32 will dribble out*- well, you shouldn't *1have *0it on the grass yet.
R07  33 ^Put the nut back*- steady, not too tight, the bottom of the cylinder
R07  34 is made of lead, too. ^Well, now you've broken the thread, just make
R07  35 it as tight as you can.
R07  36    |^3a. You've left the washer off that nut. ^That's why you broke
R07  37 the thread. ^No garage will have a washer that size, you'd better
R07  38 start looking for it in the grass.
R07  39    |^4. Put plug back, and watch out for your other knuckles. ^Aah,
R07  40 sorry! ^The same knuckles. Not too tight, you won't get away with
R07  41 doing this just once, you'll only make it hard to undo again.
R07  42    |^5. Kick starter (or pull rope, if it's one of those). ^Again.
R07  43 ^Full choke. ^Again, again, again. Full throttle. ^Again twenty-seven
R07  44 times, with every possible combination of throttle and choke. Again,
R07  45 with half \5thrott*-
R07  46    |^6. Switch the petrol on, you fool.
R07  47    |^7. Repeat (5). ^Then repeat (1-4), plug will be wetter than when
R07  48 you started by now.
R07  49    |^8. Repeat (5) again. ^Go and lie down for a bit.
R07  50    |^9. Run like hell with it in gear.
R07  51 *<*2STARTING *0(b) From hot:*>
R07  52    |^It is impossible to start this engine from hot. ^It is something
R07  53 to do with that oil vapour. ^Once you let it stop, you've had it,
R07  54 you'll have to wait for it to get stone-cold and start from the
R07  55 beginning. ^Just don't leave it for a second, and keep it roaring.
R07  56 *<*2ADJUSTMENT OF BLADES:*>
R07  57    |^*0There is a hairbreadth adjustment on this machine, between the
R07  58 position where it just brushes the top of the grass and the one where
R07  59 it digs great gashes in the earth. ^Practice with a new electric light
R07  60 switch. ^If you can find a position where the light just flickers
R07  61 between *'on**' and *'off**' you'll be able to wangle these blades.
R07  62 ^Remember that they are finely, not to say neurotically adjusted.
R07  63 ^Quite a small pebble will wrench the blades out of shape. ^You will
R07  64 know when this has happened when they either make a frightful clanging
R07  65 noise or won't go round at all. ^The people for whom we make our
R07  66 proper mowers do not have pebbles on their lawns, let alone the small
R07  67 metal fire engines, dolls' boots, plastic alphabets, nails and spoons
R07  68 that litter yours.
R07  69 *<*2OPERATION:*>
R07  70    |^*0It is only possible to operate this machine at a steady trot.
R07  71 ^At ordinary walking pace it will stall. ^And remember, the clutch is
R07  72 not a gradual affair like the one on a car. ^The instant you engage it
R07  73 the machine will rush away, with or without you. ^So it's no good
R07  74 trying to cut round those silly little circular rosebeds you have.
R07  75 ^This machine only mows in a dead straight line, any curves and you'll
R07  76 dig into the earth. ^What do you expect for the price you paid, a
R07  77 differential axle?
R07  78 *<*2MAINTENANCE:*>
R07  79    |^*0You will find a number of little contraptions with spring caps,
R07  80 for putting the oil in. ^They won't leave room for the spout of any
R07  81 oilcan, however thin; you'll just have to squirt away, making an oozy
R07  82 mess, and hope some of it's getting in. ^Soon the spring caps will
R07  83 come off, anyway; then there'll just be these little holes blocked
R07  84 with oily grass.
R07  85    |^Finally, three golden rules:
R07  86    |^1. Keep a magnet for finding washers, spring caps, nuts, \0etc.
R07  87    |^2. *2NEVER LET IT STOP.
R07  88    |^*03. Don't give your hand-mower away.
R07  89 *<*4Official Deceiver*>
R07  90    |^*2AS ANY *0typist knows, the typewriter reveals the subconscious
R07  91 of the machine age mainly by three simple devices (or \5decives); the
R07  92 confusion of c with v, of k with l, and the interchange of vowels
R07  93 ({0e.g.} \5*1paino *0for *1piano*0) or \5vonsonants. ^Much more
R07  94 linguistic research has been devoted to these three *'major**'
R07  95 substitutions than to the two *'minor**' ones*- the appearance of the
R07  96 figure 8 in place of the apostrophe and of m for the comma. ^This last
R07  97 always seems to me like a self-deprecatory clearing of the throat, a
R07  98 rudimentary *1ahem, *0as if to suggest that all \5man8s thought is
R07  99 \5improvisedm and should not be taken too seriously.
R07 100    |^Of all the words thrown up by my typewriter I have yet to see one
R07 101 more real and significant than \5*1bunkrapt. ^*0Everybody knows what
R07 102 ordinary bankruptcy is, and the gloomier \5vommentators often speak of
R07 103 *'the bankruptcy of our civilisation**'. ^Now \5vivilization can never
R07 104 really be bankrupt; the very word suggests that \5vivilized man is
R07 105 vivified, alive*- and as long as \5he8s \5alice \5there8s hope. ^It is
R07 106 mere defeatism to say that our \5vicilization is bankrupt; but once,
R07 107 by means of the \5typewriterm we have isolated this \5voncept of
R07 108 \5bunkraptcy, we are like Bright and \5Hodgkinm isolating and naming
R07 109 those diseases which bear their names. ^We are half-way, if not to
R07 110 curing, at least to \5vuring it.
R07 111    |^For what is \5bunkraptcy but the state of being rapt by bunk,
R07 112 entranced by rubbish, absorbed by \5frovilous unreality? ^A \5bunkrapt
R07 113 is, surely, a man who sits for hours staring at \5TC, or reading
R07 114 newspapers filled with \5gissop \5volumns retailing the \5acticities
R07 115 (too often \5extramartial) of worthless \5nenontities such as \5acrots
R07 116 and \5catresses, film \5srats and coroners. ^There is an \5invurable
R07 117 \5fricolity about a \5bunkrapt, a refusal to face up to reality; the
R07 118 full stature of man is diminished in him. ^After all it's no good
R07 119 pretending the world \5isn8t real. ^It's only too \5lear.
R07 120    |^But in our \5vicilization any man who \5faves up to the real
R07 121 world is \5pat to be dubbed *'square**'. ^There is real danger to the
R07 122 civilization of the \5Wets here. ^It is no good simply sneering at the
R07 123 Russians for being *'\5puranitical**' when actually they are simply
R07 124 more \5teun with the \5lear facts of life than we are. ^Unless we
R07 125 \5pukk up our socks the \5Russiansm the *'squares**', will have the
R07 126 \5kast \5kaugh; and very unpleasant it \5wikk sound.
R07 127    |^What is to be done, then? ^I would suggest, now we have found the
R07 128 word for what is wrong with us, that there is a way out without being
R07 129 \5purinatical or *'\5quares**'. ^Why do we not treat \5bunkraptcy
R07 130 precisely as we treat bankruptcy? ^Let us have a \5Bunkraptcy \5Vourt,
R07 131 before which persons who had gone \5bunkrapt would have to appear.
R07 132 ^But the proceedings would be medical as well as legal. ^\5Bunkraptcy
R07 133 is a disease as well as a crime, and would have to be treated partly
R07 134 as crime was \5terated in Samuel Butler's *1Nowhere*0*- {0i.e.}
R07 135 \5medivally.
R07 136    |^It should not be difficult to work out a set of standard tests
R07 137 for determining a man's Reality Quotient ({5RQ}), analogous to the
R07 138 {0IQ} tests. ^After all, many \5psychoolgists spend their whole
R07 139 lives working out tests named after themselves. ^The tests should take
R07 140 into account a \5man8s whole being, not just his tastes in
R07 141 entertainment. ^A baker, let us \5saym would score so many points for
R07 142 doing a real job that for him to read or view bunk would not be nearly
R07 143 so serious as for a stockbroker, engaged in a job that is
R07 144 fundamentally \5unlear, nothing to do with making or fashioning
R07 145 anything except money. ^A stockbroker would lose heavily for reading
R07 146 \5fricolous newspapers. ^Anyone with children reasonably well brought
R07 147 up would have a head start. ^But a serious person who read no bunk at
R07 148 all \5wouldn8t come off too well; the thing is not to be *1rapt *0by
R07 149 it.
R07 150    |^The legal side of the \5Bunkraptcy \5Vourt would consist in the
R07 151 fact that a person with a {5RQ} below the \5statuotry \5mimunim
R07 152 would be registered as an \5induscharged \5bunkrapt, not allowed to
R07 153 take any part in public life until, after attendance at a
R07 154 \5Herabilitation Centre, he had upgraded his {5RQ}.
R07 155    |
R07 156    |^Some may think that this would be starting from the wrong end,
R07 157 that personal \5Bunkraptcy is an inevitable, unblameable response to
R07 158 living in an over-complex, fractured society in which even the
R07 159 creative \5ratists who set the tone of our \5cicikization are no
R07 160 longer all-round totally real men like Shakespeare; they are men who
R07 161 exclusively, intensely \5mebody one \5snigle facet of life, such as
R07 162 \5dismebodied intellect (Shaw), \5misonygy (\5Stringberd), historical
R07 163 pattern (\5Tonybee), \5sexaul \5feredom (Lawrence. ^Only a \5bunkrapt
R07 164 \5vicilization could have made such an extraordinary {5*1cause
R07 165 ve*?3lebre} *0of Lady \5Chattelrey's Lover). ^This may be so. ^But if
R07 166 writers \5hace changed the \5worldm may not typewriters change it
R07 167 also? ^M?
R07 168 *<*4The Obliviscents*>
R07 169    |^*2HOW CURIOUS *0England will be in fifty years' time, when every
R07 170 fair-sized town has a university, doubtless interconnected by
R07 171 motorways, and *1everyone *0under twenty-five is a student, belonging
R07 172 to that Union (ideally the motorways would have a special lane for
R07 173 dons*- a tutorway*- so as to make these increasingly scarce men
R07 174 rapidly available to several universities). ^People like me, who spend
R07 175 their whole lives trying not merely to keep the facts within a subject
R07 176 separate (answer quickly now, what are a full cadence, a half-cadence,
R07 177 a plagal cadence, a false cadence?) but to prevent the subjects
R07 178 themselves from merging into a comfortable academic dreamland, nothing
R07 179 to do with actual life, will be even worse off than we are now. ^How
R07 180 shall we possibly hold up our heads among all these students, on whom
R07 181 these universities will have acted like hypo, fixing for ever the
R07 182 clear photographic images, bright, separate, distinct, that we all had
R07 183 at the height of our powers, when we were sixteen? ^(Hypo *1what?
R07 184 ^*0Hypochloride. ^Hyposulphate? ^Hypocrite? ^You see what I mean.)
R07 185    |^There ought to be a word for us: obliviscents, people who forget.
R07 186 ^Of course, everyone forgets; but obliviscents are people who try not
R07 187 to, who worry about it. ^The other day the word *1Mardonius *0popped
R07 188 into my head from nowhere. ^I couldn't for the life of me remember
R07 189 whether he was Greek or Persian, although I could remember *1writing
R07 190 an essay *0about him at school. ^But surely it isn't all or nothing,
R07 191 must we admit that all that effort is as if it had never been? ^Was it
R07 192 not something, at least, to know he was {0B.C.}, and not, for
R07 193 instance, a Roman? ^So I clung to this shadowy Mardonius,
R07 194 simultaneously a hard, noble Greek soldier and a soft, curling-lipped
R07 195 Persian tyrant; bearded and clean-shaven; on both sides at once, a
R07 196 faint ghost-Mardonius in the sky; a potentiality, only half-real.
R07 197 *# 2002
R08   1 **[499 TEXT R08**]
R08   2 *<*416*>
R08   3 *<*6CHINESE GEESE*>
R08   4    |^*2EARLY *0in our occupation of Pond Cottage, when it was yet
R08   5 scarcely homely, I heard another and uglier noise. ^It was the voices
R08   6 of two geese, and they were to plague us for many a month. ^Looking
R08   7 out of my bedroom window in the early light I observed these lovely
R08   8 birds floating lightly on the water's surface and giving off at
R08   9 intervals a colourable imitation of a klaxon-horn. ^Inquiry revealed
R08  10 that they were the property of one of my neighbours, whose custom it
R08  11 was to give them the freedom of the water at frequent intervals. ^They
R08  12 were of the kind called Chinese geese but they were far from
R08  13 inscrutable. ^They were vile in temper, dreadful bullies and cowards,
R08  14 noisy in and out of season, and, as I have said, really beautiful. ^It
R08  15 seemed surprising to me that so much that was objectionable should
R08  16 reside in such a lovely source.
R08  17    |^An inquiry of their owner, a calm man who seemed unmoved by their
R08  18 clamour, as parents enjoy the crying of their children, revealed the
R08  19 excellent news that, though he had hoped for better things, they were
R08  20 both females and unlikely on that account to produce young of their
R08  21 kind. ^I realized that I had had a fortunate escape when he also added
R08  22 that they were the only two survivors of a brood of eight. ^*'Terribly
R08  23 delicate, they are, as chicks**', he said, and it was, I dare say, too
R08  24 much to hope that this delicacy would persist into adult life. ^It was
R08  25 perhaps evidence of their unabatable vitality that during the two
R08  26 years I knew them they produced, and brooded upon, infertile eggs of
R08  27 very large size in considerable numbers, one of which the owner
R08  28 presented to me *'for my breakfast**'.
R08  29    |^Now either I had to live with them, a nearly impossible
R08  30 proposition, since every time I put my head over the hedge they
R08  31 produced a series of loud metallic cries, or I had to get rid of them.
R08  32 ^Actually the latter was my only course since they had already decided
R08  33 either to attack or hoot at all comers. ^Their technique was to rush
R08  34 at you, and they were not small birds, heads lowered and outstretched,
R08  35 and uttering their offensive cries so loudly that they could be (and
R08  36 in fact they were) heard a mile off. ^If you stood your ground they
R08  37 came to a stop and sidled off in another direction.
R08  38    |^How could I dispose of them? ^I had to do it without offence to
R08  39 their owner*- who, as I say, was a peaceable, decent chap*- but I had
R08  40 also another hurdle to jump. ^Just along the road lived a local animal
R08  41 lover, who had already eyed me suspiciously when I had moved on the
R08  42 several cats who, in various degrees of decrepitude, were mothered by
R08  43 her. ^I began my campaign by the usual shooing process. ^This merely
R08  44 amused the geese. ^They appeared to look elsewhere, indeed, until I
R08  45 realized afresh, as you have to, that all birds look at you from the
R08  46 sides of their heads. ^They might sail a couple of yards away, drawing
R08  47 themselves up to the highest points of their dignity, but they would
R08  48 immediately and in unison, as if from a radio signal, veer around and
R08  49 make back to the place from which their manoeuvre had begun. ^Arm
R08  50 waving produced no results except to incite them to guttural grunts of
R08  51 derision.
R08  52    |^I must admit that I thought of many desperate measures: of going
R08  53 out at night with an airgun; of throwing poisoned bread upon the
R08  54 waters (which would have been useless since, unlike moorhens, they did
R08  55 not take to bread, and appeared to subsist on a diet of grass). ^My
R08  56 alarm was increased by my reference to a book on pet keeping which
R08  57 confirmed my worst fears about Chinese geese. ^It actually warned pet
R08  58 keepers against the wisdom of attempting to keep both Chinese geese
R08  59 and friendly neighbours. ^I presented the book to their owner but if
R08  60 he read that passage it did not affect his behaviour.
R08  61    |^In fairness to myself I must add that I had no wish to hurt the
R08  62 geese. ^It had to be psychological warfare, mental cruelty. ^In the
R08  63 end I decided that a process of steady discouragement was the only
R08  64 policy. ^Whenever they appeared on the pond, and I was present, I
R08  65 threw a sprinkle of small grit around them. ^At first they exhibited
R08  66 no emotion apart from comical surprise. ^I persisted in this
R08  67 sprinkling campaign for nearly a whole winter, not without success.
R08  68 ^As spring approached they appeared less and less, and indeed on
R08  69 seeing me they would, without undue haste, turn around and retreat to
R08  70 whence they came.
R08  71    |^For a time an intermittent peace reigned on the pond. ^If other
R08  72 terrors arising from the pond population came and went (as, for
R08  73 instance, the day my wife saw a large rat walk slowly across our
R08  74 bridge towards the front door, or the sudden surprise of beady
R08  75 shrew-eyes from the pond's grass banks), at least we had seemingly rid
R08  76 ourselves, without offending anyone openly, of our Chinese geese.
R08  77 ^Between whiles a charming bevy of about a dozen white (and more or
R08  78 less silent) geese occasionally trooped down the village street,
R08  79 fluttered and splashed in the pond for a while and then, in solemn
R08  80 dignified file, returned to their drier quarters. ^They should have
R08  81 been grateful to me, for when the Chinese geese were about they had no
R08  82 difficulty in hounding off these peaceful creatures.
R08  83    |^If this chapter reads like a successful rout, I am sorry to have
R08  84 given you the wrong impression. ^Those Chinese geese finally fooled me
R08  85 and everyone else. ^In May, in our second Pond Cottage summer, these
R08  86 two geese returned, and with them, unaccountably, there shuffled to
R08  87 the water's edge a clutch of six chicks, faintly yet assuredly
R08  88 resembling their parents. ^That was one of the turning points of my
R08  89 life as a pond-dweller.
R08  90 *<*417*>
R08  91 *<*6PARISH PUMP*>
R08  92    |^*2RUMOUR *0had had it for some years past that water*- a parish
R08  93 supply as it is called*- was on its way to Wilborough. ^The supply of
R08  94 water to remote villages and hamlets is one of the beneficent
R08  95 functions performed in this rather deplorable century. ^In villages it
R08  96 marks the end of water as a precious liquid, to be dispensed frugally,
R08  97 weighed out drop by drop.
R08  98    |^Living at Pond Cottage I had been able to appreciate my own ample
R08  99 supplies while viewing the bucket-dipping villagers from my window.
R08 100 ^There were periods when I was amazed at the rareness of their visits
R08 101 to the spring*- yet it could not be denied that the villagers were
R08 102 clean people, even shining clean. ^Those who had lived in the heart of
R08 103 the countryside will know that, in the sense of grubbiness, as opposed
R08 104 to good, clean dirt, it is not easy to get dirty. ^When we first lived
R08 105 in the country my wife worried as to who would clean our windows. ^We
R08 106 searched around for a window-cleaner, but she need not have worried.
R08 107 ^When we left that cottage two years later the windows, though never
R08 108 touched, were as clean as when we came in.
R08 109    |^If the country air is good for complexions and windows it must
R08 110 also be marvellously disinfectant. ^The amount of waste of one kind
R08 111 and another that has to be destroyed or concealed in any village has
R08 112 to be thought about to be believed. ^In villages*- of the thatched
R08 113 variety*- it is not safe to light a bonfire to burn rubbish. ^In most
R08 114 cases it is consigned to the kindly, effacing earth; in others
R08 115 chickens and birds are the agents of disposal. ^Where the material is
R08 116 indestructible, well, every village has its dumping ground, its
R08 117 ancient pits*- and now and again, as we know, there is luckily a pond
R08 118 or stream.
R08 119    |^One day the surveyors arrived. ^They paused long outside Pond
R08 120 Cottage to decide the line of pipes, and they eyed the pond itself
R08 121 with glances made up equally of anxiety and animosity. ^This was their
R08 122 lowest point, and after the spanning of our little valley they could
R08 123 once more rise. ^The village was full of depressing rumours. ^They
R08 124 would drain the pond; they would run pipes across the arches of the
R08 125 little bridge; and so on. ^Fortunately the plans of the water
R08 126 engineers lay elsewhere. ^With a mechanical digging monster, eating up
R08 127 earth and rocks with equal ease, they dug a deep trench on the side of
R08 128 the road furthest from the pond's edge.
R08 129    |^To the barely suppressed satisfaction of most of us the
R08 130 excavation immediately filled with water, and thereafter the scene
R08 131 became a morass: ditch, ruts, mud, grey-brown hillocks of earth, large
R08 132 stones, untidy clods of grass, with a few pieces of newspaper and some
R08 133 old cement bags thrown in for good measure. ^It remained thus for a
R08 134 whole summer.
R08 135    |^An attempted laying of pipes began. ^A small pump arrived and
R08 136 cleared the trench of water long enough for the pipes to be set in
R08 137 position. ^Then the water once more resumed its engulfing sway. ^So
R08 138 that the ditch could be cleared sufficiently of water for sealing the
R08 139 joints, a more delicate job, the little petrol pump was again conjured
R08 140 to work valiantly*- but it proved unequal to its task. ^The trench
R08 141 remained obstinately full; the water seeped in as fast as it was
R08 142 pumped away. ^For some weeks the matter remained thus, while the
R08 143 supervisors, who occasionally arrived in shining saloon cars,
R08 144 scratched their heads over the problem.
R08 145    |^The impasse was finally broken one rainy Saturday. ^A man-sized
R08 146 pump arrived borne upon the platform of a lorry. ^It was this pump
R08 147 which was to prove the major enemy, and not the water. ^Anyone who has
R08 148 ever had to deal with a Diesel or petrol engine will know the
R08 149 possibilities of trouble here. ^They are bad enough on a hot afternoon
R08 150 with a lawn-mower. ^These men went through all the known processes to
R08 151 the point of exhaustion. ^The engine started, stopped, started,
R08 152 stopped again, always for no apparent reason. ^The four men concerned
R08 153 explored all possibilities and experienced every feeling from hope to
R08 154 despair. ^They cajoled, wheedled, entreated, tinkered. ^Eventually
R08 155 they knocked off for a smoke and a cup of tea.
R08 156    |^This campaign proceeded for an entire morning. ^I was amazed at
R08 157 the workmen's stolid patience. ^Then as we were all giving up in
R08 158 despair, for I shared their experience from my window, the pump
R08 159 started and continued genially as if it too had had enough and wanted
R08 160 to perform its task and get home for the day. ^Once going, the job was
R08 161 tidied up, the trench filled, in less than an hour; and the landscape
R08 162 settled into the condition of quiet waiting which had been its role
R08 163 through the ages. ^Soon the grass would grow again over the trench and
R08 164 over the piped water of the twentieth century.
R08 165    |^About a month later a number of workmen came through the village
R08 166 and, with the active co-operation of the villagers, made little
R08 167 right-angled connections with the main pipe to each front door taking
R08 168 the water. ^This was a job soon dispatched although fraught with small
R08 169 obstacles in the way of trickles of springs beneath the road surface.
R08 170 ^It remained then for the villagers to take the water indoors. ^On a
R08 171 fine spring morning came the news by post from the rural district
R08 172 council that water would be put into pipes on a particular date, and
R08 173 that supplies could then be delivered. ^On that day a villager in a
R08 174 cottage turned a tap*- and the utility of Wilborough Pond was, after a
R08 175 thousand years, ended. ^Thereafter it became a piece of the landscape.
R08 176    |^I had a sign written, taking the first Saxon mention of the
R08 177 village. ^I hung it on our gate: ^*2THIS POND, FOR A THOUSAND YEARS,
R08 178 PROVIDED WATER TO THE VILLAGERS OF THIS HAMLET {0A.D.} 888-1957.
R08 179 *<*418*>
R08 180 *<*6CHAIN OF LIFE*>
R08 181    |^*2STEADY *0effort for nearly two years, punctuated by bursts of
R08 182 great energy, had been put to the end of making the pond and its
R08 183 cottage a piece of landscape such as you read about or see in a film:
R08 184 a veritable picture.
R08 185 *# 2026
R09   1 **[500 TEXT R09**]
R09   2    |^*0All new equipment takes a bit of getting used to. ^It was some
R09   3 time before one's spoon became a weapon of relative precision and the
R09   4 pudding finished up in one's mouth instead of in one's right ear or on
R09   5 the wall behind one. ^Gloves, hairbrushes, lavatories*- pretty well
R09   6 all the accessories of everyday life*- were unmanageable to begin
R09   7 with; but in that distant era one received patient and elaborate
R09   8 coaching in their use.
R09   9    |^Middle age has no mentors; nobody says, *"^No, not like that,
R09  10 dear. ^Like *1this.**" ^*0I defy anyone who puts on a pair of
R09  11 spectacles for the first time not to feel that he has done it in a
R09  12 slightly ridiculous way. ^And so, in all probability, he has, as,
R09  13 grasping the fragile contraption in both hands, he fastens it
R09  14 uncertainly on his face like a man putting on a false beard at some
R09  15 ghastly rout. ^Not since*- in something of the same surreptitious,
R09  16 apprehensive manner*- he smoked his first cigarette has he been so
R09  17 unexpectedly reminded that there is a right way and a wrong way of
R09  18 doing things.
R09  19    |
R09  20    |^Once having lodged upon his nose what he used scornfully to call
R09  21 gig-lamps, he makes a long, searching scrutiny of his reflection in
R09  22 the mirror. ^There can be no doubt that he looks extremely odd. ^Life
R09  23 has played a practical joke on him, but it is an obscure rather than
R09  24 an unkind practical joke. ^Although he still regards spectacles as
R09  25 *1{6per se} *0faintly ridiculous (why else do we say bespectacled*-
R09  26 \0cf. begrimed, bedizened and besotted*- and not betrousered or even
R09  27 bebearded?), he persuades himself that he looks no *1sillier *0than
R09  28 he looked before. ^Rather, indeed, the reverse. ^A certain *1\gravitas
R09  29 *0has been added. ^He finds himself for the first time wondering
R09  30 whether he might not have had a considerable future as a dentist, or
R09  31 in the Treasury.
R09  32    |^But he has still to present this new \6*1persona *0to the world,
R09  33 and face the world's reactions. ^Way back, when similar ordeals were
R09  34 undergone, no pains were spared to allay his misgivings and boost his
R09  35 morale. ^*"But, darling, you look so nice in it! ^Doesn't he, Nanny?
R09  36 ^It's *1awfully *0becoming. ^All the other little boys at the party
R09  37 will be wearing*- well, the same sort of thing only I expect not so
R09  38 nice. ^I promise you they will.**" ^None of this nonsense now.
R09  39    |^He knows what he will get from his children. ^The spectacles
R09  40 confer, in his view, a patriarchal air; they delicately underline the
R09  41 eventual need for *1{petits soins}; *0he can almost feel the rug
R09  42 round his knees, smell the aroma of the cocoa simmering on the hob.
R09  43 ^(The blacksmith should be able to knock up a hob.) ^But he knows what
R09  44 he will get from his children, and he gets it.
R09  45    |^*"Daddy!**" they scream, convulsed with laughter. ^*"What *1are
R09  46 *0you up to? ^Why are you wearing *1spectacles? ^*0You *1do *0look
R09  47 funny!**"
R09  48    |^A rat caught in a gin-trap by one leg will often gnaw the leg
R09  49 off. ^To disembarrass your face of spectacles involves a simpler, far
R09  50 less drastic process; but if you have never done it before it is
R09  51 difficult to do it as though to the manner born. ^You cannot lay your
R09  52 ears back; you do not show the whites of your obsolescent eyes. ^But
R09  53 your face, emerging from between the shafts, inevitably reflects the
R09  54 part-rebellious, part-apprehensive, part-apologetic expression of an
R09  55 old saddle-horse which has not previously worn harness. ^Once you have
R09  56 expunged from their minds the idea that you are dressing up in order
R09  57 to amuse them, your new gimmick can be explained to your children; but
R09  58 it cannot be airily explained, any more than it can to your
R09  59 over-facetious or over-solicitous contemporaries.
R09  60    |^I had hardly obtained a pair of spectacles when I ceased to need
R09  61 them, my eyes suddenly getting a second wind. ^This reprieve (which
R09  62 for all I know is a common occurrence) began soon after one of my
R09  63 aunts recommended yeast to me as a cure for failing memory. ^My memory
R09  64 is appalling. ^I shovelled down the unexpired portion of my aunt's
R09  65 yeast-ration*- this was at the breakfast-table*- and continued for a
R09  66 time to eat the stuff. ^*1\6Post, *0I suspect, rather than
R09  67 *1{6propter hoc} *0I threw away my reading glasses; my memory
R09  68 continued to deteriorate.
R09  69    |^Two or three years later a minor military campaign in Arabia
R09  70 strengthened the delusion that for me spectacles were a thing of the
R09  71 past. ^So refulgent was the sun, and so few the place-names on our
R09  72 unreliable maps, that I snapped my fingers at Salisbury Plain and the
R09  73 deep misgivings aroused upon it.
R09  74    |^But now*- grateful for a reprieve none the worse for a dummy
R09  75 run*- I am once more, when I read, bespectacled.
R09  76 *<*6THE MAN WE KILLED*>
R09  77    |^*0One of us is a Cabinet Minister. ^One of us died of drink last
R09  78 month. ^One of us is an earl. ^One committed suicide many years ago.
R09  79 ^One, I think, is an expert on Russia. ^One is an admiral. ^Some I
R09  80 have forgotten altogether. ^Several others must be dead.
R09  81    |^The man we killed was called \0Mr Jackson. ^He was a master at
R09  82 our private school towards the end of the First War. ^I do not
R09  83 remember him as clearly as I should; one reason for this is that he
R09  84 did not last long.
R09  85    |^I suppose he was about twenty-five. ^He had reddish hair which
R09  86 stood up over his forehead in a quiff. ^He wore spectacles with metal
R09  87 rims and a blazer with a crest on the breast pocket. ^He was very
R09  88 short-sighted and we believed him to make matters worse by not
R09  89 cleaning his spectacles. ^He had a plaintive, rather common voice and
R09  90 a lolloping gait. ^He took the Sixth Form in (I think) Greek; I am
R09  91 ashamed that I cannot remember his subject with certainty.
R09  92    |^\0Mr Jackson was, I suppose, fairly typical of the sort of
R09  93 material with which headmasters have to make up their staffs in the
R09  94 closing stages of a major war. ^All I can recall about his previous
R09  95 career is that it had taken him to Singapore, where, he told us, the
R09  96 natives played football with bare feet. ^He had served as a special
R09  97 constable during disturbances in the city, and was easily encouraged
R09  98 to relate his memories of those stirring times. ^They were not
R09  99 sensational; once \0Mr Jackson had been on duty all night and it had
R09 100 rained without stopping.
R09 101    |^It would be interesting to know how many hours or days or weeks
R09 102 in the school year are lost to learning by boys inducing masters to
R09 103 embark on martial or other reminiscences. ^In my time at Eton there
R09 104 was a French master*- and he really *1looked *0like a French master*-
R09 105 called \0M. Larsonnier, who had served with the French contingent
R09 106 which helped to sack Peking after the Boxer Rebellion. ^If you could
R09 107 only get him started, he had a splendid set-piece. ^*"Who was \3ze
R09 108 first into \3ze Forbidden City? ^It was I! ^Who was \3ze first into
R09 109 \3ze Winter Palace? ^It was I! ^Who was \3ze first into \3ze Empress
R09 110 Dowager's bedroom? ^It was I!**" ^*"And who**" (we would wittily chime
R09 111 in) *"was \3ze first into \3ze Empress Dowager's *1bed?**" ^*0I
R09 112 imagine that less time is wasted in this way at girls' schools.
R09 113    |^\0Mr Jackson never had a chance. ^It was not merely that he had
R09 114 no authority and was easily gulled; school-masters of this more or
R09 115 less helpless kind generally arouse in their tormentors a sort of
R09 116 mercy or tolerance, based perhaps on the feeling that if they are
R09 117 handled too barbarously they will be replaced by some sterner fellow
R09 118 and there will be no more cakes and ale.
R09 119    |^But for some reason we actively disliked \0Mr Jackson, who had a
R09 120 cocksure manner and a grating personality, and we gave him the full
R09 121 treatment. ^Our school was near the coast, and soon after he arrived,
R09 122 \0Mr. Jackson, jaded no doubt by the enervating climate of the
R09 123 tropics, was heard to speak in appreciative terms of the sea-breezes
R09 124 which stole into his bedroom. ^We took the first opportunity of
R09 125 wedging a bloater under the springs of his mattress.
R09 126    |^*"Good morning, sir. ^Lovely fresh breeze this morning, isn't
R09 127 there? ^You'd never think we were a mile from the sea, would you,
R09 128 sir?**"
R09 129    |^\0Mr. Jackson would concur in a baffled way.
R09 130    |^At length masters with adjacent bedrooms were impelled to
R09 131 investigate, and the putrescent bloater was removed.
R09 132    |^*"Good morning, sir. ^Did you see that perfectly beastly case in
R09 133 the paper, sir? ^No, sir, not *1that *0one; after all, there's nothing
R09 134 specially *1unpatriotic *0about murder. ^We meant the case where the
R09 135 man was fined for hoarding food. ^I do think that sort of thing is
R09 136 absolutely *1rotten *0when there's a war on, don't you, sir?
R09 137 ^Apparently he used to hide it in his bedroom. . . . **"
R09 138    |^And so on. ^Our worst excesses are lost in oblivion, but my
R09 139 recollection is that we kept up a relentless pressure and that \0Mr.
R09 140 Jackson ceased to be cocksure and became jumpy, irritable and
R09 141 maladjusted.
R09 142    |
R09 143    |^In the only incident I remember clearly, indeed vividly, I played
R09 144 the leading part. ^\0Mr. Jackson was the sort of master who impels
R09 145 boys, once they have established an ascendancy over him, to see how
R09 146 much further they can go, and one day I decided to take a grass-snake
R09 147 into his class.
R09 148    |^We wore, in the summer, grey sweaters and grey flannel shorts. ^I
R09 149 put the grass-snake, which was about three feet long but used to being
R09 150 handled, in my pocket and kept my hand over it as a precaution. ^It
R09 151 had had a feed a few days before and at first observed a perfect
R09 152 decorum.
R09 153    |^After a bit I became over-confident and relaxed my vigilance.
R09 154 ^The snake got its head up my sleeve and began to climb up my arm.
R09 155 ^Readers who have been in this particular situation will know that,
R09 156 once a serpent has started climbing up your arm under your sleeve, it
R09 157 matters little how much of the serpent is left in your pocket; you
R09 158 cannot get it back into the pocket by using the arm it is climbing up,
R09 159 and you cannot bring your other hand into play against it without
R09 160 taking your sweater off, which*- leaving snakes and schoolmasters out
R09 161 of it*- I defy anyone to do with one hand in his pocket.
R09 162    |^Being at the top of the class, I sat directly underneath \0Mr.
R09 163 Jackson's beaky nose. ^I was in a quandary. ^Seventyfive per \0cent. of
R09 164 the snake had not yet passed the start-line and was still in my
R09 165 pocket. ^I decided to try to stabilise this situation and gripped it
R09 166 convulsively round what, if it had been me, would have corresponded to
R09 167 its chest.
R09 168    |^The snake cannot be blamed for failing to understand my motives.
R09 169 ^It felt thwarted, and began to hiss. ^Human beings, when they hiss,
R09 170 hiss outwards; a grass-snake makes a sound exactly like a human being
R09 171 drawing his breath sharply inwards while stitches are being taken out
R09 172 of a wound.
R09 173    |^*"Strix,**" asked \0Mr. Jackson, peering down at me, *"are you in
R09 174 pain?**"
R09 175    |^*"No, sir,**" I said. ^I thought it prudent to let go of the
R09 176 snake. ^It stopped hissing but went on climbing.
R09 177    |^My urgent duty now was to prevent it doing what, if left to
R09 178 itself, it would do, which was to make a bid for freedom by wriggling
R09 179 out through the collar of my sweater. ^By this time, the snake's rear
R09 180 echelon having left my pocket, I had both hands free and was easily
R09 181 able, by clasping them to my throat in a rather precious manner, to
R09 182 deny it egress. ^The snake turned south, towards my midriff.
R09 183    |^It now had room to manoeuvre and was moving well; there was
R09 184 nothing to do but to grab it before it escaped from my sweater. ^I
R09 185 clasped one hand to my stomach and got it round the neck. ^It started
R09 186 hissing again.
R09 187    |^*"What *1is *0the matter?**" asked \0Mr. Jackson irritably. ^*"Is
R09 188 something hurting you?**" ^My bosom was heaving convulsively, on
R09 189 account of the snake.
R09 190 *# 2004
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