Wilde

I am writing a short play in which one of the scenes is taken directly from Wilde's "Importance of Being Ernest" (always a dangerous thing to do because my play by the side of Wilde's will obviously suffer). So there I am reading the "Handbag scene" from a book which has everything that Wilde ever wrote in it.
Well, not quite everything because one of his most quoted, famous lines is not there.
Jack says: "I have lost both my parents."
To which Lady Bracknell says, in this version, :"Both?.... That seems like carelessness...."
How is it that this book has left out the most famous line in the play? The thing is, it seems deliberate.
Jack: I have lost both my parents.
Lady Bracknell: Both? To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

Mate, Sir, Hi, Love.

Someone was writing today in a newspaper about getting to his forties and feeling that some young people these days are rather too familiar: they use your first name instead of Mr Whoever. He resented it a little.
Well, when he gets older like me he may find that it's not so much over familiarity that is common but a tendency to categorise you. You're not Mr. but "Love", not Sir but "Mate".
As in "there you go Mate," or "watch the step Love".
After a while you get used to it because you realise you've reached an age that carries with it a certain degree of respect but with a measure of kindness in it.
When I came home from Sainsbury's one day I said to my wife: "Now I've reached rock bottom; I am now of the very old generation. I was called, not Mate or Sir or even Love, but Lovely."
What's worse than that - or is it better? - is "My Lovely" as in "Want some help with packing your bags, Love?"
"No thanks, I can manage."
"There you go then, My Lovely."

Flashbacks in Films

When I was a kid many films had flashbacks - and audiences didn't like them. You'd hear the groans from the audience when the screen rippled and the scene being watched dissolved into a previous happening. I believe Hitchcock might have been aware of this "problem" because the only film I can recall of his that had a flashback was "Stagefright"; but in that film the flashback was used for a dramatic purpose that was essential to the story - the murderer himself was telling someone what had happened so the flashback was a lie.
Flashbacks (and flashforwards) are used in the film I saw the other night: "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead", and while, to mind, they worked well since they were intelligently executed, I can imagine someone else feeling a bit uncomfortable with them. I think most people like a story to be told from beginning to end without the intercession of flashbacks - they stop the flow of forward action, hold things up, take one's concentration from one's involvement in the story, and interfere with that old "willing suspension of disbelief".
I recall seeing Kubrick's "The Killing" in a cinema many years ago when it came out first and many people in the audience groaned with disappoinment and annoyance when the flashbacks occurred.
Yet no one complained about "Pulp Fiction".
Well, "Pulp Fiction" may be the exception that breaks the rule; most films that use these filmic tricks are not popular with the general public. Often they achieve "cult film" status - as did "Memento" and "The Killing" - but they are hardly ever highly regarded.
Syndey Lumet's "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" was not widley distributed (I saw it in an Arts Centre) and maybe the reason was the use of jumps in time - flashbacks.

Jewish Comedians

There was a get-together in New York recently of "Old Jewish Comedians". Everyone had a joke or funny story to tell.
"Larry Gelbert says of us that we are so old that the first cruise some of us worked on was The Ark."
"We were so poor, we slept five kids in a bed. That's how we invented the water bed. I never got to sleep alone until I got married."
"A woman who went to a palm reader heard 'Your husband is going to die a violent death'. She asked: 'Will I be aquitted?' "
Why are/were there so many Jewish comedians? Especially in America. Why aren't there any Muslim comedians?
A couple of years before Larry Adler died he sent a letter to a newspaper asking if there was such a thing as a Muslim joke.
No one replied.

Robert B. Parker

I picked up at random a book from the crime section of the local library: "School Days" by Robert B. Parker (I wonder if the "B" is a name or, like Edward G. Robinson's "G" a pretend name to give him, what he thought, a distinctive mysteriousness).
A good writer, this Robert B. Parker: short sharp sentences with not much description between the lines of dialogue, the sort of writing that make detective novels worth spending time with.
Why is it that the American crime writers excel? Their heroes are tough guys, not like a lot of English detectives - either nasty coppers or languid, thoughtful, intellectually inclined fellows from "good" families. Or Belgians!
Parker, apparently, did a study of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Ross Macdonald for his Ph D thesis. Later he was asked by Chandler's estate to complete one of Chandler's unfinished novels.
Did you know that the main killers in all Chandler's novels are women?
Chandler said that if the action is flagging in a novel he "brings a man on with a gun".
What'll they do over there if the gun lobby wins? No more of their excellent crime novels?
A two pipe problem there I think.

Amis

In an article on Martin Amis's new book, "The Second Plane", a collection of pieces he had contributed to newspapers and magazines since 9/11, the writer quotes Amis as saying "Belief is otiose, reality is sufficiently awesome as it stands." He goes on to say that Mr Amis conceives of religion as "both irrational and joyless".
Irrational yes. Of course. It's based on faith and belief. But joyless?
I recall in my young days leaving my parents' flat near the famous Arms Park, where rugby was played, to be met with a host of people on their way to that same Arms Park, not for a rugby match, but for a great meeting of religious people belonging to some way-out sect like Second Day Adventists or Four Square Gospellers or whatever. There I was, bleary-eyed from the after effects of too much to drink the night before, miserable as Hell, feeling sorry for myself - and there they were, families of them, all cheery-faced, happy and singing as they went. Joyless! Anything but.

Holidays

All my holidays since the children grew up, left home and didn't come with us any more, seem in memory to merge into one long tedious stroll - along beaches, through streets littered with trinket shops where rubbish is sold, along promenades that all seem, in retrospect, to be the same promenade, up hills and down dales none of which I can recall was there in Majorca or there in The Algarve or wherever.
A couple of years ago we did have what can be described, I suppose, as a reasonably interesting holiday, visiting The Loire Valley and its chateaux. But after a few days the chateaux all molded into one, sort of thing; someone said "When you've seen one chateau, you've seen them all," and I had to agree.
Then something marvellous happened. We came to a chateau which had birds nesting in the sides of the building. They were martins, I believe, which build nests out of, I think, a sort of cement. They flew down and out and past us and swept back up to their nests, speedily, gracefully.
And I thought of the speech in "Macbeth" by Banquo when he arrives at Macbeth's castle:
"This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve
By his lov'd mansionry that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle;
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observ'd
The air is delicate."
So, I thought, right - next time we'll do something interesting - I know, go to Chichester to see Patrick Stewart in "Macbeth".
We did. It had rave reviews but I thought it dreadful (apart from him and Lady Macbeth). And when it came to Banquo's speech the man just blared it out as if he was, as in "Hamlet", the town crier.
The speech is so beautiful that you know, dramatically, it has sealed Banquo's fate. He's a gonna.

David Lean

If someone asked me what was the worst film I had ever seen I always used to say "In Which We Serve".
The answer was a perverse reaction to its death and glory 2nd World War patriotism and its depiction of the ordinary bloke as rather stupid. Also its depiction of the upper crust officers as ludicrously gallant and above reproach. Noel Coward epitomised, to me, a sort of Englishness which reeked of the Public School with all its supposed values of the higher moral kind soaked in reprehensible smugness. And John Mills, with his mooney look of admiration for those above him in status, simply daft, certainly without reality softening the features or spirit of that wooden character.
I think David Lean's films improved radically when he struck out on his own, away from the domineering influence of Coward. While "Brief Encounter", a film they did together, is a film one cannot ignore - it simply imposes itself on you like a sentimental song you don't want to remember but can't help singing - I can imagine a modern audience of young people laughing at it as they might at an Eton educated politician trying to persuade them of his honesty and good intentions. The film is a mess but you can't help wading in it like a pig in 'the proverbial'.
When David Lean branched out on his own and made the Dickens films he found his feet. From then on he made success after success, popularly and critically. (Except of course for "Ryan's Daughter" which had John Mills again doing what he always did badly, trying to be someone he did not understand so playing him as a fool.)
Tomorrow David Lean would have been 100.
Probably his greatest work was "Lawrence of Arabia".
Was Noel Coward getting his own back for Lean leaving him to make 'real cinema' works when he said: "If Peter O'Toole had been any prettier they would have called the film 'Florence of Arabia".

Playwrights

No one wants to know playwrights.
I was reviewing a new play by - there you are, that proves it, I can't remember the playwright's name, or the name of the play! Anyway, the play was over and we - reviewers, cast, press officer, director and certain dignitaries (on free tickets!) - were gathered in the bar. I was chatting to the press officer when I noticed a young man standing on his own, sipping a beer.
"Who's that?" I asked the press officer.
"O him," he said, "he's only the writer."
Reminds me of a joke going round Hollywood of the young starlet who dated a script writer to advance her career.
Go on laugh.
On one occasion I made sure I, the writer, got to be known. My play "Aspects of War" was done for five nights in Cardiff together with two other plays, in other theatres, on the subject of the First World War. I offered to do a review of the other two plays for The Stage magazine.
"OK," said the editor. "But we don't have anyone to review yours."
After a little thought he came up with a brilliant idea: "Why don't you review it?" he said.
"Me, my own play? Review my own play?"
"Yes, why not?"
So I did.
A week or so later I was talking on the phone to the Director of the Welsh Theatre Company and told him this story.
"Did you give it a good review?" he asked.
"It's the only good one it got," I said.

Paul Schofield

I had the impression that Paul Schofield, who died yesterday, must have been a sad man; that deep, sad voice and that hangdog expression indicated, to me, someone of a deeply troubled nature. For this reason, I thought, his Lear must have been the perfect role for him - as it turned out, it seemed that it was.
But I had never seen him on stage, only on TV, film and on the radio. So it was something of a revelation to me when I saw him in a stage play by John Osborne, "Hotel in Amsterdam", in which he played a callous, fast- talking, dirty-talking salesman type in a manner that was anything but sad or gloomy. He was immensely funny. He seemed to enjoy taking on a part that was uncharacteristic of him, playing against type and appearing to enjoy himself thoroughly doing it.
Of course his performance in "A Man for all Seasons" will be remembered for a very long time and playing the father of the disgraced intellectual in Robert Redford's "Quiz Show" showed what he could do with a modern role.
But his performance in "Hotel In Amsterdam" I shall remember most; not one of Osborne's best plays and, when shown a couple of years ago on TV, not a play that stood up well to the passage of time.... So maybe it was Schofield who made the play seem so good then.

Ideology

There are more and more people, some of them scientists, who disagree with those who submit that there is damaging global warming; they say that things are not as bad as all that; that, OK, there is some global warming but it's not going to be catastrophoic. Certainly not in the short term (hundreds of years ahead).
Well these people, whether they are right or wrong, do not want to be heard by "global warmers"; indeed, some of those who believe global warming is disastrous or going to be, not just ignore them but positively make life difficult for them - some are not allowed to speak. And this is supposed to be a free country!
The trouble is that when people get certain ideas in their heads which they believe as "the truth", not only do they wish everyone to believe it but positively despise those who don't.
You get it in religions (especially so in some), in politics (especially so of those on the far left and far right), - indeed, in everything which has an intellectual content.
I recall a Labour MP railing against a colleague who "crossed the floor" to join the Tories; he told him that there was no one more despised than he.
I think he shouldn't have been despised at all. He had, after all, made a considered judgement after deeply thinking about the matter, not like his attacker, believed he was absolutely right and stayed put.
As Hannah Arrendt phrased it: "Nothing so inoculates a person against reality than the hold of ideology."

Sap

I think it was called "Sap". It was a play by Gwyn Thomas at Cardiff's Sherman Theatre put on by The Welsh Theatre Company which was then going quite strong but later just disappeared (they always do!).
A young woman who was attached to The Welsh Company - I think she must have been Assistant to the Assistant Secretary or some such thing, was flapping around saying "Has he arrived yet? Is he here?" "Who?" I asked. "Gwyn Thomas?" "No," she said dismissively as if I had said something vile. ""Not him. Bernard Levin. He's down from London and is going to review the play."
Eventually, just before curtain up, the great man arrived. No, not Gwyn Thomas but Bernard Levin.
"He's here," she said. "He's here. Bernard Levin's here."
He didn't appear to want it to be known that he was here; he ignored everyone and sat at the back of the auditorium, didn't speak to anyone in the interval and left suddenly at the end.
I was standing at the bar (as per usual) at the end of the performance of the play and the girl was still flapping around around saying things like "I wonder if he liked it. I wonder if he'll give it a good review."
Then I noticed a door open. A rather heavy door. The man opening it had difficulty in pushing it open. It was Gwyn Thomas on his own. No one spoke to him. He walked across the foyer and out of the front door on his own.
Bernard Levin gave the play a rave review in The Sunday Times. The theatre, he said, is alive and well in Wales.
I can imagine that Assistant to the Assistant to the Secretary gushing with excitement when she read the review.
The review was over the top. I suspect that Levin had decided what he was going to say before he even arrived in Cardiff. He was, at the time, at logger heads with London theatrical productions and, I suspect, was going to show them up for what trivial things they were doing.
Because the play was not very good. But I too gave it a goodish review. Could I do otherwise after I had seen the great man leaving the theatre on his own, no one giving a damn about him.
Me and Bernard Levin, sentimentalists together!

Gwyn Thomas

I thought, a long time ago, to publish a magazine on theatre in Wales; I wrote to many prominent people associated with theatre in Wales and outside. Some replied that yes they would like to contribute. One was Gwyn Thomas the famous, then, Welsh novelist. He said that the theatre was a love of his life and that he'd be delighted to contribute.
Well, the magazine never saw the light of day but I always appreciated his writing to me to help out.
What surprised me about his letter was his enthusiasm for the theatre. I never would have thought it since he was, as I say, a well known novelist and only a sporadic playwright.
He wrote four or five plays for the theatre but his first, written for George Devine at The Royal Court who had requested a play from him, "The Keep", was his best. It is a wonderful comedy of Welsh life which had a great success for a few years. His later plays never achieved that popularity. And deservedly so. The fact is, I never regarded him as a playwright at all. For one thing everyone in his plays spoke like the author himself who was a great raconteur who achieved a sort of guru celebrity personage on Welsh TV.
We met twice. Once when we both had plays on at The Sherman Theatre, his called "Sap" in the Main Theatre and mine called "Aspects of War" in the smaller Arena Theatre, both set in the first world war. The second time he was very ill, close to death I believe, but he had made a great effort to attend a celebration of Glyn Jones when he made a marvellous speech in praise of the writer.
It's a pity "The Keep" is not seen more often; the other plays aren't up to much I fear. His novels I'm afraid are dated but still enormously funny. His short stories are wonderful and his autobiography is a "must read".

Reading

Michael Henderson in an article in The Telegraph writes of a certain novelist Philip Hensher (of whom I had not heard) who reads five novels per week; Henderson finds this amazing and a trifle dispiriting. He doesn't read anything like that number. Neither do I.
The last novel I started - and didn't finish - was Leavitt's "The Indian Clerk"; it was all going fine up to about the fourth or fifth chapter; I was quite interested in this brilliant mathematician, Ramanujan, who was brought over to England by Hardy the Cambridge mathematician; then the novel seemed to wish to concentrate on the sexual lives of these Cambridge "Apostles" and, quite frankly, I got bored. If they had not been homosexuals I'd have still got bored. Even the portrayal of Bertrand Russell, possibly the only heterosexual amoungst them, was rather boring.
But there are few novels these days of which I can read more than the first few chapters, sex or no sex. I am reminded of Samuel Johnson who was told by a friend that he had just read a novel; Johnson, amazed and stupefied said: "Right through?"
Well, I am a very slow reader. Though my reading of Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain" may actually break some kind of record in length of time to finish. It took me, off and on, twenty years.
I went to one of those weekends, some time ago, devoted to the study of the short story. At breakfast one morning I sat opposite Ian McEwan and mentioned to him that I had just finished the Mann novel after 20 years. He did not show any surprise. Or interest. Not: "that's rather a long time I would have thought," or "For Christ's sake are you dislexic or something?" No. Nothing. Not a dicky bird. Then he started talking about his own books and he appeared much happier and livelier.... We were onto his favourite subject I could see.
Perhaps he's like that famous novelist who said to someone: "Let's stop talking about me and talk about you, shall we? Have you read my latest book?"

Harold Bloom

I have a great admiration for the Shakespearean scholar, Harold Bloom, not least because he stands argumentatively for that which is culturally fine, for that which due to centuries of understanding and study put certain artists above others. In his university in America he opposes those who wish to dilute courses that study great writers with those who may, say, be "relevant to issues" but who are not in the first rank.
But who is to say who is in the first rank and who is not?
Well, anyone who compares the music of The Beatles with that of Beethoven is the sort of person who Bloom would have, I suspect, no time for.
My problem with Bloom is that I find him difficult to read; also, I find some of his Shakespearan tastes not to my liking.
For example, he loves the play "Two Gentlemen of Verona" while I dislike it intensely.
Yet his enthusiasm is appealing even if he sometimes seems to take his admiration for Shakespeare too far. In a review of one of his books ("Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human") I read this: "For Bloom, Shakespeare stands alone not only as the greatest literary genius who ever lived, but the greatest intellect of all time."
There is a story of Bloom travelling in a taxi in Paris on the way to a conference or lecture he was to give. Considerably overweight he was feeling the heat, was miserable and had been suffering with his heart; his wife was chatting to the taxi driver who was telling her about a certain gorilla at the zoo who was expected to "perform" as much as possible so that more gorillas would be born; they are, the driver said, making the animal ill and slowly killing him. Bloom cut in and said: "Do you mind changing the subject - I'm beginning to identify with that gorilla."

24

"24", the American thriller with Kiefer Sutherland is, I think, far better than anything on British TV. Even the split screen effects work - the same type of effects attempted on "Trial and Retribution", for example, do not work, except to distract attention from the story, because they are three or four scenes from the same scene, taken from different perspectives. On "24" the four scenes are of different parts of the action at that moment in time.
The trouble with "24" is that it is too popular, especially with the American soldiers in Iraq: the military leaders back home in America fear that the sometimes horrific methods of obtaining information from suspects in the TV series may be used in actual combat in Iraq.
So the question arises: do you censor a programme like this because it might have a drastic influence on real people? It's the same old question that crops up with censorship all the time. I don't have an answer.
So, until they ban it, I shall be still watching "24".
But if they do I don't think I will object.

Alun Hoddinott

I remember Alun Hoddinott, who died recently, well, though not to talk to. He was a student in the Music Department of Cardiff University when I was in the Maths Department. There was, even then, talk then of his success as a composer, mostly of small scale works. Later he received international fame with large scale works and one opera at least (I recall reviewing it for The Anglo-Welsh Review).
His music never appealed to me though he did once write some music for a Gwyn Thomas play, "Jackie the Jumper", and I found that music both thrilling and amusing - it seemed he had made a great effort to supply music of a popular kind, easy to take in, easy to sing. I recall one song with the title "Up and Under" and thought it might become popular but it never did.
Eugene Goosens, an American conductor, some time back said something to the effect that the trouble with playing most new music is that no one wants to hear it a second time.
I have to admit that I have never heard a piece of music by Hoddinott played twice.
Yet he was acclaimed internationally, won many awards and his music was played by many of the big orchestras.

Not Saying It

A good friend of mine, a successful playwright, had a golden rule of writing plays: "If you have anything to say, don't say it." Which meant that if you have a point of view, want to present an argument, a play is not the medium for it. The platform or soap-box is better.
You "don't say it" also about the story because if you do, you lose suspense. The audience will not be apprehensive about what is going to happen because you've said it, you've told them what is going to happen.
I have come across another phrase that has to do with one of the arts - music. It was said by the modern composer, John Cage. He said: "I have nothing to say, and I am saying it."
I don't know if that is a golden rule of his but if it is, a saying of George Bernard Shaw comes to mind: "The only golden rule is that there are no golden rules."

Quackery

I had a very painful back some years ago, though it was not disabling; at the doctor's I mentioned this to him, having visited him on another matter. He said: "I'll arrange an appointment with a physiotherapist." Which he did.
Six weeks later I saw the physio, he probed a bit here and there, lay me on a table, pushed and shoved my back and so on. After the second visit my back pain had gone.
Now I have tendonitis in my right shoulder like just like I had a few years ago. Then I went to a chiropracter who said the pain was emanating in my neck. She proceeded to work on my neck, making it click, but to no effect. So I paid her the £32 and left, never to return.
Today I was holding forth about quackery in the health business: "It's a complete waste of time going to these quacks - these chiropracters and these physios....."
Then I remembered the physio, Mark, who had performed a miracle on my back. "Well, not physios," I said. "Just the other lot."
A year after I had gone to the physio I went to see my doctor about something, can't recall what, and said to him: "O, by the way, that physio did the trick on my back."
The doctor said: "Which physio?"
I said: "Mark something or other."
"Hah!" said the doctor, having looked up a file. "He's gone private."

Torture

There is a good deal of discussion these days about the use of torture in the interrogation of suspects, especially those who might commit crimes of a kind that would put many people's lives at risk. It's the "ticking clock" scenario where a suspect is held and knows when and where the atomic bomb will go off - should torture be used to prevent the horrendous happening?
I am taken back many years to a philosophy class I was in at Cardiff University. The subject of torture and its practice had cropped up and, of course, the majority of the class went down on the side of "torture should never be used under any circumstances" (Islamic Fundamentalism was a thing of the future then).
So, naturally, I had to put my five pennorth in and be a devil's advocate, argueing a case for the use of torture.
To illustrate my point I brought up a scene in the film "Dirty Harry" in which Harry, the character played by Clint Eastwood has got hold of a villain (one of the screens' worst ever) and is twisting a knife in the man's leg to get him to reveal the whereabouts of a young woman who the villain has kidnapped and is being held captive in a drain; there is, of course, a certain time left otherwise the girl will die so Clint Eastwood has to act fast. He succeeds in obtaining the info from the guy.
Silence reigned in the room. I waited for a comment. Was he justified in doing what he had done?
Silence still reigned.
Someone changed the subject.
Do you know what I think? One of three things were going through their minds: 1. How could a film possibly deal with so sensitive a subject? 2. How low can you take an argument to try to prove a philosophical point? And 3. Who's Clint Eastwood?

Epstein

In Llandaff Cathedral, Cardiff, there is a wonderful sculpture of Christ called "Christ in Majesty". It was a work of Jacob Epstein. He considered it to be his finest work.
There was some controversy over its commission since there was concern over a Jew executing the work. But when it was accepted and the work was completed there was no doubt in anyone's mind that it was a masterpiece.
He had, some years before, been commissioned to produce a religious work for Coventry Cathedral. Again there was controversy over the choice of Epstein.
"But," said one of the commissioning committee, "Epstein is a Jew."
"So was Jesus," said the chairman, Sir Basil Spence.
Case closed.

Marmite Music

You either like it or loath it. Marmite, that is.
Well, there's now, it seems, Marmite Music - a couple of days ago, in The Times, Karl Jenkins was described as "the Marmite man of music". Philip Clark, a composer, hates his music while Darren Healey, of Classic FM, loves it. "It's all about money," Clark claimed; "It's life-affirming," thought Henley.
I think both are wrong. I have no quarrel with Karl Jenkins if that's the sort of music he wants to write, and if he can make some moolah out of it in the process then the best of luck to him. As long as I don't have to listen to it for any length of time. It is sugary, I find, and repetitive; he does play his instantly likeable tunes over and over and, quite frankly, I get fed up with them quite quickly. Life affirming! Now that's an odd claim. He must be referring to the religious context in his various church pieces because he's no Beethoven.
Perhaps he is a bit of a Saint-Seans who thought he was writing serious music while actually he was writing easy-on-the-ear stuff. He wanted so much to be taken seriously and tried hard but I don't think he ever succeeded.
But do I care? I do not. I love a good deal of his music, especially the piano, violin and cello concertos. They are great fun. But we do have a "problem" with his 3rd. symphony, the so-called "Organ Symphony". It is fairly obvious he set out to create something special, something serious that his critics would appreciate. And it is a big work. It does have some lovely music in it. But it is so damned pretentious.
I like his "Carnival of the Animals". But he hated it and would not publish it; he played it only privately for family and friends I believe.
Perhaps he wanted to be another Beethoven.
This reminds me of what Ravel said to Gershwin when Gershwin asked if Ravel would become his tutor. "If I do," Ravel said. "You will become a second rate Ravel not, as you are, a first-rate Gershwin."

Silence is Golden

I was sitting in a bar waiting for a friend to appear; it was lunch-time, not many people there. Nearby was a group of four or five young men. On the loudspeaker was music, loud pop music. It didn't seem to affect them in conversing with each other enjoyably. Suddenly the music stopped - the tape had come to an end.
And, as a result it seemed, so did the conversation. They looked around, silent now, until a barmaid appeared. One of them said "Some music, Love?"
"Right," she said. "Sorry."
And she put on another tape. Loud pop music again, and instantly they recontinued the conversation, probably, where they had left off.
I don't like music in pubs. Any sort of music. If it's sort of quiet "wall to wall" music, the stuff that most people don't really notice rumbling away in the backgound then I suppose it's OK, but loud pop music or even loud serious music stops conversation dead.
That is, for me and most of my friends. But not for this lot. They needed the music filling the room with sound to be able to converse at all.
You go into a clothes shop and there's music. In a health centre there's music. In a supermarket there's music. It's everywhere. It's difficult to escape it.
I like the answer to a question that was once put to a famous British composer: "What in your opinion is the finest part of a musical composition?"
"The pause in the Hallelujah Chorus," he said.

Dickens

There was a man, a playwright, named St John Ervine who revered George Bernard Shaw - he knew him well - and Charles Dickens. Dickens too was revered by Shaw. Once someone asked him where he got all his characters from in his plays. "From Dickens," he replied.
St John Ervine used to broadcast talks on radio a long time ago; when Shaw died he gave a wonderful, emotional, tribute to him.
I remember in one of his talks his mentioning Shaw's love of Dickens, but, he said, it was not quite so strong as a man he once knew who, if a stranger called at his house, would straight away ask the person if he liked Dickens, and if the stranger answered in the negative, Ervine said, "the man would lock away his silver and phone for the police."
How can anyone not love Dickens after reading a short passage from "Little Dorrit" like this?
Little Dorrit is relating a fairy story to her friend, Maggy:

"Hospitals," interposed Maggy, still nursing her knees. "Let him have hospitals because they're so comfortable. Hospitals with lots of chicking."
"Yes, he had plenty of them and he had plenty of everything."
"Plenty of baked potatoes, for instance," said Maggy.
"Plenty of everything."
"Lor!" chuckled Maggy, giving her knees a hug. "Wasn't it prime!"

The Birds

I was, for ten years, a tutor of creative writing at The Hill adult college, Abergavenny; long before me a tutor named Frank Baker had run the course. He was known then as a script editor at BBC Wales. But he was much more than that. He had written many novels the most famous of which was "Miss Hargreaves", still read (I heard a radio play adapted from it a couple of years ago).
In 1936 he had written a novel called "The Birds" which got to be more famous than that because of Hitchcock's film of the same name. But look up the film on the net and you'll see that it was "taken from the short story by Daphne Du Maurier".
The stories are the same, Frank Baker's is longer of course, but it's the same story. And Du Maurier's was written much later than Baker's.
Well, I was told that Frank Baker went to see the film and discovered the story was his. So he threatened to take Du Maurier to law but she settled out of court.
This is not what it says on Frank Baker's website: "Although his book had a similar premise and story to Du Maurier's he was advised not to persue litigation against Universal Studios. The affair led to an interesting correspondence with Du Maurier...."

Victor de Sabata

My father worked in Bristol many years ago and often attended concerts in The Colston Hall. One evening after a concert had finished, the manager of the hall came on stage to make an announcement: the next evening would be a concert given by a certain top-notch orchestra with a visiting conductor from La Scala, Milan - Victor de Sabata. Not many people had heard of him. But the manager assured everyone that he was one of the world's great conductors. The trouble was the concert was sparsely booked and he urged the audience to please come the following evening assuring them they would have an experience never to be forgotten.
So my father had a choice to make. He was a smoker and he had in his pocket just enough money for the concert or for a packet of cigarettes.
It was a big decision to make. He needed his fags and he had never heard of de Sabata.
But he made the right decision for two reasons: he was present at one of the finest performances of symphonic and operatic works he had ever heard and, he told me, ever would again; also he gave up smoking for good.
Victor de Sabata'a name cropped up a couple of days ago in an obituary of the great Italian tenor Giusseppe di Stefano; de Sabata had conducted what is still considered to be the finest performance on disc of "Tosca" with - wait for it - di Stefano, Maria Callas and Tito Gobi.

Rugby Coach

You probably would not believe that schoolboy rugby can be as intensely competitive as, say, international matches played before tens of thousands. Not just rugby but any games played by schoolchildren are highly competitive and when parents turn up to support their offspring the intensity of their support can turn nasty. I have seen parents of opposing teams almost coming to blows and parents desiring to throw referees in the nearest river. When I refereed rugby for under fifteen schoolboys parents would often shout abuse from the touchline and refuse to speak to me after the game.
Then, coaching schoolboy rugby can be fraught with all sorts of problems, not the least of which being the attitude that the coach develops towards opposing teams. Think Ferguson when Man United is playing Man City. Think Genghis Khan.
I was coaching an under thirteen rugby team in a boys school; the coming Saturday there was a particularly important match against a team that had an exceptionally good outside half.
I took the boy who played wing forward aside and said to him: "Now listen to me, their outside half on Saturday is a strong player and needs to be stopped. Get me?"
"Yes sir."
"I mean stopped. First scrum, if the ball is passed to him, tackle him, and hit him hard. Get Me?"
"Yes sir."
"First scrum: ball is passed out to him..... now listen to me carefully: even if he hasn't got hold of the ball - hit him anyway. Hard. Get me?"
"Yes sir."
"Right then, off you go."
A few minutes passed before the boy came back to me with an eager, menacing look on his face.
"Shall I get him BEFORE the game sir?"
I'm afraid that is absolutely true.

Poetry Slam

I had got together a collection of poems by friends and published them myself. Publishing is easy, distributing and selling is hard. So I had a heap of copies of my small booklet on my hands.
"Maybe you'll be able to sell some at the 'Poetry Slam' at Chapter Arts Centre," a poet friend of mine said.
"What's a 'Poetry Slam'? I asked.
"Come and see," he said.
Well a Poetry Slam is a competition between poets. A poet gets up on stage and reads one or two of his own poems. He is then given marks by a panel of judges (volunteers from the audience) who hold up cards with numbers on them a la "Come Dancing".
"They're short on poets," my poet friend said to me. "So I've put your name forward; you can read something from your booklet."
"Uh?" I said. "I'm not ... er... er... sure I...."
"It's done," he said.
First a young man read some of his poems which I thought weren't poems at all but meanderings of the sort you might get from a drunk wallowing sentimentally in his own misery. Then a young woman performed a wonderful poem, a dramatic piece that everyone applauded enthusiastically. She got 32 out of 40.
Then it was my turn.
I got up and read my poem about what it might have been like if we had been invaded by the Germans in the 2nd World War (which, if they hadn't already figured, told them something about my age).
I got 17 marks.
"Good," said my friend. "You may get into the next round."
Thank God there were some good poets there, and some that made a great impression by their performance techniques, so I didn't have to perform again.
When I got home my wife said "Sell any books?"
"No, but I might have won a competition if I'd had time to prepare. Next time...."
There's been no next time. I still have that heap of books. Anyone want a copy? They're cheap..... in fact you can have one for free if you pay the postage.... no, forget that, I'll pay the postage.... Poems anyone? "If the Germans had come to Wales," anyone?

Robert Morley

I was trying to think of the name of the man who played the part of the old man in "The African Queen". My wife said "I know who you mean - the one who was in... er... what was the name of that film.... it had a cricket match in it....?" "Yes, that's right," I said. "... er... 'The Something Something'... er...".
Well it was of course Robert Morley and the name of the film was "The Final Test".
He had a part that suited him perfectly in that film, an avante garde playwright who was cricket mad. In "the African Queen" he was the Reverend Somebody-or-Other who died in the first section of the film. He was good in that too.
In fact he was good in most parts he played but especially so if the part was very like Morley himself with his fat body, his outlandishly awkward frame, his cultivated English upper class voice and his high intelligence.
Not only was he an actor who, in certain parts, could out-act most of his generation but he was too an excellent raconteur who would appear on programmes like "That Was the Week that Was" and outclass all talkers with his wit, intelligence, humour and good nature.
Why I am thinking of Robert Morley at this time? Well, I was not actually thinking of him to start with but of his son Sheridan Morley who used to DJ a radio programme called "Melodies foy You" on Sunday evenings; it is now DJ'd by Alan Tichmarsh who is good in a friendly, jolly sort of way but who does not have that quality of intense and discerning deep interest that Sheridan Morley had in the pieces he played. Perhaps Sheridan Morley was too heavy for Radio 2. I kinda miss him. He died last year.
His father died in 1992.
A friend of mine told me that he was in a college where Robert Morley came to give the drama students a talk; one of the things that stuck in my friend's mind was a Morley remark about his own "classical body". Morley said "I make it a condition that I will not accept a part in any stage play unless I am given the opportunity to have a scene where I can appear in shorts."
He was not a Sean Connery coming up from the sea in "Dr No"; if there had been a whale coming up with him, that would have been more like him.

Favourite Poems

Paul Johnson in this week's Spectator magazine gives a list of his ten favourite short poems. Today in The Daily Telegraph Michael Henderson gives his, after ticking Johnson off over his choice of Yeats's "Innisfree" - "pigswill" says Henderson.
I rather like it. Indeed it is one of the few poems I do like by Yeats.
Others in their lists - well I like some of them and dislike others and, many, I have not read or even heard of.
Henderson cannot understand why Johnson has not chosen a Shakespeare sonnet. I can't understand it either. Henderson chooses "Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediment...." I think that would be my choice too, though "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day...." vies with it for first place.
Henderson chooses a Hardy but Johnson doesn't. My Hardy choice would be "Afterwards" and, like Johnson, my Shelley piece would be "Ozymandias".
Neither chooses Browning. Surely one of the great dramatic poems in the English language is "My Last Duchess", a real Hammer Horror of a poem.
Kipling is ignored which I think is a pity; in spite of his disliked imperialistic views he did write some wonderful short poems especially those about the ordinary serving soldier - "And it's Tommy this and Tommy that and Tommy 'ow's your soul/ But it's thin red line of 'eroes when the drums begin to roll."