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Trading insults
Alice Thomas Ellis
Ifind people who express themselves as insulted rather more tiresome than those who insult people. Rudeness is annoying but offended flouncing is worse, being so dreadfully conceited. Just think of the
words 'How dare you speak to me like that'. Why ever not, you ask yourself. Who you? When I was very young I read a book which contained a phrase about people who were to be found crying on their bed because of that awful thing you said to them at lunch. It made a great impression on me at the time and now if people are nasty to me I'm nasty back rather than allowing the eyes to well over with tears, or running from the room. Someone excelled himself at a party last week by insulting a Jesuit, something I would have thought quite difficult to accomplish in view of that Order's reputation for suavity and worldli- ness. He said, in a friendly fashion, 'I hear you're a Jesuit', to which the response came, 'That is the truth.' Whereupon someone cheerily remarked, 'Well, if it's the truth you can hardly be interested in it, you being a Jesuit and all.' The offended cleric shot away in a rage, almost walking on people in his haste to get to the front door. While feeling no sympathy for the chap I was curious to know why someone had felt it necessary to say what he did say and he explained in plaintive tones that he simply couldn't help himself; it was like playing a half-volley off the side wall. There was the ball, there was the bounce, there was nothing to do but hit it back. It was instinctive, it was second nature, it was irresistible, nay, it was inevitable, and any- way the man was wearing an open-necked shirt and looked like a drunken commer- cial traveller, not a priest. I do see. I was once at a party when a diplomat stormed out. He was an American diplomat and somebody said something disparaging about one of his precious missiles so he grabbed his hat (he was the sort of Amer- ican who wears a hat), slammed it on his head and marched out. I said I had the impression that he'd seen somebody doing that in a film and had been waiting for an opportunity to do it himself, but everyone else said that that was doing him too much justice; he just hadn't studied hard enough at diplomacy school.
The subject of American missiles is useful if you should find yourself unbear- ably bored at a dinner party. You can bring a table to uproar merely by uttering the words `Greenhana Common'. No more is needed. The rights and wrongs of it seem to be immaterial, just the word 'peace' followed by the word 'women' will induce transports of temper in men in suits. After a while if things seem to be simmering down you can pour boiling oil on troubled waters by asking the Conservative MP on your right whether he doesn't mind living in an occupied country. He will ask you what you mean and you will reply that you know you're very stupid but that if a foreign power has established its defence system on your soil it does look to you as though a certain loss of sovereignty has occurred. If things start flagging (which is unlikely by now) you may say that you agree that the special relationship is doubt- less very splendid, but you are really in two minds about our allies' habit of 'mooning'
which seems to be on the increase (there was an incident of it in this very street only the other day, but that's another story). You will say that it seems intended to be insulting, a gesture of contempt from an occupying force; and they will tell you, through gritted teeth, that it is merely playful, a sign of youthful, martial high spirits. You will look doubtful.
Of course if the men are wearing fisher- man's jerseys and jeans and you are eating bean and tofu salad rather than filet de boeuf en crane, and drinking Rioja rather than Mouton Cadet then you must change your tactics. You can say that you are planning to remove your children from the local comprehensive in order to send them to a fee-paying convent school or you can say you think it unwise to let paedophiles run youth groups, but for some reason it is much more difficult to make the Left cross than it is the Right. They may look a bit sullen or attempt to point out to you the error of your ways but they seldom reach the spectacular heights of screaming wrath that a Tory can achieve. I wonder why this is.
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