Some of the best of Myles

PERSONAL COLUMN MYLES na gCOPALEEN

Myles na gCopaleen was the pen-name of Brian O'Nolan, perhaps best known as Flann O'Brien, author of 'At Swim-Two-Birds,'The Third Policeman' and other novels. These extracts are taken from a selection of his contributions to the 'Irish Times,' The Best of Myles,' edited by Kevin O'Nolan; to be published by MacGibbon and Kee on 9 September at 50s.

KEATS AND CHAPMAN

Keats, when living in the country, purchased an expensive chestnut gelding. This animal was very high-spirited and largely untrained and gave the novice owner a lot of trouble. First it was one thing, then another, but finally he was discovered one morning to have disappeared from his stable. Foul play was not suspected nor did the poet at this stage adopt the foolish expedient of locking the stable door. On the contrary he behaved very sensibly. He exam- ined the stable to ascertain how the escape had been effected and then travelled all over the yard on his hands and knees looking for traces of the animal's hooves. He was like a dog look- ing for a trail, except that he found a trail where many a good dog would have found nothing. Immediately the poet was off cross-country fol- lowing the trail. It happened that Chapman was on a solitary walking tour in the vicinity and he was agreeably surprised to encounter the poet in a remote mountainy place. Keats was walking quickly with his eyes on the ground and looked very preoccupied. He had evidently no intention of stopping to converse with Chapman. The latter, not understanding his friend's odd be- haviour, halted and cried: 'What are you doing, old man?'

'Dogging a fled horse,' Keats said as he passed by.

Keats was once presented with an Irish terrier, which -he humorously named Byrne. One day the beast strayed from the house and failed to return at night. Everybody was distressed, save Keats himself. He reached reflectively for his violin, a fairly passable timber of the Stradi- varius feciture, and was soon at work with chin and jaw.

Chapman, looking in for an after-supper pipe, was astonished at the poet's composure, and did not hesitate to say so. Keats smiled (in a way that was rather lovely).

'And why should I not fiddle,' he asked, 'while Byrne roams?'

Once Chapman, in his tireless quest for a way to get rich quick, entered into a contract with a London firm for the supply of ten tons of swansdown. At the time he had no idea where he could get this substance, but on the advice of Keats went to live with the latter in a but on a certain river estuary where the rather odd local inhabitants cultivated tame swans for the purposes of their somewhat coarsely grained eggs. Chapman erected several notices in the locality inviting swan owners to attend at his but for the purpose of having their fowls combed and offering a 'substantial price' per ounce for the down so obtained. Soon the but was sur- rounded by gaggles of unsavoury-looking natives, each accompanied by four or five dis- reputable swans on dog-leads. The uproar was enormous and vastly annoyed 'Keats, who was in bed with toothache. Chapman went out and addressed the multitude and then fell to bar- gaining with individual owners. After an hour in the pouring rain he came in to Keats, having apparently failed to do business. He was in a vile temper.

'Those appalling louts!' he exploded. 'Why should I go out and humiliate myself before them, beg to be allowed to comb their filthy swans, get soaked to the skin bargaining with them?'

'It'll get you down sooner or later,' Keats mumbled.

FOR YOUR CLICHE ALBUM

Of what nature is the newspaper in which one craves the courtesy of its space?

Invaluable and widely read.

For what purpose does one crave the courtesy of its space?

Saying a few words anent the gas supply. In criticising the Gas Company, what does one wish to make it clear one holds for the Electricity Supply Board?

No brief.

Of what nature is the attitude of the Gas Company to say the least of it?

High-handed and dictatorial in the extreme. What would the situation be were it not so tragic?

Humorous.

THE BROTHER

I was out in a boat with the brother down in Skerries, where he's stopping with the married sister. On his holliers, you know. A great man for the sea, the brother.

Indeed?"

Ah yes. If the brother had his way, of course, it's not here he'd be but off out with real sea-farin men, dressed up in oilskins, run- ning up and down ropes and all the rest of it.

I see.

The brother was givin out about the seals. 'Tumblers,' he called them. The brother says all them lads should be destroyed.

That would be a considerable task.

They do spend the day divin and eatin mackerel. If them lads had their way, they wouldn't leave a mackerel in the sea for you and me or the man in the next street. They do swally them be the hundred, head an' all. And the brother says they do more than that—they do come out of the water in the middle of the night-time and rob gardens. You wouldn't want to leave any fancy tomato-plants around. And you wouldn't want to leave one of your young- sters out after dark either, because your men would carry it off with them. The brother says they do take a great interest in the chislers. They do be barkin out of them during the day- time at chislers on the beach.

That is most interesting.

The brother says the seals near Dublin do often come up out of the water at night-time and do be sittin above in the trams when they're standin in the stables. And they do be upstairs too. Begob the brother says it's a great sight of a moonlight night to see your men with the big moustaches on them sittin upstairs in the trams lookin out. And they do have the wives and the young wans along with them, of course.

Is that a fact? Certainly, man. The seals are great family people, always were. Well then the brother was showing me two queer lookin men with black and white feathers on them and black beaks, out sittin there in the water.

Two birds?

Two of the coolest customers I ever seen, didn't give a damn about us although we went near enough to brain them with the oars. Do you know the funny thing about them lads?

I do not.

Them lads takes a very poor view of dry land. Never ask to go near the land at all. They do spend their lives sittin on the sea. bar an odd lep into the air to fly to another part of it. . . . Sure them lads might as well be dead as have a life like that. Annyway, it wouldn't suit me and that's a certainty. Would you fancy it?

Scarcely, but then I am not a bird. Birds have ideas of their own.

Begob they've a poor time of it say what you like, no comfort or right way of livin' at all. Sure they do have to lay their eggs out in the sea.

Do they?

Certainly they do. The brother says the mother-hen has some kind of pocket in under the wing. Nobody knows how she whips the egg into the pocket when she lays it. Do you know what the brother called it? ONE OF THE GREAT UNSOLVED MYSTERIES OF THE SEA.

I understand.

ONE OF THE GREAT UNSOLVED MYSTERIES OF THE SEA. And of course there wouldn't be anny need for anny mystery at all if they had the sense to land on the shore like anny other bird. That's what I'd do to lay me eggs if I had anny. But no, the shore is barred, they do take a very poor view of everything but the water. Begob, here's me 'bus. Cheers!

Good bye.

CHAT

Does Proust affect you terribly? Emotionally, I mean?

Nao, not rahlly. His prose does have that sort of . . . glittering texture, rather like the feeling one gets from the best immix lintousins.

But nao . . . his pcepul . thin, yeou knaow, thin . . . dull, stupecd.

But surely ... surely Swann ... ?

Ah, yes.... If all his geese were Swanns....

POETRY

Having considered the matter in—of course— all its aspects, 1 have decided that there is no excuse for poetry. Poetry gives no adequate re- turn in money, is expensive to print by reason of the waste of space occasioned by its form, and nearly always promulgates illusory concepts of life. But a better case for the banning of all poetry is the simple fact that most of it is bad. Nobody is going to manufacture a thousand tons of jam in the expectation that five tons may be eatable. Furthermore, poetry has the effect on the negligible handful who read it of stimulating them to write poetry themselves. One poem, if widely disseminated, will breed perhaps a thousand inferior copies. . Moreover, poets are usually unpleasant people who are poor and who insist forever on discussing that incredibly boring subject, 'books.' You will notice above that I used the phrase 'illusory con- cepts of life.' If you examine it carefully you will find that it is quite meaningless but since when did such a trifle matter? Poets don't mat- ter and an odd senseless bit of talk matters little either. What is important is food, money, and opportunities for scoring off one's enemies. Give a man those three things and you won't hear much squawking out of him.