DIARY ALAN WATKINS
The error of the 19th century was to believe that people were becoming better; that of the 20th is to believe that they are becoming worse. We continue to be born in sin, and shaped in iniquity. Over the 'hostages', the Times started off by espous- ing the modern view of modern degener- acy. The next day its leader started: 'One should long ago have learnt not to be surprised by anything that happens in Lebanon.' I am reminded of Mr Malcolm Muggeridge's recollection of a pre-war Manchester Guardian leader: 'One is sometimes tempted to believe that the Greeks do not want a stable government.' I do not agree with the view that terrorists must never, under any circumstances what- ever, be negotiated with — any more than President Reagan agrees with it. It does not follow from this that stolen aeroplanes must be refuelled and given landing and taking-off facilities at the whim of a bunch of thugs. These aircraft seem able to flit around the world as if they were London taxis. My solution would be to put most of the Middle East, Israel as much as Leba- non, in quarantine; no more air services to and from Beirut, Algiers, Damascus, Jeru- salem and Tel Aviv, not to mention Athens, the Greeks having behaved in their usual fashion. This would doubtless incon- venience numerous innocent and worthy folk. But they would find a way of arriving at their destinations, just as they did before big jet aircraft were invented.
Anyone who continues to doubt that nationalism is the most powerful political force should examine the British response to the Bodyline programmes. Most of us natives seem to think that because Percy Fender, who died a few days ago at 92, neither sported a monocle (or 'eyeglass', as Mr Anthony Powell says it should properly be called) nor strummed a ukelele, because the England cricketers were not in a state of permanent intoxication, and because there were other errors, omissions and anachronisms, therefore the film was 'un- true'. It was, in essentials, true enough. Bodyline was invented both to contain and to intimidate Bradman. It was unsports- manlike by the standards of 1932. The MCC did back Jardine originally and then scuttle. And Larwood was asked to apolo- gise afterwards — which, to his credit, he refused to do.
Several of my acquaintances among barristers are disturbed by the trial at the Old Bailey in which it seems that the entire juvenile service population of Cyprus have been giving away secrets in such time as they can spare from drinking, taking drugs and hopping in and out of bed with one another. This impression is precisely that to which my legal friends object. Mr Michael Wright, QC, painted a hot canvas which the newspapers touched up. The court then went in or into camera, leaving the jury and everyone else inevitably pre- judiced against the defendants. Nor is this all. Some of them claim that their 'confes- sions' were beaten out of them. Some of these confessions are, I hear, inconsistent both internally and one with another. These claims may or may not be valid: but it should not be beyond judicial ingenuity to have them tested in open court without at the same time imperilling national secur- ity. The unpleasant conclusion one is left with, I am afraid, is that the service, the security and the prosecuting authorities were all put out by the recent acquittal of an airman at the same court on similar charges — and are determined that no such embarrassing mistakes shall recur this time.
Buying a pair of socks in Marks and Spencer the other day — precisely, three pairs in a bargain package — I politely asked the girl at the till not to put them in the large beige plastic bag which she was brandishing. I already had a shopping basket. Our house is full of plastic bags. Indeed, we have plastic bags as others have mice. They are quite useful, but too many of them around the place can get you down. All this I did not explain to the girl, trusting that a civil refusal would prove sufficient. 'But you've got to have a bag,' she said snappily, as if bags were trousers, meanwhile popping the socks into a smal- ler, green plastic container. I did not argue. Life is too short. Besides, I wanted to get back to watch the Test on television. It was probably a question of receipts. The bag was, so to speak, the guarantee that the goods had been paid for. That was it, must be. But no. Into the smaller bag the girl had also inserted a full receipt giving date, price of goods, money proffered and change. It would, to adapt Mr James Callaghan in the House last week, take a most ingenious thief both to steal some socks and to secure a detailed receipt for them. But even Marks and Spencer are clearly not immune to the British habit of inventing very silly rules.
The late Philip Hope-Wallace had three artists that he used as litmus papers: Dickens, Handel and Verdi. Those who found, or claimed to find, them 'second rate' were, he used to say, themselves second rate. The critical reputation of Dickens has, I suppose, been growing since the end of the last war. Handel's rehabilita- tion is slightly more recent and reached its apogee this year. In both cases their earlier depreciation had its origin in class: the industrial working class, or its more aspir- ing members, liked Dickens and Handel; therefore they could not be much good really. There exists a similar depreciation, or lack of recognition, of admittedly more minor figures. The self-educating collier in South Wales (a largely vanished species) would know about Marx, Lenin and Dar- win: but he would not always have read them. He would, however, have read and been influenced by Jack London's The Iron Heel, Winwood Reade's The Martyrdom of Man and, perhaps above all, Prince Kro- potkin's Mutual Aid. The more rebellious would also have dipped into the atheistical works of the American Colonel Robert Ingersoll — an author that my father, a usually tolerant schoolmaster, refused to have on his shelves. There is a whole Shadow Cabinet of such writers.
Newspaper columns about the English language seem to be growing in number here, though there are not, I think, so many of them as there are in America. Am I, I wonder, showing national conceit in thinking that here we read them for fun to provide what an old news editor of mine liked to call a 'talking point' — while in America they read them to avoid being caught out? Anyway, what both countries have in common is a predilection for the meaning of words, and often their pronun- ciation as well (really a quite different business, involving as it does nation, region and class), combined with a disinclination to deal with grammar and syntax. The reason is obvious. Grammar and syntax are difficult and demand some mental effort; whereas we all think we know about words 'and how to say them. My own current obsession is `nignog'. Some 30 years ago, when I was doing my national service, it was used by non-commissioned officers, drill instructors and the like of and to recruits who were stupid, clumsy, untidy or otherwise inept. Perhaps stupidity per se was no part of the definition, for 'you stupid nignog' was a common formulation. But certainly there was no implication of foreign extraction or dark skin. When did this change?
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