A Chorus of Disapproval

This weekend marked the 150th anniversary of the great male voice choir Y Cor Mawr , conducted by Griffith Rhys Jones (‘Caradog’), winning the contest at the Crystal Palace, and our town held a festival to commemorate the occasion. Afterwards, some of the choir turned up in the pub and treated us to an impromptu singalong. It reminded me of this lovely piece by the Rhondda-born teacher and novelist Gwyn Thomas, from one of his short stories set in the fictional street of Meadow Prospect in the period between the world wars:

‘Walls were thin and life was loud. There were no secrets. Anybody found minding his own business was denounced as a freak or watched by the police. One of the reasons for the birth of our great choral tradition was that the people in the ten houses to either side of you could hear exactly what you were saying, and having a group of people singing around you was the only way of ensuring a private conversation.’

Gwyn Thomas, Meadow Prospect Revisited.

Life Before and After Death

In our houses, our villages, our towns, our cities, our nations, time passes. Each individual will be involved, directly or indirectly, in some 150 years of history – before birth, during life, and after his death. Part of this experience will be received from parents or other adults, from old men; part will be received from his own life, and his experience will, in time, become part of his children’s experience. Thus a generation is 150 years. That is how long we live. Our behaviour, our prejudices, our opinions, our preferences are the produce [sic] of the fifty or sixty years before we were born and in the same way do we influence the fifty following our deaths. Such knowledge is apt to make a man like me feel that it is useless to try to alter the nature of his society. It would be pleasant, I think, if we could somehow produce a completely blank generation – a generation which has not acquired the habits of the previous generation and would pass no habits on to the next. Ah, well, I thank you, gentlemen, for listening to this nonsense with patience. I bid you Au Revoir.

‘Prinz Lobkowitz’ in The English Assassin by Michael Moorcock, 1972

Two Possibilities

Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.

Arthur C. Clarke (1917 – 2008)

Realistically Speaking

Some people see the glass half full. Others see it half empty. I see a glass that’s twice as big as it needs to be.

George Carlin (1937–2008), US comedian

George Carlin in 1981. The comedian’s seven dirty words made the list of best lists.

Talking Tombstones

According to a Facebook pop-up my friend Kristy has just shared, ‘A funeral home in Britain is attaching tiny digital codes to headstones, giving visitors the chance to see, hear, even experience the lives of the dead’.

Well, this is hardly news to some of us. The late great Jeffrey Bernard had something to say on a related topic way back in 1982:

Before your missus pegs out she records a message on to tape and then, when you visit her grave on a Sunday afternoon to put a vase of dandelions on it, you press a button and hear the same old story again. ‘Hallo, is that you, Jeff? I’m amazed you managed to tear yourself away from the pub to come and visit me. Your dinner’s in the oven. Honestly, I thought you’d change and settle down. Don’t you ever think of the future. Christ, this headache is killing me. I suppose you lost it all at the betting shop. Stop staring at that woman at the next grave. You’re drunk again. You make me sick. Don’t bother to come next Sunday. I’ll be all right. Don’t worry about me. I don’t suppose you ever have anyway. Always thinking about yourself. Me, me, me. I told you you make me sick didn’t I? Yes, of course I did. Well, good bloody bye.’

Jeffrey Bernard, The Spectator, 23 April 1992

On a Serious Note

I don’t think at this moment in history there’s all that much happiness in the world, and I think every time somebody laughs a bit … momentarily the world is a wonderful place. I think it’s immensely important.’

John Cleese (b. 1939), English actor, comedian, writer, quoted in The Fully Authorised History of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue by Jem Roberts (Arrow, 2010)

An Appeal for Information

I have been commissioned to write an autobiography and I would be grateful to any of your readers who could tell me what I was doing between 1960 and 1974.

Jeffrey Bernard (1932–1997), British journalist and heroic drinker,
in a letter to New Statesman

Late Again

I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they fly by.

Douglas Adams (1952–2001), British novelist and humorist

Burroughs on Bores

Everyman’s ME is the dullest part about him. He’ll be telling you about his bowel movements next, if you don’t stop him. Just remember that in a case like this, deadly force is admissible. It’s him or you.

William S. Burroughs (1914–1997), ‘Paradise Mislaid’, 1994

On Tyranny

The time is near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human effort will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die.

George Washington in a pre-battle speech to his troops, 27 August 1776.