Collected Columns Read online

  Michael Frayn

  Collected Columns

  Author’s Note

  Most of the pieces in this book first appeared in a newspaper column I used to write, first three times a week in the Guardian, from 1959 until 1962, and then once a week, from 1962 to 1968, in the Observer. Although I’ve entitled them ‘collected’ they are in fact a rather discreet selection – 26 from the 359 columns I originally wrote for the Guardian, and 96 from the 277 I did for the Observer. I’ve added a further 32 that I wrote for the Guardian much later, in 1994, together with another four pieces of varied provenance.

  All but one of them have appeared in book form before, in various permutations under various titles, and selections of them have also been recorded, by Martin Jarvis, and broadcast. The present selection was originally published by Methuen in 2007. Faber & Faber, who have long been publishing all my other books (apart from plays), and who had already done two of the pieces in Matchbox Theatre, have now taken it under their wing to follow their reissues of my early novels.

  The pieces are arranged in alphabetical order because … because I couldn’t think of any more rational system.

  Michael Frayn

  Contents

  Title Page

  Author’s Note

  Welcome aboard!

  A

  Almost too utterly common entrance

  Among the funny bones

  And Home’s son’s father is Hume’s father’s son

  Another little job for the cleaners

  At bay in Gear Street

  At the sign of the rupture belt

  B

  The bar sinister

  The battle of the books

  Black whimsy

  Bodbury: the nation waits

  Bodbury speaks out!

  Brought to book

  Business worries

  C

  Can you hear me, mother?

  Chez Crumble

  Child and superchild

  Childholders

  Cleveland Suede Accuses

  The cogitations of the Earl of Each

  Comedy of viewers

  Composition for ten hands

  Cottage industry

  D

  D.Op.

  Destroy before reading

  Dig my dogma

  Divine news, darlings!

  E

  East of Suez

  Eating for others

  Eternity in a tube of toothpaste

  Every day in every way

  F

  Facing the music

  The faith of a snout baron

  A farewell to arms

  51 to Blangy

  57 types of ambiguity

  Firm friends of ours

  Fog-like sensations

  From the Improved Version

  Frox ’n’ sox

  Fun with numbers

  G

  Gagg speaks

  Gentle reader

  Gift to the nation

  H

  H & C

  Hamlet OBE

  A hand of cards

  He said, she said

  Head to head

  Heart-cry from beautiful Yvonne Romaine

  H.I.5

  Housebiz

  I

  I said, ‘My name is “Ozzy” Manders, Dean of King’s’

  I say Toronto, you say Topeka

  I think I’m right in saying

  In Funland

  In the Morris manner

  In the superurbs

  Inside the Krankenhaus

  Ivan Kudovbin

  L

  A letter from the publisher

  Listener sport

  The literature of coexistentialism

  Lives and likenesses

  Lloyd

  The long and the short of it

  M

  The Magic Mobile

  The mails must go through

  Major minor

  Making a name for yourself

  The manual writer’s manual

  The meteorological school

  Money well changed

  The monolithic view of mirrors

  My life and loves

  My nature diary

  N

  Never put off to Gomorrah

  New man coming

  Night thoughts

  No one could be kinder

  The normal fifth

  Now then

  O

  Oh, un peu, vous savez, un peu

  On the receiving end

  On the subject of objects

  Our pleasure, Captain!

  Outside story

  P

  Pas devant les enfants

  Plain speaking on S’Agaro

  Please be seated

  A pleasure shared

  A princess in disguise

  Private collections

  Q

  A question of character

  A question of downbringing

  R

  Ready steady … no

  Return match

  Ron Number

  S

  The sad tale of P-t-r B-nnykin

  Sandra sesame

  Save it for the stairs

  School of applied art

  Scrapbook for 1964

  Service with a smile

  Services rendered

  The sleepy sickness

  Smoothe’s law

  Songs without words

  Spock’s Guide to Parent Care

  Strain cook thoroughly before serving

  Substance without soul

  T

  Tell us everything

  Tête-à-tête-à-tête

  That having been said

  Through the wilderness

  Total scholarship

  Twelfth Night; or, What Will You Have?

  V

  A very quiet car

  A very special collection

  W

  We all say the same

  What the mice foretell

  What the peepers see

  What the stars foretell

  Whereas

  A wisp of azure

  Word sanctuary

  The words and the music

  The world: week two

  Y

  Your inattention, please

  Your quick flip guide

  Your shameful secret

  Z

  A good stopping place

  About the Author

  Also by the Author

  Copyright

  Welcome aboard!

  Hi! My name’s Mike, and I’m your author today. Welcome aboard, and thank you for choosing to read me. It’s a pleasure for me to write for you, and I shall be doing my best to make your trip with this article a happy one.

  I have twenty paragraphs of in-article entertainment for you today, and I shall be starting the service of meaningful sentences just as soon as I’ve finished with all these introductory announcements. Thank you.

  We’ve a slight delay, I’m afraid, in getting Paragraph 1 under way. This is because we missed our place in the queue at the beginning of the article, due to essential announcements. I’m now expecting Paragraph 1 to run immediately after Paragraph 6. I apologise to readers for any inconvenience this may cause. Please bear with me. Thank you.

  Just to keep you up to date: Paragraph 5 has been cancelled, due to the non-arrival of Paragraph 4. Rest assured that I’m doing everything in my power to rectify the situation. Thank you.

  No, hold on. That was Paragraph 4. With any luck we should be getting away round about Paragraph 7. We shall be routing through Paragraph 8, with onward connections to Paragraphs 9 to 24, just as soon as we’ve found Paragraph 6.

  In the meantime you might like to have advance warning of delay
s between Paragraphs 14 and 19, due to major grammatical works which are expected to last until the summer of 1997.

  This is a call for readers of delayed Paragraph 6. This paragraph is not now expected to depart until after Paragraph 18.

  Still waiting for clearance on Paragraph 7. I think we all need a bit of a break here, so I’m going to come round serving free asterisks.

  *

  I know how frustrating all these delays and cancellations are, but bear with me. What I’m trying to do is to bring Paragraph 9 forward, and see if we can make a start with that. There are an awful lot of words here that have got to be organised into paragraphs, and an awful lot of paragraphs all trying to go somewhere. They can’t all get there at once! So bear with me. Thank you.

  This is a staff announcement. Will whoever has the words for Paragraph 9 please go to Paragraph 8 immediately.

  Just to keep you in the picture: Paragraph 10 has been withdrawn after complaints by religious leaders. Last-minute talks are going on between management and staff to save Paragraph 11. Paragraph 12 is covered by the thirty-year rule. Paragraph 13 has failed to meet the standards laid down by the European Commission.

  Still having trouble with Paragraph 9, I’m afraid. I’ve been badly let down by my suppliers. Bear with me. Please accept another round of complimentary asterisks.

  *

  Right, Paragraph 9! Here it is at last, and this is what it says: ‘Paragraph 27 …’ What? I don’t believe this! They’ve given me the wrong paragraph! Bear with me just a little longer, will you?

  Will readers of delayed Paragraph 6 please go immediately to Paragraph 13, and extinguish all hope, ready for immediate disappointment.

  Yes, I know you’ve been waiting a long time! You think I’m enjoying this? Look, I’m on my own here – I’ve no staff! I’m trying to write this entire article single-handed! All right? Just bear with me, will you!

  Correction to my previous announcement: Paragraph 3 is running. Paragraph 3 has come in! I’ve got Paragraph 3 right here! Anyone here still waiting for Paragraph 3 …? No? No one interested in Paragraph 3 …? Is there any wonder I can’t get staff? Is it surprising that morale in the industry is so low?

  Look, I’ve had cutbacks, just like everybody else! I’ve no paper to write on! I’m struggling with a lot of obsolete equipment! Sitting on a broken chair – writing at a desk with three legs …!

  Hold on … Right – we’re ready to go at long last!

  I’ve now used up my maximum permitted space, however, so I shall be leaving you at this point. It only remains for me to say thank you for bearing with me today. I hope that next time you’re bearing with anyone, you’ll bear with me.

  (1989)

  Almost too utterly common entrance

  ‘A most unusual seminar,’ says the heading on an advertisement which has been appearing in undergraduate magazines recently. The advertisement is issued by a firm who describe themselves as ‘the most brilliant of all the advertising agencies,’ looking for ‘the most brilliant of all this year’s graduands.’

  ‘They propose to invite up to twenty of you,’ it continues, ‘after a long interrogation in London, to spend a weekend with them during the Easter vacation. The hospitality at this weekend will be almost vulgarly profuse. Continual distraction will be offered. But there will also be one written paper of the most taxing kind. It will need great stamina to endure it all.’

  It certainly will if this is anything like the weekend which Harris-Harris, the brighter than brightest agency, hold each year at Wosby Hall, the ancestral home of the Selection-Board family. Here the daiquiris flow like water, served by top models in fishnet stockings, while fashionable dance bands play softly among the Picassos.

  ‘The ambience here,’ says Garth Peacock, one of the agency men assigned to the job, waving an odoriferous Balkan cigarette at the time-hallowed setting, ‘is almost, comment dit-on, vulgarly profuse, don’t you think?’

  ‘Er, yes,’ mumbles R. Slodge, former President of the Oxford Union. Garth Peacock presses a tiny pocket transmitter key which registers at headquarters the damning comment ‘This man considers himself superior to popular cultural values.’

  ‘Have another cigar, Nubbs,’ says Peacock to the former Cambridge stroke. ‘Er, no thanks,’ replies Nubbs, and Peacock signals ruthlessly ‘Deficient in phallic motivation’. Nubbs passes the solid gold humidor on to Cropper, once editor of the Isis, but Cropper, who has smoked five cigars already, shakes his head queasily. Peacock adds another comment to the Nubbs report: ‘Complete failure to persuade in face of difficult market conditions.’

  ‘I hope,’ says Peacock, ‘you’re not all finding the weekend too utterly boring?’

  ‘Not me,’ replies Potkin, the noted Oxford actor, gesturing for another bottle of champagne. ‘Can’t soak the stuff up fast enough.’ (‘A certain lack of moral fibre’, signals Peacock.)

  ‘Oh, far from it,’ adds Mark Smoothe, undergraduate son of the Minister of Chance and Speculation, also ordering another bottle. ‘I think the amenities we are enjoying here are a fitting background to the sort of seminar which, today more than ever, plays an absolutely vital part in the progressive development of the free world.’ (‘A brilliant creative mind’, transmits Peacock.)

  ‘Where’s the lavatory?’ demands Cropper urgently. (‘A poor ability to choose language that brings out the most attractive aspects of a subject’, notes Peacock.)

  By the time Cropper has hacked his way back through the almost vulgarly deep pile of the carpet, bowing footmen have ushered the whole party on to the luxuriously appointed assault course, where Roscoe is waiting to put them through an almost disgustingly elegant initiative test.

  ‘What we should like you to do,’ he explains, ‘if it’s not too almost utterly tedious, is to imagine that this ditch is full of synthetic raspberry jam. You have to get the synthetic raspberry jam over this wall of consumer resistance without touching the real raspberry jam made by the same firm. To do it you’ve got nothing but four feet of tarred twine, two empty oil drums, one model in black lace underwear, and £100,000 …’

  When the fleet of Rolls-Royces takes them back to the almost sickeningly exquisite house, they face the most testing moment of all. One by one they are shown into the presence of J. B., the head of the agency himself, as he sits in the Sheraton Room surrounded by Cellini champagne-coolers and Fabergé foot-warmers.

  ‘Sit down, Mr Nubbs,’ he murmurs in an almost insupportably aristocratic tone. ‘Tell me, Mr Nubbs, do you believe in God?’

  ‘Er, well, I, er …’

  ‘Of course you do. Take a cigar and then sell me the idea in fifty punchy, easy-to-read words.’

  Yes, it certainly demands stamina. And remember, stamina demands Fub, for only new wonder Fub has magic Zub!

  (1962)

  Among the funny bones

  The evolution of man has not ceased. By the inscrutable processes of natural selection there is evolving from homo sapiens a new and more complex species of anthropoid: homo jocans, or Joky Man.

  Homo sapiens has been defined as a tool-making animal. Homo jocans is a gag-making machine. Just as homo sapiens became ashamed of his urge to copulate and sublimated it into a culture of solid complexity, so Joky Man has become ashamed of his urge to communicate and is sublimating it into a culture of elaborate facetiousness.

  I think Joky Man will prove to be the dominant form. Pre-Joky Man will be made to feel smaller and smaller by Joky Man for failing to see the joke, until he becomes entirely extinct. By the end of the Uranium Age, Joky Man will cover the whole of the Western Hemisphere. The archaeologists will find his tumuli everywhere, and the remains of Joky Man inside will be instantly identifiable; the skulls will all be trying to keep a straight face.

  Our literature does not do justice to the subtlety of our culture. In books people say what they mean, in the sapiens style. (‘Don’t you see, Lisbet, that my feeling for Paul is only a desperate counterpoise to Mark’s instinctive
rejection of Anna?’) In life Joky Man speaks almost entirely in irony, sarcasm, understatement, hyperbole, and parody, and I am going to have a fresco painted inside my tomb that will bring home to archaeologists something of the staggering intricacy of life in Joky times.

  It will show Joky Man at work, sitting for hours rubbing gag against gag in the hope of producing a spark. It will show Joky Man at leisure, still chipping one gag against another. A frieze round the margin will display the huge variety of gags a man might have at his disposal – cutting gags, gags that grind the nerves, gags that scrape the bottom of the barrel, gags for falling in love, gags for ending marriages, gags for dying – as well as how a man of small resources might make one or two durable basic gags do for everything.

  A further series of panels will show Joky Man speaking in funny voices – joke adenoidal voices, joke television commentator’s voices, joke Prime Minister voices, joke Queen voices.

  In one of them he will be seen speaking in what he takes to be a joke working-class voice, to show his rejection of bourgeois values and his solidarity with the masses. The panel will include a representative selection of the masses, showing their touching gratitude for this compliment by talking in what they take to be a joke Joky Man’s voice.

  In a big tableau, Joky Man will be shown speaking in his most important funny voice – what he conceives to be the voice of a low-class theatrical agent. A frieze running round the edge of this scene will make it clear that since he has never actually met a low-class theatrical agent, but only a man whose elder brother’s friend does a very amusing imitation of Peter Sellers impersonating Sidney James playing the part of a low-class theatrical agent, this causes no offence to low-class theatrical agents.

  The funny-voice series will be surmounted by a tablet depicting Joky Man’s larynx, showing typical enlargement and inflammation caused by the strain of speaking with all the voices of men and of angels except one’s own. Elsewhere in the fresco there will be scenes from Joky Man’s everyday life, with balloons coming out of his mouth reading ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you,’ ‘What we in the trwade call a nice bit of crwumpet,’ ‘How very different from the home life of our own dear Queen!’ ‘And now – a big hand for someone we all know and love,’ ‘My husband and I …’, ‘What we in the trwade call one of our own dear queens,’ ‘Don’t call us, my husband and I will call you …’