No 3637 Set by George Cowley
Kate Kellaway wrote of "the tiresome English habit of making important subjects seem droll". We asked you to have a go.
Report by Ms de Meaner
Not a classic. I was hoping for something along the lines of This England. Something natural, not the sort of polished humour delivered by a stand-up comedian who knows he's being funny (and that means, Ian Birchall, no Ali G on Princess Diana, "a member of the Royle family who has snuffed it in a car crash"). And something intrinsic to the supposed "Englishness" of the English: laughter in the face of adversity, modesty over amazing odds that have been overcome, kindliness towards those funny foreigners who need us to look after them. You picked good subjects - death, starvation in the third world, the end of the cold war, the problems of disability and old age, and the Second World War - but only some of you understood what we were after. £15 to the winners; the champagne vouchers go to Anne Du Croz.
Of course, the thing about death is that it's an absolute let-down, or put-down, if you're lucky. All this angst in your pangst about pain, suffering, afterlife - good (as it were) grief! Anyone would think it was the absolute living end. The reality, natch, is that you feel off, then very off, and finally vanish in a puff of smoke. Usually, you get to spend a few extra hours in bed, making up for lost time, as well as preparing for same, and quite often given the sort of medication that addicts would kill themselves to get hold of, on prescription. There are set pieces. The doctor gives it to you straight from the lip, not so much the man from UNCLE, as the uncle from the BMA. That's the worst bit: watching a skilled professional hand you a death sentence as though it were a ten-bob note. Then the relatives arrive for an early Christmas, with you cast as the tur-key, and cluster round you like vegetables. Then the solicitor performs some basic conveyancing (no chain involved, but a hefty fee all the same). That's it. Death. Hardly worth getting up for, really.
Will Bellenger
Maud! Great to hear from you. Oh, bouncing off the walls as usual, bouncing off the walls. Hopping around on two sticks - for now, that is, but my hands are going . . . No, nobody. Well, there was this bossy little woman from some area health team: "Can you prepare and cook a meal?" Said I ate everything raw, including meat and sausages. "Do you need help with personal care?" I told her about the patch on my back which itches now and again, and which I can't reach without my Chinese ivory back-scratcher. Said it was itching then, and would she care to oblige . . . No, just looked uncomfortable. "What are your hobbies, and have they changed since your disablement?" Sadly, I told her, I'd had to give up cockle-gathering and whelk-boiling in favour of disco-dancing, fell-running and round-the-world ballooning . . . Yes, wrote it all down. "Do you have any sexual problems?" "None that regular visits from Nicole Kidman wouldn't cure," I said, and she coloured. "Which benefits do you have?" "Sunshine and rain, and a happy temperament," I said . . . Mmmm, that's what she said. Said she'd sort it all out for me. No, haven't heard anything since.
Anne Du Croz
It's not every day of the week that war breaks out. Not a real humdinger, at any rate. At 11am on Sunday 3 September 1939, we heard Chamberlain announce that, as Herr Hitler had not yet replied to his ultimatum, consequently we were at war with Germany. It wasn't absolutely necessary, apparently, to keep the Sabbath holy. Immediately he had finished, the sirens sounded, gas masks were grabbed, pets called indoors and a rush made towards the toilets before others beat one to it. It was the greatest false alarm in history. The all-clear sounded within minutes, bowels regrouped, and a prolonged malaise ensued. When is a war not a war? When it's phoney. The term gatecrashed the nation's vocabulary. Misplaced early 1914 optimism surfaced. "It'll all be over by Christmas," stranger assured stranger. (Why not Guy Fawkes Day?) "We've called his bluff." "He's having second thoughts." "He's missed the bus!" The portentous recalled Edward Grey's utterance on the eve of the previous conflict: "The lamps are going out all over Europe." Why couldn't Chamberlain insert a memorable phrase into his lament. "Unhappy Days are here again", perhaps?
Chas F Garvey
Look upon the positive side. Death enables you to be gloriously irresponsible. Alive, you couldn't leave your socks lying around without being pulled up about it. Dead, you can leave your body lying around and they have to do something about it, if only to prevent an epidemic. Irresponsibility with impunity - that really is going out on a high note. It's also a wonderful chance to have fun with last words spoken as if to the keeper of the gates of the next world as you get your first glimpse of the hereafter. "God really is a black man!" "But I've a right to come in. I'm a member." Try: "But I only voted for the Lib Dems once" or "No, I defin- itely cannot vouch for the ones I've left behind". You can be really mischievous. "So you, too, have the management consultants in, have you?" Even accountants can be funny on their deathbed. Try: "Which pit of hell did you say it was for the chartered?" Whether cremated or buried, you can be the star of the show with no stage fright. Death is the unanswerable retort, the ultimate in put-downs. To quote Cromwell: "Stone dead hath no fellow." In fact, death is so good I'm amazed that everybody doesn't take it up.
J Seery
No 3640 Set by John Crick
Confucius, he say . . . We want the sayings of an until now undiscovered Chinese philosopher who seems remarkably in touch with our times. As many goes as you like by 3 August.
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