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In England Now
215
In England Now
Another
pencilled
instruction catches my eye.
"Put the
thing here." That makes my day. " The art nouveau thing "-so casual, with a hint of knowing what I’m all set for Monday now. " Oh, are you art nouveau is. to the going opening tonight ? I saw the show last weekyou really must look out for a rather nice art nouveau thing they have there..." art nouveau
A
Running Commentary by Peripatetic Correspondents
ALTHOUGH we always say what we mean, we do not invariably all that we say; but on this occasion it is with no negative reservations that we welcome the appearance of a new journal, the _7ournal of Negative Results (J. neg. Res.), and hail it with the freshly minted phrase that it " fulfils a long-felt need ". Indeed, so much material is awaiting publication in this field that the editorial board have adopted a strict policy; for the time being, papers are only accepted if statistical analysis of the results gives P > 0-9. Later, the editors hope to be able to include papers whose results are statistically significant, but are otherwise meaningless. For the opening number the editors have secured a distinguished panel of contributors, but diffidence in face of the laws of.libel forbids us to mention their names. The papers include an interesting historical article on Medicine in Laputa, and there is an essay on the negation of negation. The journal has the distinguished format which we have come to expect from the Erewhon University Press, but we hope that in future issues the blank cover will be replaced by something more misleading. The motto of the new journal is taken from Faust-"Ich bin der Geist, der stets verneint." We wish the editors well in their new venture, and hope to assist them with papers from time to time. mean
*
’*’
’*’
We had known for some time that the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto was putting on one of the largest exhibitions of English silver ever assembled and that it was being opened by the Governor General. This made the opening a social as well as a cultural highlight, and 1500 of the Best People were invited. But, of course, in a population of only 16 million it is not really selective to be one of the 1500, and so 300 of the Very Best People had been asked to dinner before the opening. But 300 is such a crowd, so 40 of the Really Very Best People were going to a cocktail party before the dinner before the opening. The big problem was how to face my friends on Monday because I had not been invited even to the opening, and some of them might be one, two, In a flash of genius I got myself admitted or even three up. on the previous Friday, to the press showing (on the grounds of being a Lancet Peripat). The press show was rather like going to see a film star in his dressing-room, because the display had not yet been completed. There were great hunks of silver lying about all over the place, and knee-deep in candlesticks, mirrors, sauce-boats, and salvers there were policemen with guns. They looked a little sheepish; it did seem pedantic to guard the stuff when the museum staff were continually casually mislaying objects worth a hundred thousand dollars. Also around the place, among my temporary press colleagues, were the art critics who had been reading that Penguin book about silver. This gave them the chance to say " surely that’s a trifid spoon ? " The label confirmed this, but it plunged me into humiliation. I did not know that one ate trifids with a spoon. Ah, here is a trifid fork. So next time I am offered trifids at a banquet I shall nonchalantly pick up a spoon and fork, and not use a knife-if I can find out in the meantime how to recognise trifids. I found that many of the still open display cases contained notes pencilled on paper to show where the pieces were to go. Here is one that says " the good one ". That is the height of patronage, it seems to me. Here is a solid silver picnic set, of all things, made in 1680, with knife, fork, spoon, condiment box, and nutmeg-grater. There are 13th-century spoons with no nonsense about them and rococo work with a lot of nonsense ; graceful sauce-boats and curly salt-cellars; the Everest cup and the Coronation cup. There is a silver bathtub and an aspidistra pot, both labelled as wine-cisterns. By now I was getting pretty blase about silver and was baffled rather than impressed by a mirror belonging to the Duke of Brunswick. This is about as big as a bus, with 3-D coats of arms all over and a couple of silver chairs to match.
My two-year-old was lying in his bath and probably for the first time his eye fell on his umbilicus. There was a horrified expression in his eye and he called out, Mummy, Mummy! Look! Hole! Mend! "
The lumbago-sciatic shooting now being open1 we can look forward to some smart exchanges, for the subject has long been controversial. Even in Shakespeare’s time the widest extremes of view were evidently held. The remark of the lst Gent. to Bawd " How now! Which of your hips has the most profound sciatica ?" (Measure for Measure) shows the ribald back-slapping approach as opposed to Sycorax’s serious and intensive treatment of Ariel by twelve years manipulation in a cloven pine without anxsthetic (Tempest). Rigorous though this regime may have been, it undoubtedly restored the patient the full use of his exceptional mobility. *
*
*
THEBES
It was evening when we reached the village, After the long drive over hot, dusty plains. There, still sharing some needs with ancient wayfarers, We stopped for bread and water, So learned by accident, believing it many miles distant, That this was Thebes.
Could this be Thebes, a city of kings ? We might have known, out on the plain Where corn ripened and the kites and vultures scavenged And pitiless heat beat down, That there was the inevitable setting For Antigone. Almost we passed her, Still pitifully scraping a grave for her dead brother. Out there nothing has changed. But here in the streets, who remembers doomed CEdipus ? Who has even heard of successful Creon ? Yet this was, this is Thebes. Here now, here ever, Left by the long since ebbing tide of history and myth and
drama, The grey-haired elders, the perennial chorus, Sit sipping their drinks, savouring the flavour of life and menting on it At small tin tables on the shady side of the street. There
are
com-
locked, rusty gates nearby (the elders will direct
a
pilgrim) Where carved, broken stones, Mortal relics of an immortal past, Lie in a sleepy garden. Petunias and hollyhócks and flowering trees Wave them a careless tribute of royal colours. Heroes and lovers, human or sired by gods or dreamed by poets, Sleep alike their long sleep While hawks and doves nest neighbouring among crumbling masonry.
To this garden we came, rare visitors. The custodian, shrunken, wrinkled, brown, Unordained priest of a self-consecrated shrine, Welcomed us, stroked a stone lion for us, Intoned the names of the muses, spelt out caressingly A little tombstone of much loved Demetrius. He gave us each on parting a rose and a sprig of mint, But these we lost, and now have nothing left of Thebes Except the ghost of a perfume and a memory. 1.
Lancet, Jan. 4,
1958,
p. 20; Jan. 11, 1958,
p. 107.
In England Now
Another
pencilled
instruction catches my eye.
"Put the
thing here." That makes my day. " The art nouveau thing "-so casual, with a hint of knowing what I’m all set for Monday now. " Oh, are you art nouveau is. to the going opening tonight ? I saw the show last weekyou really must look out for a rather nice art nouveau thing they have there..." art nouveau
A
Running Commentary by Peripatetic Correspondents
ALTHOUGH we always say what we mean, we do not invariably all that we say; but on this occasion it is with no negative reservations that we welcome the appearance of a new journal, the _7ournal of Negative Results (J. neg. Res.), and hail it with the freshly minted phrase that it " fulfils a long-felt need ". Indeed, so much material is awaiting publication in this field that the editorial board have adopted a strict policy; for the time being, papers are only accepted if statistical analysis of the results gives P > 0-9. Later, the editors hope to be able to include papers whose results are statistically significant, but are otherwise meaningless. For the opening number the editors have secured a distinguished panel of contributors, but diffidence in face of the laws of.libel forbids us to mention their names. The papers include an interesting historical article on Medicine in Laputa, and there is an essay on the negation of negation. The journal has the distinguished format which we have come to expect from the Erewhon University Press, but we hope that in future issues the blank cover will be replaced by something more misleading. The motto of the new journal is taken from Faust-"Ich bin der Geist, der stets verneint." We wish the editors well in their new venture, and hope to assist them with papers from time to time. mean
*
’*’
’*’
We had known for some time that the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto was putting on one of the largest exhibitions of English silver ever assembled and that it was being opened by the Governor General. This made the opening a social as well as a cultural highlight, and 1500 of the Best People were invited. But, of course, in a population of only 16 million it is not really selective to be one of the 1500, and so 300 of the Very Best People had been asked to dinner before the opening. But 300 is such a crowd, so 40 of the Really Very Best People were going to a cocktail party before the dinner before the opening. The big problem was how to face my friends on Monday because I had not been invited even to the opening, and some of them might be one, two, In a flash of genius I got myself admitted or even three up. on the previous Friday, to the press showing (on the grounds of being a Lancet Peripat). The press show was rather like going to see a film star in his dressing-room, because the display had not yet been completed. There were great hunks of silver lying about all over the place, and knee-deep in candlesticks, mirrors, sauce-boats, and salvers there were policemen with guns. They looked a little sheepish; it did seem pedantic to guard the stuff when the museum staff were continually casually mislaying objects worth a hundred thousand dollars. Also around the place, among my temporary press colleagues, were the art critics who had been reading that Penguin book about silver. This gave them the chance to say " surely that’s a trifid spoon ? " The label confirmed this, but it plunged me into humiliation. I did not know that one ate trifids with a spoon. Ah, here is a trifid fork. So next time I am offered trifids at a banquet I shall nonchalantly pick up a spoon and fork, and not use a knife-if I can find out in the meantime how to recognise trifids. I found that many of the still open display cases contained notes pencilled on paper to show where the pieces were to go. Here is one that says " the good one ". That is the height of patronage, it seems to me. Here is a solid silver picnic set, of all things, made in 1680, with knife, fork, spoon, condiment box, and nutmeg-grater. There are 13th-century spoons with no nonsense about them and rococo work with a lot of nonsense ; graceful sauce-boats and curly salt-cellars; the Everest cup and the Coronation cup. There is a silver bathtub and an aspidistra pot, both labelled as wine-cisterns. By now I was getting pretty blase about silver and was baffled rather than impressed by a mirror belonging to the Duke of Brunswick. This is about as big as a bus, with 3-D coats of arms all over and a couple of silver chairs to match.
My two-year-old was lying in his bath and probably for the first time his eye fell on his umbilicus. There was a horrified expression in his eye and he called out, Mummy, Mummy! Look! Hole! Mend! "
The lumbago-sciatic shooting now being open1 we can look forward to some smart exchanges, for the subject has long been controversial. Even in Shakespeare’s time the widest extremes of view were evidently held. The remark of the lst Gent. to Bawd " How now! Which of your hips has the most profound sciatica ?" (Measure for Measure) shows the ribald back-slapping approach as opposed to Sycorax’s serious and intensive treatment of Ariel by twelve years manipulation in a cloven pine without anxsthetic (Tempest). Rigorous though this regime may have been, it undoubtedly restored the patient the full use of his exceptional mobility. *
*
*
THEBES
It was evening when we reached the village, After the long drive over hot, dusty plains. There, still sharing some needs with ancient wayfarers, We stopped for bread and water, So learned by accident, believing it many miles distant, That this was Thebes.
Could this be Thebes, a city of kings ? We might have known, out on the plain Where corn ripened and the kites and vultures scavenged And pitiless heat beat down, That there was the inevitable setting For Antigone. Almost we passed her, Still pitifully scraping a grave for her dead brother. Out there nothing has changed. But here in the streets, who remembers doomed CEdipus ? Who has even heard of successful Creon ? Yet this was, this is Thebes. Here now, here ever, Left by the long since ebbing tide of history and myth and
drama, The grey-haired elders, the perennial chorus, Sit sipping their drinks, savouring the flavour of life and menting on it At small tin tables on the shady side of the street. There
are
com-
locked, rusty gates nearby (the elders will direct
a
pilgrim) Where carved, broken stones, Mortal relics of an immortal past, Lie in a sleepy garden. Petunias and hollyhócks and flowering trees Wave them a careless tribute of royal colours. Heroes and lovers, human or sired by gods or dreamed by poets, Sleep alike their long sleep While hawks and doves nest neighbouring among crumbling masonry.
To this garden we came, rare visitors. The custodian, shrunken, wrinkled, brown, Unordained priest of a self-consecrated shrine, Welcomed us, stroked a stone lion for us, Intoned the names of the muses, spelt out caressingly A little tombstone of much loved Demetrius. He gave us each on parting a rose and a sprig of mint, But these we lost, and now have nothing left of Thebes Except the ghost of a perfume and a memory. 1.
Lancet, Jan. 4,
1958,
p. 20; Jan. 11, 1958,
p. 107.