by Stephen Fry
The first programme I chanced upon was entitled The Late, Late Breakfast Show presented by a – no, it is no part of my function here to descend to personalities and abuse – presented by a personage, let us say, that I would rather never see again in this or any other world. In this programme, violence was done to all the canons of decency, respectability, gentleness, courtesy, taste, humanity and dignity that I have striven all my life to uphold and promote. All were violated in ways too savage, too grotesque, too degraded to delineate. Such an obscene orgy of vulgarity, baseness and ignorance I hope never to witness again. The young mind is being brought up on the idea that self-advertising, huckstering loutishness is admirable; crude, unlettered bawdy at the expense of female dignity amusing; and puerile, banausic posturing and prankstering entertaining. Under the motto ‘It’s only a laugh’ waves a banner of such shameful, irredeemable crudity that the imagination sickens. If this, I felt, is television, then the violence it is doing to the sensibilities of our young must be instantly halted before it is too late. A subsequent stream of futile and insulting games programmes followed hard on the heels of this abomination: all week I was bombarded by violent filth. One programme consisting entirely of cut-up pieces of letters that viewers had had the impertinence to send up did such violence to this country’s good name for literacy, intelligence, spelling, calligraphy, discernment and modesty that I feared I should faint clean away.
However, amongst this mire of violation, ruin and despair, some redeeming pearls did shine forth. From America, and from here, there were many programmes in which actors dressed up and pretended to be policemen or criminals and gave entertaining representations of fights and shoot-outs. Many a car exploded in a jolly and exciting fashion as part of this make-believe. I became particularly fond of a pair called Starsky and Hutch, who were forever simulating gun-fights and beatings-up. These merry, silly, romping fictional diversions were, as fiction always has been, and always will be, harmless, instructive and charming. I shall recommend they be left alone, as should be all drama and fiction. But the violence, the violence that attacks our young in the monstrous shapes I have already tried to describe, that I shall spare no effort to uproot, extirpate, decimate, annihilate and destroy.
Good morning.
1For some reason I seem to have introduced Trefusis as a Moral Scientist. It is later affirmed that he is a philologist.
Rosina, Lady Madding
The first of three monologues from Rosina, Lady Madding, which appeared on Loose Ends. Imagine a voice not unlike that made by someone who speaks while inhaling.
VOICE: Rosina, Lady Madding, at home at Eastwold House.
I live here alone in what, when I was a girl, was used to be called the Dower House. I suppose I am technically a dowager, though my son Rufus, the fourth earl, is not yet married. I love the country, it’s very peaceful here. I am surrounded by photographs of my past. On the piano I have a photograph of myself dancing with David, the Prince of Wales – later of course Edward the Eighth and subsequent Duke of Windsor. David was a very bad dancer, always trod on one’s toes, and I remember he once crushed the metatarsal bones in the foot of a girl-friend of mine – discreet lesbianism was fashionable at the time.
Here’s a photograph of Noël Coward – darling Noël as we always called him. He was a very witty man, you know – it’s a side of him not many people are aware of. I recall an occasion when I came onto the dance-floor of Mario’s in Greek Street wearing a very daring frock, a frock that revealed more of my décolletage than was then considered proper – now of course I dare say it would raise nothing more than an eyebrow – but at the time it was very wicked. I came onto the floor and darling Noël came up to me and said ‘Rosina’ – he always used to call me Rosina – it is my name, you must understand. ‘Rosina,’ he said in that voice of his, ‘Rosina, where did you find such an alluringly low-cut torso?’ This was Noël’s little way, you see.
The portrait above the fireplace was made when I was in Paris – Claude my husband was Ambassador in the late twenties. I used to hold very literary parties at the embassy – Plum and Duff Cooper, Scott and Garrett Fitzgerald, darling Geoffrey Chaucer of course, Adolf Hitler and Unity Mitford, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Topless, Radclyffe Hall and Angela Brazil – they could always be relied upon to attend. And of course O. Henry James Joyce Cary Grant. I remember F.E. Smith, later Lord Birkenhead of course, that’s his picture there, just below the dartboard, F.E. used to say ‘All the world and his live-in lover go to Rosina’s parties’ which pleased me very much.
Later when Claude and I went to India to take up the Vice-regency I met Gandhi with whom I used to play French cricket – he was awfully good at cricket, as a matter of fact: Claude always used to say, ‘what the loin-cloth industry gained, the wicket-keeping industry lost.’ Pandit Nehru was very impressive too, though if Edwina Mountbatten is to be believed his length was too variable for him ever to enter the ranks of Indian leg-spin immortals.
The large bronze statue of the nude male which stands on top of the synthesiser is of Herbert Morrison the Cabinet Minister. I use it to hang my bracelets on when I’m playing at the keyboard now. I spend a lot of time here in this room, remembering the past. Silly Poles Hartley, L.P. Hartley, you know, once said that the past is a foreign country, but I don’t agree. The food was better for a start, and the people didn’t smell. People often tell me I was one of a spoilt generation, rich, beautiful, idle, parasitical. It is true that I had every conceivable luxury lavished upon me during my life, met many famous and influential people, saw many exciting places and never did anything more taxing than organise large house-parties. But you know, despite that, if I had my time over again I wouldn’t change a thing. Regrets? A few. I shouldn’t have let dear T.E. Lawrence borrow my motor-bicycle. I’m tired now. Let me eat.
Trefusis’s Christmas Quiz
VOICE: Donald Trefusis, Professor of Philology at the University of Cambridge, sets his famous Christmas quiz. Have pencil, paper or tape-recorder ready.
Human beings, who I must suppose make up a fair proportion of my audience today, are often immensely competitive in their ways. This is usually a quality much to be deplored and discouraged; clearly it is deleterious to the industrial and economic health of our country to have a large number of aggressive, competitive persons vying with each other for money or markets or whatever footling thing industrial figures do vie for when not taking up valuable compartment space in trains.
The competitive spirit is an ethos which it is the business of universities such as the one in which I have the honour to move and work, to subdue and neutralise. We talk often about our national malaise, which is not, as often assumed, in reference to our welcome immigrants from Malaya, but a description of the appalling and continuing trend of intelligent young men and women coming to universities and being encouraged to go into industry. Natural scholars, classicists and linguists are, from an early age, introduced to technology, management (whatever that is to be taken to signify) and commerce. We need look no further than that dismal circumstance if we are searching for reasons that may explain the decline of this country. How can this nation stand on its feet in the cut and thrust international sphere if it is unable to decline the middle mood of λυω or rehearse the argument of Endymion? A generation of citizens who buy red leather combination locked attaché cases and heated trouser presses while remaining ignorant of the metrical constitution of The Faerie Queen is not one ready to lead the world. However that is not the main text of my disquisition this day. I wished merely to wash the background of my canvas with the foregoing colours from my palette of complaints before limning the foreground with the shapes and rhythms of my main composition.
For all that I rightly discourage adversarial attitudes amongst my students, at Christmas it is customary for me to set a small quiz. It is open to any member of the University who has, at any time during the previous twelvemonth, invited me to a Madeira and Biscuit party. Quite enormous international pre
ssure has been put upon me to open this traditional little catechism to my listening public. The undergraduate prize, a chased filigree-work étui from the Second Republic, engraved with the winner’s name and containing a small quantity of high-grade cocaine, has already been won, so I am afraid that I cannot offer the winner amongst you anything more than a signed copy of your choice of any of my published works together with a personally autographed edition of Mr Sherrin’s latest amusing collection of humorous theatre anecdotes entitled Larry’s Such A Name-Dropper.
The quiz is divided into two categories which I have named, rather aptly I think, Section A and Section Five. Section Five first, I fancy, for neatness. Prepare implements of scripture or instruments of magnetic sound registration.
Question 1: What, please, have the following words in common: almost, biopsy, chintz? That’s almost, biopsy, and chintz.
Question 2: What have the Prime Ministers Lord Pelham and Lord Grenville to do with Lord Ickenham and Lord Sidcup? That’s Lords Pelham and Grenville, Lords Ickenham and Sidcup.
Question 3: What association does BBC correspondent Martin Bell have with the Times Crossword Puzzle?
Question 4: What have poets Andrew Marvell, Philip Larkin and Stevie Smith in common, aside from their demises?
Question 5: What have Poles and Staples to do with Shrimps and Wardrobes?
That was Section Five. Section A is the tie-breaker, and requires more creative effort from the competitor.
Question A: In twelve words devise a telegram to an imaginary Duchess whose couchée you are compelled to miss. It should be composed in a manner that leaves no doubt that you are skipping the engagement simply because you find her and her friends repellent, abhorrent and absurd.
Question B: Lean forward and touch each knee with the tip of your nose.
Question C: Wear bright, cheerful colours and adopt a sweet nature.
Question D: Where practicable, use a condom.
Question E: Be respectful to your seniors and courteous, charming and considerate to your juniors.
Question F: If you like popular music go out and buy five classical records and listen to them five times a day for a week.
Question G: If you like classical music go out and buy five popular music records and listen to them five times a day for a week and let’s have no more nonsense.
Question H: Imagine that you are the defence counsel for Robert Maxwell. Try and persuade a jury that your client is not megalomaniacally insane.1
Question I: Write a poem in ottava rima on the subject of Halitosis.
There you are. This should present no problems for keen competitors. By way of encouragement I might say that four-fifths of my students achieved 98 per cent or higher in this quiz. The names of all successful candidates will be put into my crushed velvet smoking cap and one lucky name will be drawn out on Christmas Eve by the Provost-General In Ordinary of St Matthew’s College, Sir Neville Soviet Mole.
The very best of luck to you all, and if you have been, I’m glad you’ve stopped.
Answers to Section Five of Trefusis’s Christmas Quiz
Really most gratifying and extraordinary response to my quiz. The answers were as follows: almost, biopsy and chintz are the only six-lettered words in the language whose letters occur without repetition in alphabetical order. Lords Sidcup and Ickenham have this in common with the quondam Prime Ministers Lords Pelham and Grenville – they were both creations of P.G. Wodehouse, whose given names were, of course, Pelham and Grenville. Martin Bell’s connection with the Times Crossword is that his father Adrian, the writer and journalist, compiled the first ever Times puzzle. Andrew Marvell, Philip Larkin and Stevie Smith all have the city of Hull in common. Lastly I asked you for the connection between Poles and Staples and Shrimps and Wardrobes. L.P. Hartley wrote of course The Shrimp and the Anemone and his middle name was Poles, while Clive Staples Lewis was the author of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. There we are. I am happy to say that fourteen thousand of you sent in answers correct in every detail. The winner was a Mr J. Archer, of the Old Vicarage, Grantchester.
1Had some trouble getting this past the BBC censor. Unusually for me, as you will see, this remark proved accurate and, if not prophetic exactly, at least resonant.
Jeremy Creep
Also broadcast on Colour Supplement.
VOICE: This week Men At Work talks to Sir Jeremy Creep, Principal of the London College of Architects in Rohan Point, Putney.
Architecture offers quite extraordinary opportunities to serve the community, to enhance the landscape, refresh the environment and to advance mankind – the successful architect needs training to overcome these pitfalls however, and start earning some serious money. I get all kinds of people from the schools and universities and my job is manifold and various. Firstly of course, it’s visual. Young people use their eyes – to be a good architect in Britain today you need to do more than use your eyes, you must have them surgically removed. But you don’t just have to be blind to be a modern architect, you must develop a lively sense of contempt for your fellow man, so early meetings with borough planners and council administrators are essential.
Next a carefully planned system of mind-direction seminars, as we like to call them. In these we show our students film of old buildings, old village communities, interviews with noted conservationists such as the late John Betjeman and His Royal Highness Prince Charles. By disseminating toxic gases and introducing mild electric shocks we induce a feeling of nausea, sickness and acute physical pain, which in time is associated with those images. Next we show film of large glass boxes, rough concrete towers and enormous steel girders, all the time stimulating the students with underseat vibromassage and soothing selections of Mozart, while they drink venerable clarets and smoke jazz cigarettes. By this means an aversion to old forms of architecture and a loving acceptance of the new can be effectively inculcated.
The observant amongst you will have noticed that earlier I have said that we remove our trainees’ eyes and then show them films. I should of course have mentioned that an architect must be able to lie. He (or she) must be adept at lying in public fluently and easily. ‘This building will stand for ten years’, ‘St Paul’s Cathedral is ugly and needs to be surrounded with objects of beauty’, ‘This block of flats is built around human dimensions and needs’, ‘Architecture is first and foremost about people’. I doubt if even the most sophisticated detector would have challenged one of those statements, outrageous tissues of litanies of catalogues of farragoes of lies that they were.
A disturbing trend towards neo-Mannerism that has crept into 1980s office and council architecture has caused us to stiffen up our re-education programme lately and now it is common policy on presenting our diploma to the successful graduate to suck his brains out with a straw before allowing him to leave.
Le Corbusier, that most magnificent of architects (you see, not even a flicker on the polygram’s needle there), once said ‘A human being is a machine for living in one of my houses’ and if Britain is to have a thriving, prosperous, happy, well-fed, well-paid, well-housed community of architects then those are the principles we must embrace.
Let me quote again, Sir Niklaus Pevsner this time, ‘Building is the enclosure of space; architecture is the aesthetic enclosure of space.’ In the library of my converted Georgian water-mill out here in Hampshire, I reach for the Architect’s Dictionary, Volume One ‘Asbestos to Balsa wood girders’, and look up the word ‘aesthetic’. I find this entry: ‘aesthetic, obs. vulg. orig. unknown.’ That could describe a modern architect couldn’t it? Obs. vulg. orig. unknown. Obscene, vulgar bastard. Goodnight.
Trefusis Overdresses
Good hello to you all. I must state at the outset of this little talk, with frank, manly directness, that I am not a snob. Never have been, don’t want to be. Robbie Burns and I, as so often these days, are in agreement, when we carol that rank is but the guinea-stamp and that a man is a man for a’ that. Kind hearts, I am often hea
rd to murmur to myself, when strolling about the ballroom at some omnium gatherum of the crested families of the realm, kind hearts are more than coronets and simple faith than Norman Tebbit. For all that, I am an old man with few fleshly pleasures left me, unless having my corns filed may be counted as sensuous and sybaritic, and it does give me pleasure, as the Season commences, to gad about the flesh pots of Society, cheering on the Varsity in the Diamond Skulls at Henley here, escorting a lissom sprig of the nobility to the Queen Charlotte Ball there. It is, I must own, hard to square my delight in these festivities with my Proudhonite-syndicalism on the one hand and my almost universal contempt for the generality of the upper classes on the other. The beauty of the events eux-mêmes is vitiated by the almost total foulness and self-esteem of those in attendance. It is hard to toss the contents of a half-pint mug of Pimms in the Stewards’ Enclosure at Henley, for instance, without soaking one who is in total ignorance of the art of rowing. Unslip a rat in the members’ stands at Lord’s and you will start a score of individuals who couldn’t tell you the first thing about cricket. But quite my favourite event of the Season is and shall remain Glyndebourne. Its preciosity and privilege notwithstanding, the smugness of those present aside, the awful luxury of the whole event discounted, this is a fine place to be. Imagine therefore my pleasure when, earlier this week, an old pupil of mine, now an international spy of growing reputation, invited me to meet him there to witness a new production of La Traviata directed by Sir Peter, Sir Peter, Sir Peter whatever it is.
I could barely stand still and let Glambidge, my gyp, tie my tie, stud my studs and brace my braces, so excited was I on the day appointed. I love to wear the full festive fig; an American girl once told me that it made me look kinda sexy and these things linger in the memory. My particular nightmare is overdressing, and Glyndebourne has at least the advantage of particular rules of dress. Black tie or nothing. Though I suspect nothing would be frowned upon, if not barred outright.
