13 JUNE 1992, Page 6

DIARY JOHN OSBORNE

Ithink it was the French historian, Michelet, who said of someone that they wrote in a style in which it was impossible to tell the truth. Politicians, naturally, have always been adroit at the idiom of deceit. The Watergate witnesses used a German- American patois which was impenetrable. Now, almost everyone, not only cabinet ministers first thing on Radio Four, pours forth a stream of pharaisaical logorrhoea, a lingua franca of joined-up, recently minted clichés, a peoplespeak, which is gratefully plundered 'at the end of the day' in a 'level playing-field situation' of 'bottom-line pri- orities' by both 'those up front' and the 'insufficiently motivated'. It certainly is an 'abuse crisis', 'targeted' and 'taken on board' by 'user-friendly', 'Eurowise' pres- sure groupies, indolent journalists and, of course, political correctivists. They rely on a guidebook of cant words, as invaluable as an Edwardian's list of Useful Phrases When Abroad. Perhaps it was ever thus. I wrote a play, Inadmissible Evidence, in 1964 and began with a stylised parody of Harold Wil- son's speech to the Labour Party Confer- ence the year before:

My belief ... in the technological revolution, the growing, pressing, urgent need for more and more schools and universities, the theme of change, realistic decisions based on a high- ly developed and professional study of society ... the theme and challenge of much rapid change ... In the inevitability of automation and the ever increasing need for the stable ties of modern family life, rethinking, reliv- ing, making way for the motor car; in a for- ward looking, outward looking, programme controlled machine tool line reassessment ...

And so on; all from the then current flow of pharaisaical peoplespeak. The audience nodded in collusion. At the revival, 14 years later, they spluttered with laughter. They recognised the language of empty fatuity which they had once accepted, indeed used themselves.

That great comedian, Sid Field, used to perform a sketch in which, wild-eyed, dressed in tail-coat and bicycle clips and wielding a bell-ringing hammer, he would announce: 'During the course of my perfor- mance tonight, I may inadvertently ...' He would freeze as if his tongue had been scalded, then managed to continue: 'Inad- vertently ' His face bulged like a frog's at the joy of an exquisite discovery. 'I say, do you mind if I say that again?' He would exhale the sound once more like a fragrant, linguistic ectoplasm. He had found himself within a word, one of ineffable implication. Every time I hear or read chunks strung together from the Peoplespeak Phrase Book, I think of that eureka! 'Inadvertently,' and the transport of its utterance. I've never thought of myself as being an eccentric, but I begin to wonder. I seem to get exercised about things that are of no import and yet they trouble and even dis- tress me. Why do I get so fretful when peo- ple repeatedly mis-spell my name? I pick up an envelope addressed to J. Osbourne or J. Osborn and my morning is clouded. I have put my true name to all my labour and I swear it never used to be so (honestly, Doctor). But now, everyone does it: banks, accountants, solicitors, all tradesmen, news- papers, students (most of all) resentfully demanding I write their essays for them and, of course, university drama depart- ments who compound the off-hand insult with the addition 'Playwrite'. And then there are strangers, especially in theatre and television, who address me without affection, sometimes on the telephone, as 'John'. Such things count for little, maybe. And yet it isn't self-importance that makes me stiffen, but a ripple of discomfort and unease. Indifference franked by a postage stamp, I suppose. Jayne Austin, Trollup, Konrad, Cipling, Shore, Dickins, Wild. No, but they were famous ...

Were are all the voluptuous, laugh- ing, bawdy girls of my youth? Nowadays they can prosecute you just for making them feel inadequate, which they probably are. A few days ago, some legal secretary complained that she was 'touched' at the firm's Christmas party. Another employee 'put an arm round her waist' and — crikey Moses! — 'squeezed her breast' in the taxi home. If she'd been touched up in the office, why share a taxi with him? Anyway, 'They bought the rights for 30 pieces of silver.'

she made an official complaint and the rest of the staff snubbed this squinny-lipped ice- maiden who was later made redundant. She sued the firm for sexual discrimination, say- ing she was fired because she objected to sexual advances. Inevitably, she was award- ed £5,000 damages and £200 for 'injured feelings'. Injured feelings — dear God, I have those almost hourly. If you go squeal- ing to the law every time someone twangs your knicker elastic — a gambit easily repelled by a sharp, playful slap, a witty riposte or merry oath — your place is not in this lustful world but a nunnery. There is more to life than being a power-suited, high-flying executive. And one of them is being a woman of enough resource, imagi- nation and good humour to dispose of male boors without snivelling recourse to Legal Aid.

This week, my producer complained of being jaded after 22 years in the theatrical game. That could be to do with me, I sup- pose, but I think he's lucky. By contrast, playwrights have miserably short working lives. Wilde had three years, Sheridan four, Congreve seven, Pinero 13, Priestley 16, Maugham 25 and Strindberg 26. Almost all Ibsen's famous plays were written when he was over 60. Shaw was nearly 40 when he produced Widower's Houses, but after The Apple Cart some 20 years on he was never taken seriously again. Rattigan's theatrical career lasted scarcely 20 years before he was cast into the outer darkness of fashion and caprice. Even Coward was obliged to find a happier livelihood in cabaret. We threatre scribblers average about a dozen years or so. It set me thinking. I had my first play produced (in the glamour of the Theatre Royal, Huddersfield) when I was 19, was running my own company at 20 and, I suddenly realise, this is my 45th year working in what Pinero called 'this rotten profession'. But it gets no easier.

By the time this piece appears, my 18th London production over a period of 36 years will have opened at the Comedy The- atre. The crocodile scrawlers will have slith- ered into my muddied grave in Panton Street to crunch the bones of a life's work. However, I shall be ashore, home if not dry; thanks to my dentist, I have a new smile and my bite now should be as good as my bark. As my half century of obstinate squatting in the Playhouse approaches, I can look out from the Marches with renewed woof and fang to snap into any straying predators. You can't outstay your welcome when you never had one, I say. Woof. There's rabies lurking in these blue remembered hills. Woof.