No. 1235: The winners

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked for communications between a medium and

Oscar Wilde such as might have appeared in a book published in 1924.

The book in question, Psychic Messages from Oscar Wilde, gets off to a flying, competition-winning start. The second seance (`Mr V. was the automatist, Mrs T. S.

touching his hand') begins with Oscar in cracking form: 'Being dead is the most bor- ing experience in life. That is, if one excepts being married or dining with a schoolmaster. Do you doubt my identity? I

am not surprised, since sometimes I doubt it myself. I might retaliate by doubting

yours ...' But later he seems to tire and descend to mere petulance — 'I do not spend my precious hours catching tadpoles', when asked what he thought of the Sitwells.

Like the dead Master, most of you weakened under the strain of being obligatorily witty. There were too many old Wildean jokes given new twists that didn't

improve their shape. Among the better bons mots from the Other Side were 'Why do the least literate quote me most often?'

(Pascoe Polglaze) and 'This place resembles London out of season or Manchester at any season' (Julian). The winners below get £9 each.

Thank you, David Pugh and E. W. Deacon, for writing to me about 'The Dy- ing Airman' which I mistitled last week. That was not my only mistake. Apparently he didn't 'distribute his various bits widely and wittily'; contrariwise, the poor fellow wanted them extracted from him and reassembled.

M: What is life after death like?

0: It is exactly like life before death, which con- sists of a rather pale imitation of particularly lurid fiction. One is forever dying to come here, and everyone else is busy fulfilling the same am- bition.

M: But what are people like?

0: Rather like dinner-guests who have stumbled into the kitchen. Still, there is something uncons- cionably fascinating about wraiths. They are like economic theories: extremely impressive late in the evening, and utterly impossible to grasp. It is all quite haunting. The Other Side is mostly com- posed of poets who spent their lives in search of

lost love and are now living in mortal terror of finding it. They generally speak in unheroic couplets, poor souls. What is your fee?

M: Fifty guineas.

0: Ah, then I am living beyond your means rather than mine.

(Belle R. Welling) M: ... er ... may I speak to you, Mr Wilde? Have you any advice for us?

0: You may listen while I relay through you a lit- tle unwordly wisdom. Attend carefully, because the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. The two defects of your age are its want of principle and its want of pro- file: Prohibition and the Charleston are responsi- ble for both. You destroy Art and have made an art of destruction; pleasure you have made your business so that idleness becomes your burden. You have fought a war against those respectable Germans, and you will fight another. What ad- vice can / give you?

M: I shall repeat your every word.

0: Rien ne change.

(J. C. Causer)

M: Who touched me?

0: Should one not strike a happy medium?

M: Who are you?

0: Oscar Wilde.

M: Do you come with a message? 0: The soul is shown winged, but is not the

pigeon post.

M: It is natural to ask.

0: Children are told 'Later!' and then it is too

late.

M: You give no help.

0: There are no cribs for this unseen.

(George Moor)

M: Can you hear me?

0: Overhear you, rather.

M: Where are you?

0: In some kind of artistic movement, to judge

by the costume.

M: Have you been before the Judgment Seat?

0: Behind. Only the very best people go before.

M: Were you charged?

0: I am certainly paying.

M: Are you in Heaven?

0: I am surrounded by former members of the

House of Lords. What do you think?

M: What is Hell like?

0: Like a club. Access to the fire is blocked by

persons of eminence.

M: Are you to be punished?

0: I am to be reincarnated as a Mr Benjamin Hill

in a series of moving pictures.

(J. H. M. Donald)

M: What do you think of Eternity so far? 0: It is a greater disappointment than Niagara Falls. There is only one thing more tedious than Eternity and that is Infinity. Here one gets a plethora of both. M: Surely it is very scenically exciting?

0: The vistas are unvaryingly bland, like dining for ever on steamed veal, and the company is unbearably vulgar.

M: Are you allowed to tell us whether you are in Heaven or Hell?

0: I am, but I have no intention of satisfying your curiosity. Suffice it to say that it is uncanni- ly similar to Pall Mall. M: Are people in the spirit world happy? 0: One finds innumerable spirits crying out to be laid, but it seems that there is very little that one can do to help them.

M: Have you any message for anybody here in the corporeal world?

0: Yes. Warn Alfie that hell is bottomless.

(Gerard Benson)