6 AUGUST 1983, Page 31

Postscript

Silliness

P.J. Kavanagh

It is odd that some professions seem, to some people, inherently ridiculous. There is a play by Graham Greene called The Complaisant Lover in which the errant wife and her gentleman friend find it dif- ficult to take their affair seriously because of the profession of the deceived husband, who is a dentist. Hard to see what is funny about dentists, a useful body of men and women. True, I once came across a funny one from Australia (a place from which many dentists seem to come nowadays) who, as soon as I sat in his chair, pressed a button, rendered me helplessly horizontal and proceeded to recommend a course of dental surgery so exquisitely painful, so doubtful of success and so expensive, that I stared up at a new species of comical effrontery: a torturer who named his scale of fees. I escaped while he was deferentially on the telephone to a titled patient (those who despise dentists have no monopoly of snobbery) and without his assistance, years later, my teeth are still fine thank you.

The ubiquitous conceiver of 'Another voice', in this journal, once described the

Sunday Times as a newspaper 'for upward- ly mobile hairdressers' and while the ex- plicit snobbishness and metaphoric ac- curacy of that remark make me laugh every time I think of it I can see nothing wrong with hairdressers; and as for 'upward mobility' where would the family Waugh be without it? Nothing wrong with that.

There is plenty that is wrong with the Sunday Times however. Perhaps it is the trade of journalist that is becoming truly risible. In the 'Atticus' column, under the heading 'Lay it on me baby' I came across the following: 'I'm sure you know that but- terflies are consumed with lust, spending the whole of their brief lives having it away as much as they can.'

Apart from the doubtful accuracy and slack writing — why is the phrase 'consum- ed with' always married to the word 'lust'? — I have been trying to analyse the spasm of mortal depression that struck me as I in- advertently read that, and was forced to lay the paper aside and stare at the wall. The switch-off button cannot always be operated. You do not have to read such toe- curling facetiousness, but you can do so by mistake, it creeps in everywhere. After all, the Sunday Times has pretensions to being one of our few 'quality' papers and one can give a tolerant shrug of disappointment so often that one's shoulders become stuck near one's ears, the shrug become a catalepsis of despair.

So, at least, I felt, and not for the first time, as I sat staring at the wall, and thought perhaps that a shout of pain now and again, however useless, might be in order.

As a matter of fact I saw butterflies coupling the other day, the first time I have noticed such a thing. At least, I presume that is what they were doing. I noticed a small butterfly buzzing a large one, which was stationary on a grass verge. I wondered why it was doing this, stopped to watch and the smaller butterfly flew away. The large one stayed and as I peered down at it I saw it was really two butterflies — they were Ringlets — quite still and joined end to end. I admired the five circles on each folded wing and went on my way. I had no great thoughts about the beauties of nature, or the mysteries of reproduction, or if I did I was not aware of them. It was an incident, a part of the world, and I walked on. What is certain is that if I had thought of it in the terms of 'Atticus', of those two small but- terflies 'having it away' (what a phrase, for crying out loud!), it would, such is the power of words, have turned grey what was in fact an exceptionally sunny day.

It is silliness we ought to protest about, at the risk of sounding stuffy or priggish, because silliness is the enemy of life. Most wars begin in silliness and the serious conse- quence becomes apparent later, and too late. Those who do not think that silliness is dangerous have never been silly themselves or, rather, have never caught themselves be- ing so, and blushed. It is to be hoped there are not many such people, and perhaps they are all employed by the Sunday Times.