AFTERTHOUGHT
Nods and winks
JOHN WELLS
There was a rustle of mild interest at Siegen earlier this week when the Soviet Grand Master Mr Kortchnoi fell asleep between two moves in the Chess Olympics and over- slept by some minutes the one-hour period officially permitted for pondering. A story which becomes more interesting when seen in the context of history, as a revival of a great tradition that has recently seemed in danger of dying out in an age of efficiency and conformity. Kortchnoi's complaint was known in the Middle Ages in England as `noeding af', or 'hebben ae kip', and was assiduously cultivated as a social grace in the codpieced world of lutes and curly -toes that reached its full, rank flowering in the obscene Minnesang of Walter of Norwich and Geoffrey Pigknees.
As a fragrant adjunct to the minuet of Courtly Love it seems to have originated at the palace of Barberose at Avignon, who punctuated his amorous overtures to Mona the Horrible with `de petites sosmes' during which the pink-bearded potentate abandoned his bulky body to slumber and snored, according to contemporary accounts, 'aveque des siflemens auszi musicals que charmans'. The fashion spread across Europe in a twink- ling, and by 1191 no chatelaine thought her- self happy unless her swain repeatedly fell asleep amid his wooing, if possible in some mannered or awkward posture. He was then, according to courtly lore, to be awakened `with a playful smack or pinch', and if that failed, to be rolled out of bed into a wooden tub of cold water.
Though that particular tradition seems to have fallen into disrepute with the waning of the Middle Ages—Burns, for instance, refers to the act pejoratively in his descrip- tion of King David 'a-nodding at his duty' —it was carried on with, if possible, even greater enthusiasm in the field of diplomacy. The innovator here was probably Daf van Sloot, who was born in Flushing in 1303. After serving his apprenticeship to a maker of feather=beds in the French style he retired at the age of twenty-three and slept uninter- ruptedly for twenty years, being fed with hot schnapps poured through his navel with a funnel. It was from this obscurity that he was called in 1346 to be the chief negotiator at the famous Council of Peace in Ghent with the Cisalpine Frangipanes. He was carried into the Council Room on a litter, greeted the Frangipane spokesman, Arthur Neagus, with a flicker of the eyelids and a rumbling grunt, and went on to sleep through all the Ninety-Nine Proposals.
The infuriated Frangipanes' sacking of Ghent and subsequent withdrawal was re- ceived with widespread rejoicing throughout the Low Countries, and Daf van Sloot was the hero of the hour. Songs were composed in his honour, satirical drawings were pub- lished showing van Sloot as St Anthony, snoring innocently as the vilest temptations were whispered in his ear by horny demons, and the Daf van Sloot nightcap passed into the language as the 'De', the tall, pointed hat of striped wool with a trembling tassel still worn by retired Danish sailors in bed.
More important for the development of diplomacy, the `Sloot' became an accepted move in any official negotiations, and Maurice of Aragon is said to have had such a ludicrously extended Sloot during the addresses of Mendica that the latter was able secretly to unravel his sustry and carry away valuable information to the waiting Venetians.
The most colourful form of the im- promptu doze, however, was that developed
by the brothers Grabboni in 1885. The brothers' circus act consisted originally of a conventional tightrope walk performed at a height of some two hundred feet above
a tank containing hungry alligators and other marine pests. Neither was more than com-
petent, and after a series of accidents public interest in their plodding gymnastics had withered considerably. It was then that Benedict, the younger brother, stumbled on the secret that was to bring them fame and a comfortable old age in one of Europe's leading sanatoria. Falling asleep during an adventurous innovation with a monocycle —the bicycle as such had still to be invented
—and a set of %vres moustache cups, Bene-
dict plummeted snoring through the lamp- lit air and landed with a splash among the predators. Invigorated by his short nap he was able to fight them off and spring nimbly to the brink in order to take his bow.
It was from such fortuitous beginnings that developed such popular favourites as the Snoring Somersault, the Lullaby Whirl, when his brother Arnie would spin round and round the tightrope, happily uncon- scious, and gripping only Benedict's pyjama curd in his teeth, and the classic Falling Asleep Again into a small bucket of iced champagne. The tradition, then, is a rich one, and . Mr Kortchnoi is to be applauded for reviv- ing it: but what opportunities still offer themselves! The slumbering nude at the erotic entertainment, the snoring expert on television—perhaps even the sleeping inter- viewer. Nod off, Britain! It could be our last chance of re-establishing a truly national style!
Previous page
