High life
Word power
Taki
This is probably my penultimate column so I thought it a good idea with Christmas coming up to do a bad taste Column for Yule's sake. It all has to do with trading insults for expletives, something that the libel laws of this country have made me an expert in.
Once upon a time, in such reasonably Polite countries as England and France, knowing how to insult was considered a mark of good breeding. It went without saying that even the most cutting remark Could be redeemed by wit, grace, and inventiveness. Practitioners of the devas- tating retort and the elegant riposte — Swift, Pope, and Carlyle among them — delighted in verbal warfare within a set of well-defined rules, for in genteel society four-letter invective was as unfamiliar a happening as a witty remark would be at the picket line today. Thus it is indicative of the philistine times we live in that truly imaginative rudeness has become as rare as a quiet day in Beirut. People nowadays usually resort ro the kind of vulgarity that McEnroe lets loose on tennis officials. Perhaps they should take a lesson from Bitsy Grant, who 1)911 getting a terrible call from a sleeping wimbledon linesman smiled and asked, 'Whatsa matter, buddy, chalk get in your eye?'
Rudeness, however, is often the only Way to reach certain people. Take the case ef the state-appointed art director of the Greek Opera. About ten years or so ago he engaged probably the worst troupe of singers I and many of my countrymen had ever heard, although their political creden- Zals were good for the times; i.e. they were ulgarians. The production was Lucia di 1-arnermoor and in one instance Enrico Lang out in high falsetto: 'Dove la Lucia?' where is Lucia?) But before his friend on st_tage could answer, an angry afficionado "-cml the cheaper seats yelled in a great Daritone, 'She went for a „ Needless to say, the place went wild. reople literally began rolling in the aisles, U nothing the conductor could do and was going to stop them. End of opera. !she result, however, was a good one. es,,etter opera troupes began singing in 4.,t.hens, Rudeness to an artist, a terrible `mag in itself, had worked miracles. , When a dig is made with style, people tend to repeat it more often than the ht)foundest of thoughts. I believe it was Sc astair Forbes who warned his fellow _ribes that Cyril Connolly was 'not as nice 4, man as he looks'. And the Washington lwa,Wyer Clark Clifford tells of a dinner at s,,nl.ch he turned to the young woman "hag next to him and asked politely, 'Did I get your name correctly? Is it Post?' 'Yes,' was her reply.
'Is it Emily Post?' he pursued. The world-renowned authority on manners?'
'Yes,' she again answered. 'Why do you ask?'
'Because you've just eaten my salad.'
Anthony Haden-Guest is a master of rudeness at parties he has not been invited to. When one irate hostess exclaimed surprise that he was there, he simply complimented her on her dress by pointing out how nicely that dress managed to hold all of her together. A much ruder man than Haden-Guest once described the Kennedy apologist Richard Goodwin as a man with the type of face that blind men try to read, i.e. Goodwin has pimples.
Personally, I prefer the more direct approach. Thus, when I had to describe a certain New York billionaire of whom I was not fond, I took a chance and de- scribed him as a man who when sticking his head out of a window would immediately be arrested for mooning. The fact that he never sued did not surprise me. His appearance in court would have won the case for me instantaneously.
The conduct of the Greek Prime Minis- ter a couple of weeks ago was the kind only an insult could put right. I am talking about the way he elbowed all the other leaders in order to be in front when the traditional EEC summit picture was taken. (His veto of Spanish and Portuguese entry is another matter altogether, and the Latins have no one to blame but themselves. Had they read about Greeks bearing . . . etc, they might not have tried so hard to get him elected in the first place.) But how can one expect people like Gaston Thorn and Herr Kohl to resist a barbarian like Papandreou. After all, if I remember correctly, they both sent telegrams to Papandreou's wife when she was badly bitten by a Greek jellyfish and ended up in hosptital. Had they read the Spectator's 'High life' column at the time they would have known that Margaret Papandreou survived but the jellyfish died. I guess they now deserve all they're getting.
Given the fact that most of the leaders of the free world are lily-livered and compla- cent, it has become more important than ever to call a spade a spade. Pests like Papandreou should be told, a la GBS, to go forth and multiply themselves, and perhaps he will be laughed off stage, d la Lucia.
Previous page
