DIARY JOHN OSBORNE
Fellow playwright Arnold Wesker recently reproached me about the 'English- ness' felt by aliens like himself who had claimed this land as their home, and referred me to Isaiah Berlin's acceptance speech of the Jerusalem Prize in 1979. He had declared himself formed by three forces: a Jewish background, Russian liter- ature and an adopted English heritage:
All that I have done and thought is indelibly English. I cannot judge English values impar- tially, for they are part of me. I count this as the greatest of intellectual good fortunes. They are the basis of what I believe: that decent respect for others and the toleration of dissent is better than pride and a sense of national mission ... All this is deeply and uniquely English, and I freely admit that I am steeped in it, and cannot breathe freely save in a country where these values are, for the most part, taken for granted.
What eloquent, generous testimony! I then listened to a particularly sullen discussion about the inadequacies of English civilisa- tion for the past thousand years and com- parisons with Afro-Caribbean 'culture'. It seems we're not doing too well. Almost every speaker expressed contempt for the country in which they had grown up. One girl said loftily, 'What civilisation? I don't see no culture.' Cannot someone direct these aggrieved people from their vengeful obsessions with reggae, rap and their past exploiters to at least begin to address their huge inheritance, rather than perpetually spitting on their good luck? Will an Afro- Caribbean ever speak with such endear- ment as a Russian Jew?
Civis Britannicus sum. I do find increas- ingly irksome the foreigners who come here, not to assume the privilege of citizen- ship through absorption (like Isaiah Berlin), but to colonise unashamedly. They are patronising, opinionated, unaffection- ate and yet possessive. They are mostly Americans, Canadians and Australians, foreigners forever to a person. They talk of 'our society' with a proprietory insolence that would be breathtaking if it were not so ridiculous. At present the Canadians are in the ascendant, led by Ms Barbara Amiel and Michael Ignatieff, hot-followed by upside-downers Germaine Greer, Des Wil- son and Clive James. Woman's Hour, TV chat shows and newspapers are littered with their alien, bossy voices. Salman Rushdie would be a sour malcontent wher- ever he lived. Politicians like Bernie Grant simply hate the country altogether, and all its native white detritus. Screeching-beaked cuckoos all. My own ancestors were car- penters, ladder-makers, servants and ostlers in Tudor times. I think it puts me a few points up on all these uppity carpetbag- gers. And yet ... I've come to believe that
Tariq Ali is a truly eccentric Englishman.
Another victory for the lumpenocracy. I'm not much of a one for breakfast televi- sion, having been scared off some years ago in Montreal by the sight of Albert Finney singing love songs in grey flannel trousers just as I was tackling the cornflakes. But Sunday is different, when David Frost (despite his perverse insistence on inviting Andrew Neil to review the papers) presents one of the brisker programmes on the box. Perhaps he spikes the orange juice. Now, as a result of franchise barging, he is to be dumped. A Ms Howell of GMTV (whatev- er that is) says, 'The show doesn't do any- thing for the ratings ... It will be replaced by a leisure show on family matters.' Per- haps Frostie, 'the veteran interviewer' (at all of 53), had it coming. He is increasingly squeezed out in the 'breaks' between mat- ters of state and weight by the ads for plas- tic baubles for the kiddies, plastic bubbles for mum's washing machine and plastic germ-free, rain-free pleasuredomes for all the family.
Frost on Sunday is as Isaiah Berlin com- pared with something called The James Whale Radio Show on ITV, an exercise in troglodyte brutishness and degeneracy, which I suspect is sponsored by the condom industry. It simply should be taken off at once. Here on Central, still reeling from the Whale show, in the nether regions of
• 'I thought John Major was trying to make government more accessible?' the night we get something called Job Find- er. It's rather like looking at cards in a newsagent's window to the accompaniment of a machine-tool beat. The language is a mysterious, factory-floor argot. 'Fully expe- rienced person required by net curtain manufacturer. Must be dedicated.' Who could be dedicated to net curtains in Birm- ingham, Dudley or Wolverhampton? Someone strapping and forward-looking? 'Must have experience within a contract tool environment...' It makes you think.
Athousand Young Methodists took part in a fashion show in Trafalgar Square the other day. The Rev. Dave ('Hi, Dave!') Martin said it was a way for young people to express their faith. I'd once been tempt- ed to put the likes of Rev. Dave into my new play, but thought better of it. The lat- est Methodist report argues that the lan- guage the Church uses to describe God reinforces patriarchy as a 'deep sin'. Bring- ing back sin, now, are they? How do you dress for that? They have a new prayer, too: 'God, our Mother, you hold our life within you, you nourish us at the breast.' No wonder Young Methodists express their faith in fashion. Holy Spirit unisexed and Christ cross-dressed. The liturgical varia- tions are endless.
For any of Knight Bruce's acolyte hacks who venture up to the Marches in search of
my buried love-nest or a rent-boy crouching in the summer-house, I make an abject confession. There is a race of men — and women — whom I see whenever I visit London, that I detest more than all other, even those who use portable telephones on
the train. Their offence is rank, a blasphe- my against the community of man. The Walkman Brigade: I yearn to smash their machines, and them. But when I return to the empty hills beyond my house what am I wearing? A personal stereo. The Dragoon Guards and the Highland Brigade get me up the lower slopes. Handel may lift me to the peak. On my way down, anything from Elgar to Richard Strauss, Arthur Tracey ('The Street Singer') or Fats Waller. I can already sing the whole of Don Giovanni, Fidelio and Cosi with barely a falter. I have started to learn Italian. The dogs are used to me hooting at the sky. But if I see some- one coming I whip off the earphones and bury them deep in my pocket. I smile guilti- ly, high in these blue remembered hills. In summer, however, there is a problem. How do you hide the thing in your shorts? Please don't send a photographer.
John Osborne's new play Dejavu opens at the Comedy Theatre on Wednesday.
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