Sour grapes
Jeffrey Bernard
Browsing through a strange bookcase over the wdekend I came across a lovely little number entitled Tearth Yourself Journalism which is. of course, one in that old favourite and long running series the 'Teach Yourself' books. This particular number was first published in 1951. the year of the Festival, and was written by one E. Frank Candlin, I haven't ever heard of Mr Candlin which doesn't mean a thing but I was suspicious enough, not to say in need of a little enlightening, to open it and flick slowly through.
If ideals haven't changed I could tell at a glance that times have. The first thing that caught this jaundiced eye came along in chapter five which was headed 'The Newspaper World', `Fleet Street fully justifies its reputation for hustle, for the demands it makes on its denizens and for the cut-throat competition which exists therein. It is no place for weaklings or for the idle and easy-going. Those who lack a dynamic drive, personal initiative and a supreme confidence in their own abilities will do well to save their train fares.' My italics, by the way. Well, well. As I say. times have changed but not, maybe altogether. A few hours after having borrowed the book, I rested it on the bar of the Yorkminster while on my way to this auspicious journal and. lo and behold, who should walk in to the other end of the bar but the formidable Ms Serious and the only fractionally less redoubtable Mr Monologue. Ships of the line they would have been called circa 1805.
Until that moment, I had been prepared to scorn Mr Candlin's book.Then, glancing across at Serious and Monologue,it occurred to me with a slowly deadening pain that yea verily the cream does rise to the top.There I was, a dead planet beholding stars, and hadn't one of them latterly written, 'To take tea with Bernard Levin and his good friend Arianna Stassinopoulos is a little like being simultaneously stroked by daffodils and comforted with apples'. Who could hold a Dunhill to those lines? And, yes, there is no place in Fleet Street for weaklings or for the idle and easy-going. The bile rose within me and the‘taste of sour grapes became suddenly intolerable. I suddenly felt quite cut off. Forty-seven years old and because of being weak, idle and easy-going highly unlikely ever to command a regular 2,000 words a week in such as the Observer. Oh for a muse of fire, a brain of steel and a tight-lipped smile of determination which would light the editorial office of a National in such a way! Stroked by daffodils. Comforted by apples. That I could never match, Turning to chapter 12 I suddenly light upon an outstanding sentence on The Foreign Correspondent, 'Many temptations beset the path of the accredited journalist overseas.' Now, although I have met men destined for Saigon who inexplicably woke up in paddy fields 'adjacent to Hong Kong, men who, seeking stories in Majorca, have woken up completely bruised and battered at the foot of cliffs in Formentera, men who, like myself, intent years ago on interviewing certain matadors in Seville. have fallen drunk into septic tanks and men who have had to be carried out of various foreign legations in a state of collapse, I'd say that most foreign correspondents have always shunned the temptations placed in their way by those in high places who, to put it crudely, wanted a plug. The steely spirit of Ms Serious and Mr Monologue runs through a good 99 per cent of foreign hacks, thank God, and so it does through the shrewd judges who employ them.
No. Candlin knew his stuff. Page 180. The Editor's Day. I quote, 'The editor of a morning newspaper will begin his day with a careful scrutiny of the other morning issues — his own he will have seen in proof before leaving the office the previous evening.' Well, you could have fooled me. In the first place. is there any proof that he was capable of seeing his proofs the previous evening? And, what does he do when he looks at the other morning papers? He screams. He screams, 'Why the hell didn't we have this story? The best story of the day and you stupid bastards missed it.' Candlin doesn't go on to say that the only solution would be to get Serious and Monologue, because they weren't around when he wrote the book.Had he only known. He could have been stroked by barbed wire and comforted with aloes.
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