front of cinemas tell
people: Queue here for 4s 6d; Queue here for 9s 3d; Queue here for 16s 8d
(inclusive of tax). Those cinemas which do not put out these queueing signs
do not do good business at all.
At week-ends an Englishman queues up at the bus-stop, travels out to
Richmond, queues up for a boat, then queues up for tea, then queues up for
ice cream, then joins a few more odd queues just for the sake of the fun of
it, then queues up at the bus-stop and has the time of his life.
Many English families spend lovely evenings at home just by queueing up
for a few hours, and the parents are very sad when the children leave them
and queue up for going to bed.
THREE SMALL POINTS
if you go for a walk with a friend, don't say a word for hours; if you
go out for a walk with your dog, keep chatting to him.
There is a three-chamber legislation in England. A bill to become law
has to be passed by the House of Commons and the House of Lords and finally
approved by the Brains Trust.
A fishmonger is the man who mongs fish; the ironmonger and the
warmonger do the same with iron and war. They just mong them.
2. How to be a Particular Alien
A BLOOMSBURY INTELLECTUAL
they all hate uniforms so much that they all wear a special uniform of
their own: brown velvet trousers, canary yellow pullover, green jacket with
sky-blue checks.
The suit of clothes has to be chosen with the utmost care and is
intended to prove that its wearer does not care for suits and other petty,
worldly things.
A walking-stick, too, is often carried by the slightly dandyfied
right-wing of the clan.
A golden chain around the ankle, purple velvet shoes and a half-wild
angora cat on the shoulders are strongly recommended as they much increase
the appearance of arresting casualness.
It is extremely important that the B.I. should always wear a three-days
beard, as shaving is considered a contemptible bourgeois habit. (The
extremist left-wing holds the same view concerning washing, too.) First one
will find it a little trying to shave one's four-day beard in such a way
that, after shaving, a three days old beard ration should be left on the
cheeks, but practise and devoted care will bring their fruits.
A certain amount of rudeness is quite indispensable, because you have
to prove day and night that the silly little commonplace rules and customs
of society are not meant for you. If you find it too difficult to give up
these little habits - to say 'Hullo' and 'How d'you do?' and 'Thank you,'
etc. - because owing to Auntie Betty's or Tante Bertha's strict upbringing
they have become second nature, then join a Bloomsbury school for bad
manners, and after a fortnight you will feel no pang of conscience when
stepping deliberately on the corn of the venerable literary editor of a
quarterly magazine in the bus.
Literary opinions must be most carefully selected. Statements like this
are most impressive. 'There have been altogether two real poets in England:
Sir Thomas Wyatt and John Ford. The works of the rest are rubbish.' Of
course, you should include, as the third really great, colossal and
epoch-making talent your own friend, T. B. Williams, whose neo-expressionist
poetry is so terribly deep that the overwhelming majority of editors do not
understand it and refuse to publish it. T. B. Williams, you may proudly
claim, has never used a comma or a full stop, and what is more, he has
improved Apollinaire's and Aragon's primitive technique by the fact that he
does use question marks. (The generous and extravagant praise of T. B.
Williams is absolutely essential, otherwise who will praise you?)
As to your own literary activities, your poems, dramas and great novels
may lie at the bottom of your drawer in manuscript form. But it is important
that you should publish a few literary reviews, scolding and disparaging
everything and everybody on earth from a very superior and high-brow point
of view, quoting Sir Thomas Wyatt and anything in French and letting the
reader feel what you would be able to do if you could only find a publisher.
(Some practical advice. It is not difficult to have a few literary reviews
published. Many weeklies and monthlies would publish anything in their
so-called literary columns, if it costs nothing. You must not call your
action unfair competition with qualified reviewers; call it devotion to the
'cause.' Almost every paper has a cause - if yours has not, invent one, it
is quite easy. And it really does not matter what you write. I remember one
B.I. writing of a significant philosophical work and admitting in the
opening sentence that he did not understand it; still, I suppose the review
passed as buoyant and alarmingly sincere.)
Politically you must belong to the extreme left. You must, however,
bear a few things in mind:
1. You must not care a damn about the welfare of the people in this
country or abroad, because that would be 'practical politics' - and you
should only be interested in the ideological side of matters.
2. Do not belong to any party, because that would be 'regimentation.'
Whatever different parties achieve, it is much more interesting to criticize
everyone than to belong to the herd.
3. Do not hesitate to scorn Soviet Russia as reactionary and
imperialistic, the British Labour Party as a conglomeration of elderly Trade
Union Blimps, the French Socialists as 'confused people,' the other Western
Socialist parties as meek, bourgeois clubs, the American labour movements as
being in the pay of big business; and call all republicans, communists,
anarchists and nihilists 'backward, reactionary crypto-fascists.'
You should also invent a few truly original, constructive theories too,
such as: Only Brahmanism can save the world.
Spiritualism is a factor, growing immensely in importance, and a
practical, working coalition between ghosts and Trotskyites would be highly
desirable.
The abolition of all taxation would enrich the population so enormously
that everybody would be able to pay much more taxes than before.
Finally, remember the main point. Always be original ! It is not as
difficult as it sounds: you just have to copy the habits and sayings of a
few thousand other B.I.s.
MAYFAIR PLAYBOY
Fix the little word de in front of your name. It has a remarkable
attraction. I knew a certain Leo Rosenberg from Graz who called himself
Lionel de Rosenberg and was a huge success in Deanery Mews as a Tyrolean
nobleman.
Believe that the aim of life is to have a nice time, go to nice places
and meet nice people. (Now: to have a nice time means to have two more
drinks daily than you can carry; nice places are the halls of great hotels,
intimate little clubs, night clubs and private houses with large radiograms
and no bookshelves; nice people are those who say silly things in good
English - nasty people are those who drop clever remarks as well as their
aitches.)
In the old days the man who had no money was not considered a
gentleman. In the era of an enlightened Mayfair this attitude has changed. A
gentleman may have money or may sponge on his friends; the criterion of a
gentleman is that however poor he may be he still refuse to do useful work.
You have to develop your charm with the greatest care. Always laugh at
everybody's jokes - but be careful to tell a joke from a serious and
profound observation. Be polite in a teasing, nonchalant manner. Sneer at
everything you are not intelligent enough to understand. You may flirt with
anybody's wife, but respect the ties of illegitimate friendships - unless
you have a really good opportunity which it would be such a pity to miss.
Don't forget that well-pressed trousers, carefully knotted ties and silk
shirts are the greatest of all human values. Never be sober after 6.30 p.m.
HOW TO BE A FILM PRODUCER
A little foreign blood is very advantageous, almost essential, to
become a really great British film producer.
The first aim of a British film producer should be to teach Hollywood a
lesson. Do not be misled, however, by the examples of Henry V or Pygmalion,
which tend to prove that excellent films can be made of great plays without
changing the out-of-date words of Shakespeare and the un-film-like dialogues
of Shaw by ten 'experts' who really know better.
Forget these misleading examples because it is obvious that Shakespeare
could not possibly have had any film technique, and recent research has
proved that he did not even have an eight-seater saloon car with his own
uniformed chauffeur.
You must not touch any typically American subject. For instance: a
young man of Carthage (Kentucky) who can whistle beautifully goes to town,
and after many disappointments forms his own swing-band and becomes the
leading conductor of New York's night life - which, if you can take the
implication of Hollywood films seriously, is one of the highest honours
which can be conferred on anyone in that country. At the same time he falls
in love with the cloakroom attendant of a drug-store* round the corner, a
platinum-blonde, ravishingly beautiful, who sings a little better than Galli
Curci and Deanna Durbin rolled into one and, in secret, has the greatest
histrionic talent of the century.
*Please note my extensive knowledge of the American language.
After a last-minute scandal with the world-famous prima donna she saves
the first night of her lover's show in the presence of an audience of six
million people by singing Gounod's slightly adapted song. (If you would be
my tootsie-bootsie, I would be your tootsie-bootsie'.) The young and mighty
successful band-leader marries the girl and employs Toscanini to clean his
mouth-organ. Or - to mention just one more example of the serious and 'deep'
type of American films - there is a gay, buoyant, happy and miserably poor
young man in New Golders Green (Alabama), who becomes tremendously rich just
by selling thousands of tractors and jet-propelled aeroplanes to other poor
fellows. The richer he becomes, the unhappier he is - which is a subtle
point to prove that money does not mean happiness, consequently one had
better be content to remain a poor labourer, possibly unemployed. He buys
seven huge motor cars and three private planes and is bitter and pained; he
builds a magnificent and ostentatious palace and gets gloomier and gloomier;
and when the woman he has loved without hope for fifteen years at last falls
in love with him, he breaks down completely and groans and moans desperately
for three days. To increase the 'deep' meaning of the film they photograph
the heroes from the most surprising angles: the cameraman crawls under
people's feet, swings on the chandelier, and hides himself in a bowl of
soup. Everybody is delighted with the new technique and admires the
director's richness of thought. English film directors follow a different
and quite original line. They have discovered somehow that the majority of
the public does not consist, after all, of idiots, and that an intelligent
film is not necessarily foredoomed to failure. It was a tremendous risk to
make experiments based on this assumption, but it has proved worth while.
There are certain rules you must bear in mind if you want to make a really
and truly British film.
1. The 'cockney heart' has definitely been discovered, i.e. the fact
that even people who drop their aitches have a heart. The discovery was
originally made by Mr Noel Coward, who is reported to have met a man who
knew someone who had actually seen a cockney from quite near. Ever since it
has been essential that a cockney should figure in every British film and
display his heart throughout the performance.
2. It has also been discovered that ordinary men occasionally use
unparliamentary expressions in the course of their every-day conversation.
It has been decided that the more often the adjective referring to the
sanguinary character of certain things or persons is used and the
exclamation 'Damn I ' is uttered, the more realistic and more convincing the
film becomes, as able seamen and flight-sergeants sometimes go so far as to
say 'Damni ' when they are carried away by passion. All bodies and
associations formed to preserve the purity of the English soul should note
that I do not agree with this habit - I simply record it. But as it is a
habit, the author readily agrees to supply by correspondence a further list
of the most expressive military terms which would make any new film
surprisingly realistic.
3. Nothing should be good enough for a British film producer. I have
heard of a gentleman (I don't know whether the story is true, or only
characteristic) who made a film about Egypt and had a sphinx built in the
studio. When he and his company sailed to Egypt to make some exterior shots,
he took his own sphinx with him to the desert. He was quite right, because
first of all the original sphinx is very old and film people should not use
second-hand stuff; secondly, the old sphinx might have been good enough for
Egyptians (who are all foreigners, after all) but not for a British film
company.
4. As I have seen political events successfully filmed as
detective-stories, and historical personages appear as 'great lovers' (and
nothing else), I have come to the conclusion that this slight change in the
character of a person is highly recommendable, and I advise the filming of
Peter Pan as a thriller, and the Concise Oxford Dictionary as a comic opera.
DRIVING CARS
it is about the same to drive a car in England as anywhere else. To
change a punctured tyre in the wind and rain gives about the same pleasure
outside London as outside Rio de Janeiro; it is not more fun to try to start
up a cold motor with the handle in Moscow than in Manchester, the roughly
50-50 proportion between driving an average car and pushing it is the same
in Sydney and Edinburgh.
There are, however, a few characteristics which distinguish the English
motorist from the continental, and some points which the English motorist
has to remember.
1. In English towns there is a thirty miles an hour speed-limit and the
police keep a watchful eye on law-breakers. The fight against reckless
driving is directed extremely skilfully and carefully according to the very
best English detective-traditions. It is practically impossible to find out
whether you are being followed by a police car or not. There are, however, a
few indications which may help people of extraordinary intelligence and with
very keen powers of observation:
(a) The police always use a 13 h.p., blue Wolseley car;
(b) three uniformed policemen sit in it; and
(c) on these cars you can read the word police written in large letters
in front and rear, all in capitals - lit up during the hours of darkness.
2. I think England is the only country in the world where you have to
leave your lights on even if you park in a brilliantly lit-up street. The
advantage being that your battery gets exhausted, you cannot start up again
and consequently the number of road accidents are greatly reduced. Safety
first !
3. Only motorists can answer this puzzling question: What are taxis
for? A simple pedestrian knows that they are certainly not there to carry
passengers. Taxis, in fact, are a Christian institution. They are here to
teach drivers modesty and humility. They teach us never to be
over-confident; they remind us that we never can tell what the next moment
will bring for us, whether we shall be able to drive on or a taxi will bump
into us from the back or the side. ' ... and thou shalt fear day and night,
and shalt have none assurance of thy life' (Deut., chapter 28, verse 66).
4. There is a huge ideological warfare going on behind the scenes of
the motorist world.
Whenever you stop your car in the City, the West End or many other
places, two or three policemen rush at you and tell you that you must not
park there. Where may you park? They shrug their shoulders. There are a
couple of spots on the South Coast and in a village called Minchinhampton.
Three cars may park there for half an hour every other Sunday morning
between 7 and 8 a.m.
The police are perfectly right. After all, cars have been built to run,
and run fast, so they should not stop.
This healthy philosophy of the police has been seriously challenged by
a certain group of motorists who maintain that cars have been built to park
and not to move. These people drive out to Hampstead Heath or Richmond on
beautiful, sunny days, pull up all their windows and go to sleep. They do
not get a spot of air; they are miserably uncomfortable; they have
nightmares, and the whole procedure is called 'spending a lovely afternoon
in the open.'
THREE GAMES FOR BUS DRIVERS
if you become a bus driver there are three lovely and very popular
games you must learn to play.
1. Blind man's buff. When you turn right just signal by showing two
millimetres of your finger-tips. It is great fun when motorists do not
notice your signal and run into your huge bus with their tiny cars.
2. Hide and seek. Whenever you approach a request stop hide behind a
large lorry or another bus and when you have almost reached the stop shoot
off at a terrific speed. It is very amusing to see people shake their fists
at you. It is ten to one they miss some important business appointment.
3. Hospital game. If you have to stop for one reason or another, never
wait until the conductor rings the bell. If you start moving quickly and
unexpectedly, and if you are lucky - and in slippery weather you have a very
good chance - people will fall on top of one another. This looks extremely
funny from the driver's seat. (Sometimes the people themselves, who fall
into a muddy pool and break their legs, make a fuss, but, alas! every
society has its bores who have no sense of humour and cannot enjoy a joke at
their own expense.)
HOW TO PLAN A TOWN
britain, far from being a 'decadent democracy', is a Spartan country.
This is mainly due to the British way of building towns, which dispenses
with the reasonable comfort enjoyed by all the other weak and effeminate
peoples of the world.
Medieval warriors wore steel breast-plates and leggings not only for
defence but also to keep up their fighting spirit; priests of the Middle
Ages tortured their bodies with hair-shirts; Indian yogis take their daily
nap lying on a carpet of nails to remain fit. The English plan their towns
in such a way that these replace the discomfort of steel breast-plates,
hair-shirts and nail-carpets.
On the Continent doctors, lawyers, booksellers -just to mention a few
examples - are sprinkled all over the city, so you can call on a good or at
least expensive doctor in any district. In England the idea is that it is
the address that makes the man. Doctors in London are crowded in Harley
Street, solicitors in Lincoln's Inn Fields, second-hand-bookshops in Charing
Cross Road, newspaper offices in Fleet Street, tailors in Saville Row,
car-merchants in Great Portland Street, theatres around Piccadilly Circus,
cinemas in Leicester Square, etc. If you have a chance of replanning London
you can greatly improve on this idea. All greengrocers should be placed in
Hornsey Lane (N6), all butchers in Mile End (e1), and all gentlemen's
conveniences in Bloomsbury (WC).
Now I should like to give you a little practical advice on how to build
an English town.
You must understand that an English town is a vast conspiracy to
mislead foreigners. You have to use century-old little practices and tricks.
1. First of all, never build a street straight. The English love
privacy and do not want to see one end of the street from the other end.
Make sudden curves in the streets and build them S-shaped too; the letters
L, T, V, Y, W and 0 are also becoming increasingly popular. It would be a
fine tribute to the Greeks to build a few ¿¤ and ½˜-shaped streets; it would
be an ingenious compliment to the Russians to favour the shape ¿¯, and I am
sure the Chinese would be more than flattered to see some