Do You Know Who Wrote That?   –   I Did

The story of the character from the gutter improving themself in character, status and lifestyle beit in ‘Pygmalion’ by George Bernard Shaw or ‘Educating Rita’ by Willy Russell, is one of the basic stories of relationship explored in literature and media.

This scene from Willy Russell’s play and film about Rita, a liverpudlian hairdresser who is being tutored as a mature student by a university don, sees Frank saturated in self-pity and guilty of denying Rita of the literary pleasures and social standing that she desires and he has rejected.

Rita – Yeah. Well, er…I’ll tell you what you can’t bear, Mr Self-Pitying Piss Artist,
what you can’t bear is that I’m educated now. I’ve got what you have and you don’t like it. I mean, good God, I don’t need you. I’ve got a room full of books!
I know what wine to buy, what clothes to wear, what plays to see, what papers to read, and I can do it without you.

Frank – Is that all you wanted? Have you come all this way for so very, very little?

Rita – Oh, yeah, it’s little to you, isn’t it, Frank? Little to you who squanders every opportunity and mocks and takes it for granted.

Frank – Found a culture, have you, Rita? Found a better song to sing? No. You found a different song to sing. And, on your lips, it is shrill and hollow and tuneless. Oh, Rita, Rita, Rita,

This conversation resonates in me in that through my upbringing, life experiences and admitted prejudices, I don’t want Rita to think she sings a better song but for different reasons to Frank.

I’ve always viewed the constraint and imposition of viewing high culture literature and other expressive arts such as opera, ballet and painting as the porthole for cultural acceptance as dismissive and insulting to huge numbers of people. It’s a cultural apartheid where only certain people are considered worthy enough to sit at the high table. Envious? – not a bit of it. In fact, it’s an extremely narrow and limited range of intellectual pursuits by which to discriminate people’s integrity. I have felt what it’s like to be held in this confining set of topics. All attempts to talk about other values and interests are met by a glazed look in some eyes and a silence or a polite acceptance accompanied at intervals by opportune ways to assert court behaviour and social order by perhaps being corrected grammatically or factually by a date, name or other irrelevantly insignificant detail.

Here’s an fictitious example but based on fact! :

Have you ever asked a question of somebody who cannot bear to show that he/she doesn’t know the answer and hence, in their minds, lose face, credibility or status. Perhaps I should say here, ‘an answer’ because invariably you get an answer of sorts but not to the question that you asked.

Hey Nigel, sorry to disturb you but how do you get a Lookup table to work across different worksheets in Excel for our reports?

-Ermm –  I’m not sure, John, without looking at it for longer but did you know, by the way, that an elephant’s got big ears or that Ian McEwan is on the shortlist for the Booker Prize. Anyway, you don’t need to go into that detail for your reports.

OK thanks Nigel, your response was very interesting but alas completely unhelpful because I didn’t ask you for trivia or opinion. Listen Nigel, I wouldn’t think any less of you if you were just honest and say on this particular occasion, you don’t know the answer to my question. I’m not testing you, in fact, I wouldn’t have asked you if I hadn’t thought there was a good chance that you might be able to help me. It’s not a game or contest, you know, we’re not comparing the size of our nobs!

I’ve been entertained in the hallowed dining rooms of the Oxford colleges, taught at one of the country’s most prestigious grammar schools, rubbed shoulders with allumini of the academic world.  Fellow of the Royal Society here, Doctorate there, I must say my gown’s B.Ed colours felt very sorry for itself amongst the grandeose ermin of the Oxbridge dons. I have sat on the banks of both Isis and Cam, punted and hung out with the best of the aspiring class. I remember one particular time when teaching at Oxford, someone asked me, “Do you row?” Not “Can you row?”,  mind. Not – “Are you able to propel yourself through water with the help of oars?” No – that is a different kind of question altogether. This question is like another, “Do you read?” – I think I replied “Only Ceefax pages 341-9 and the Sporting Life” to that one. No – “Do you row?” – Know what I mean, nudge nudge, wink, wink – King Lear, Glyndebourne, Twickers, Blowers, my dear old thing. It’s code, almost masonic but very prevalent because that’s its purpose.

My contention is that Jerusalem is past its sell by date. We no longer need nor should want the world to think of us as ‘Downtown AbbeyLand’ We’re being held back by our antiquated class system and the extemely unmeritocratic and statistically biased selection of our ruling elite. The argument is not that it’s unfair, which it is, but that it’s ruining us. It’s not only the Royal family IQ that’s down the pan as a result of interbreeding. We need freedom for the best genes from all monkeys to come to the fore.

Sir Michael Parkinson gave a wonderful posthumous tribute to union leader Jimmy Reid. In it, he refers to the televised debate that he had with Kenneth Williams, a very entertaining popular guest on his show, despite describing Parkinson as ‘that northern nit’. Williams very much saw himelf as the articulate, well-read sage and loved to flaunt his knowledge to impress his audience. Play the clip below.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-11021287

Do You Know Who Wrote That? – I Did

March 1, 2014