There should be rules

 previously published on perpetual-lab.blogspot.com on Wednesday, January 13, 2010
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. That was my excuse for escaping the computer screen this morning, where for the last two months I have been crafting a magnum opus—not a work of literature alas, but a piece of software, a gift for the improvement of the world. Gift? Improvement? I can justify these wild words, but later, perhaps. I don’t want to bore you. Here I am in the bus, happily escaping my computer screen; and what do I see but a screen (intended to provide passenger information) on which Windows XP repeatedly tries to boot up, failing every time. “A ‘busman’s holiday’ is a holiday spent by a bus driver travelling on a bus: it is no break from his usual routine.” Such was my computerman’s holiday—on a bus.

I get off the bus at a supermarket in Loudwater to buy bread and sit in their café whilst I scribble these words. On the wall opposite my table is a poster which reads “HAND BATTERED FISH AND CHIPS” with an illustration alongside, and in smaller print “served with peas and a pot of PG tea. ONLY £5!” This sets me off on a silent soliloquy.

“There should be rules for how English is written. Every poster designer in the land should have to pass an exam to show his or her respect for the language. Fish and chips is fish and chips, the national dish of the English, or so it once was: sacred, ritualised, indivisible. The phrase is wrong and impermissible: only the fish is coated in batter, not the chips. And if you are going to hand-batter anything, please hand-batter with a hyphen. But why mention hand-battering at all? The proper way, the only permissible way, is to pick up the raw fillet of cod or plaice by the tail with finger and thumb, dipping both sides into a dish of batter, just before plunging it into a vat of hot oil. Applying literary exegesis, I deduce a tacit allegation that other cafés use factory-battered frozen fish, an abomination unimaginable to me till this minute. And while I am at it, it’s not PG tea. It’s PG Tips tea.

“Yes, there should be rules, as they have in France, where the Académie Française adjudicates on vocabulary and grammar to preserve the othodoxy of the Francophonic domain. I’m not saying that everyone should respect rules to the extreme level of obeying them all the time: but just respect them in a vague respectful kind of way. In English, even the linguists have betrayed the language: especially the linguists. I used to read Language Log, but it made me apoplectic. They tend to mock every rule, and comment on noxious trends with complacency.”

My soliloquy continues: “While I remain alive I shall still uphold the best of the old traditions! But it’s not worth being apoplectic. This is the century of another generation. It’s up to them now, though I will support them (in speaking and writing properly) till my last breath.”

And I’m not finished yet. “Rules should be petty and more or less enforced on the young, for their own souls’ and the world’s benefit. Example: at my school the headmaster (pictured alongside, 1951) delighted in small details. In his class at least, we must use a B pencil (not HB) to draw the margin in each page of our exercise book. The margin must be the width of the standard school ruler. The length of the essay must be four and a half pages; never less and seldom more. The school cap is to be worn in public whenever the school tie and blazer or grey jacket are worn. The cap is to be worn horizontally on the head, the hair combed neat and trimmed short; etc. etc.”

The degree of fuss made about these rules, though gently and humorously, was such as to leave no space for more offensive delinquency. When the urge to teenage rebellion struck, here were enough rules to be disobeyed, without needing to inflict any actual damage on the world.

Not every rule was explicit. After all, certain things are unspeakable. At least they were in those days. One day at morning prayers, the Headmaster included within his homily a grave announcement. A photograph was in circulation. He had no intention of describing its content, other than to say it was an insult to the dignity of the female sex. The younger boys were puzzled, having no idea, I suspect, of what he was talking about. I would have been in some doubt myself, had I not seen the photo the day before. It was a large glossy print in black and white of female pudenda, close-up, luxuriantly post-pubertal. The focus and lighting were exquisite, of professional studio quality. I’ve never seen anything like it since. “Of course,” continues the Headmaster, “this—this object— has been introduced from outside. None of our boys would have perpetrated such a thing. But—before we become corrupted—it must be destroyed at once. Assuming this is done forthwith, no more questions will be asked.” It is only in retrospect, fifty-odd years later, that I had a suspicion as to the identity of the photographer.

Anyway, I’m all for rules.

PS I must be wrong. I met the man in question. He denies it. He was my best friend at school. I accept his denial.