26 November 2015
Weather
By Chin Chin
I have a nasty feeling that I am under surveillance. No, it’s not that GCHQ is reading my emails. Even in that temple to prying, it would be difficult to find anyone willing to undertake such an unrewarding and tedious chore. Imagine:
“My goodness, Froplinson, he’s started inserting an “r” after each “e” when he writes to his editor. It must be a signal! Wow, what a moment! It makes all those hours of reading his internet shopping lists worthwhile. Should I call the SAS?”
“I think you must’ve missed yesterday’s facebook post asking his friends what to do if you get jam on the keyboard and the keys become stuck together. No, I’d keep it away from the SAS for the time being.”
It isn’t worry that my articles are being analysed by the security services, either. To be honest, I wish they were. Then the readership level might increase and I could charge for some advertising. After all, readers are readers whether they are spooks or not, and if spooks are on the internet all day, either their purchasing habits must be effected or advertising is rather a waste of time.
Anyway, it’s none of these things that worries me but rather the thought that I might be being watched by a higher power – the Almighty himself, in fact. You see every time I finish sweeping the drive there is an immediate gust of wind bringing on a further fall of leaves. If ever I finish polishing the car there is immediate rain. I’m not going to tell you what happens if I arrange for a party in the garden but I think you can already guess. Someone is watching me and having a laugh.
To begin with I thought there was a natural explanation, as there is for buses. Our nearest bus stop is on the route of the No.19 and also the No.43, and it used to astonish me that, if I was waiting for a No.19, I would often see several No.43s go past in a row before my bus came. Obviously there were more No.43s than No.19s. The odd thing was that if I was waiting for a No.43 the reverse was the case. Clearly there was something going on here, some sort of weird conspiracy, but what I never understood was how Transport for London worked out which type of bus I was hoping to catch so that they could remove them from service. Perhaps there was a spy in my house. I took to giving out misleading information about where I was going in the hope that the buses would be misled. Then I tried giving different information to different people so that I could track down the leak like a character in a John Le Carré.
Eventually I decided to face the matter out and to ask Transport for London what they meant by this campaign of harassment. I rang them and announced myself, hoping that my very name would throw them into chaos as they realised that their victim had now got wise to them. In fact the man at the end of the phone was very patient. He listened to what I said and then asked “If you were waiting for a No.19 and one came, would you get onto it?”
“Well, yes, of course,” I replied. “I’m not some sort of idiot.”
“Then if the next one was also a No.19, you wouldn’t see it, would you.”
I put the receiver down rather shamefacedly. The only consolation for my stupidity was that, from the way in which he answered, he had clearly been asked the question before.
But this weather thing is different. There is no rational explanation for that and, what is more, when the downpour or gale comes, it is often accompanied by a low growl of thunder. Could that be an echo of laughter from above the clouds?
Actually the consensus of opinion down in the pub is that this is all nonsense. The truth is that we just have changeable weather and that the changes can often be inconvenient. Still, that begs the question. Why did God, who all those who have not been afflicted with the curse of foreignness know to be partial to the English, leave us with this unpredictable system?
The answer to that seems to be conversation. In England the standard greeting is “Morning, nice/cold/wet/fine day isn’t it.” The uncertainty of the weather gives the person being greeted the opportunity to complete the exchange without having to think about it too much. Other countries also have their standard greetings but generally they cut off the conversation rather than allowing it to flourish. For example, the well-known American greeting “Ok, get out slowly and put your hands on the car” is a bit of a conversation killer. In France, as every schoolboy knows, a greeting will generally include some reference to “the pen of my aunt”, a fascinating topic to be sure but not one well fitted for casual social intercourse. The words “Hey Gringo”, used as a greeting in Mexico often result in an exchange of gunfire rather than words. Anyway, to deliver them properly you need props like a big hat and a cheroot.
More promising is the ubiquitous Eastern European greeting “vehafvays of making you talk” but I have to say that it is a disappointment. Although at first blush it sounds as if it should encourage conversation, it can often be followed by tense silences.
The weather, on the other hand, is a perfect conversational topic, with the potential to be either a social lubricant or a distraction. There is nothing new about this. In the 19th century operetta “The Pirates of Penzance”, the general’s daughters spot that one of their number has fallen in love with a pirate. That leaves them torn between propriety which says they ought to stay and their dislike of spoiling the lovers’ afternoon. They sing their way out of their dilemma with the following words:
“Let us compromise
(Our hearts are not of leather):
Let us shut our eyes,
And talk about the weather.”
It’s a great tune and if the price is that we have to be rained and blown on, well, it is one which I will willingly pay.
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