Paul Johnson

‘We can cause laughing by tickling the skin,’ wrote Darwin in Emotions (1872). We all know that. Difficulties arise when we probe a little deeper, where tickling hovers uncertainly on the borderline between eroticism, buffoonery and the slow, pleasurable but perhaps innocent process of having the flesh gently disturbed by the tips of another person’s fingers. Tickling is a very complicated matter, insufficiently explored by neurologists, Freudians and students of human behaviour, including novelists and poets. Erotic forms of tickling are themselves complex. When the Glasgow girl in the song says ‘Stop yer tickling, Jock!’, does she really mean it? In the phrase ‘slap and tickle’, the man does the tickling and the woman the slapping. Or do they?

For anyone interested in fine painting, as distinct from ‘great art’, there is a treat at the Tate for them: a display of works by British artists, from the 17th to the 20th centuries, who depicted the Orient and those who liked to dress up in Eastern style. Many of the pictures are from private collections, and this is a rare chance to see them; they are often in their original frames, well preserved and of great beauty.

The other evening I went to a ‘pig roast’ in our Somerset village. It was a tremendous turnout from far and wide. There is something about the idea which stirs up deep guzzling instincts, and certainly this pig on his spit looked, and smelt, gastronomically alluring, despite the fact that six of his live colleagues waited in a nearby pen for their ‘pig race’, another local custom. People sat on bales of hay, eating slices of the pork wedged in buns. There is no elegant way of doing this, I reflected, an observation subsequently confirmed by study of the photographs taken. So what?

One of the most moving stories in the history of animal life is the racing career of Red Rum. This little horse won the Grand National in 1973 and 1974, came second the next two years and then, amazingly, won it again in 1977. This third victory, the only such in the history of the race, left the hard-bitten racing crowd in tears. The horse had a proud habit of cocking his ears as he passed the winning post ahead of the field — he knew he had won. He lived to the ripe old age of 30 and is buried beside the starting gate at Aintree. No one can quite explain why certain animals make huge efforts to achieve distinction which in a human context we would call heroic.

Somebody asked: ‘How do you express your love of country in this leaden age? How do you sweep aside the multicultural poison and simply assert — “I am an English patriot?”’ I answer: ‘Create a garden, or help those who do so.’ There is no more English activity than gardening, and it has been so for over a thousand years. Indeed, there were Anglo-Saxon gardens before: traces remain. Gardens grew under castle walls, and were tended by the wives of men who wore chain mail. They took the place of water lilies when the moats were peaceably drained. The first great English essay, written by Francis Bacon early in the 17th century, is ‘Of Gardens’. I have just reread it.

In the early 1960s, Harold Macmillan used to say: ‘The three big interests any prime minister should beware of taking on are the Brigade of Guards, the National Union of Mineworkers and the Roman Catholic Church.’ The maxim was true enough in those days but 50 years later makes little sense. The Brigade still has a certain leverage, I concede, at the War House, more so than Gunners, Sappers, Greenjackets, etc., but is of no consequence outside strictly army affairs. When did you last see a Tory MP or the chairman of a big quoted company wearing a Brigade tie? The power of the NUM was destroyed by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, and Arthur Scargill, the man who helped her do it by his obstinate stupidity, is forgotten.

I recently gave a lecture, on quite a solemn subject, the connection between freedom and the ownership of property, to about 200 people, and was gratified — and surprised — at how well it was received. I think it was because I followed my own maxim, and spoke for only 25 minutes, leaving the rest of the hour for questions. It is a fact of life that any discourse, on any subject, whatever the occasion and whatever the status of the speaker, will always please if it is five minutes shorter than people expect. That is one reason why Lincoln’s Gettysburg address became so famous. Of course what made it so unusual was that in the Victorian period orations of all kinds were expected to be long.

Don’t ask an African elephant to show you his cardiograms I can’t help liking elephants, and I was delighted to receive from India a silk tie with a pattern of these huge and benevolent beasts, raising their trunks in the traditional gesture which means ‘Good morning and good luck’. I once had a beautiful alabaster elephant, made in Benares in the early 20th century, coloured golden yellow and red. Originally in its howdah had reposed the stately squatting figure of Lord Curzon, when viceroy. But time and tide had removed his Lordship, and in due course a dusting fall broke the saluting trunk. Finally, a riotous Old Etonian, while admiring the piece and boasting to me how many OEs had been viceroys, dropped it on the fireplace tiles and it had to be binned.

I sympathise with those mediaeval Jewish rabbis who, asked to describe heaven, pictured it as a perfect library. For them books were, or ought to be, inseparable from holiness. The words themselves, even the ink, had divine attributes. One 11th-century rabbi said that the works already present welcomed or rejected newcomers. They sensed whether new writings were edifying or not. If so, they would crowd themselves together and say: ‘Welcome! Plenty of room here!’ If they smelt wickedness, they would spread out: ‘No place here for you! Go away!’ So the heavenly library was always equally full, or empty, like a magic drinking vessel. This dealt with the main difficulty of an earthly library, a problem which is insoluble.

When the corridors of power echo to the strains of ‘Nil nisi bunkum’ When did the newfangled service for a dead nob first come in — the one that says it is a ‘celebration’ of the life, rather than a lament for the death? I would like to read a learned survey of the subject. When I was a boy in the Thirties, all centred on the funeral, which was a solemn, often grand affair. People counted the number of cars, or carriages, which followed the hearse, and spoke of ‘a forty-carriage do’. Everyone wore mourning black suits, black ankle-length dresses, hats and veils. Sometimes as many as a thousand mourners trudged behind the coffin to the cemetery. As the cortège approached, everyone on the pavements stood still.

Too early yet to say whether the present financial turmoils will end in a catastrophic maelstrom or simply slip away like an angry tide, leaving puddles. One has no great confidence in the authorities on either side of the Atlantic. Would that J.P. Morgan were still around to take charge of things and recreate order out of chaos! He solved three financial crises single-handedly. In 1877 his personal intervention enabled the army’s payroll to be met. In 1893, called in by President Cleveland, he stemmed the gold outflow from the United States. And in 1907 he calmed the universal panic by simply sitting in his library and summoning people to come to him. I know a little about this library because I once gave a series of lectures on American history there.

It would not surprise me if the present Pope, who is a man of strongly conservative instincts but also highly intelligent, energetic and forceful, abruptly decided to introduce women into the Catholic priesthood, and set about this fundamental reform with all deliberate speed. He would be right to do so, for it is urgent and overdue. The shortage of priests, especially in Europe, is now chronic and increasingly damaging. It is shocking to learn that in Catholic Ireland, which from the early Dark Ages until quite recently sent young, enthusiastic and well-educated priests, as pastors and missionaries, all over the world, only nine men were ordained as priests last year. This is only a fraction of the replacement rate. The Irish figures are typical for Europe.

I have no objection to washing up. I prefer it to most other chores. When I was very small my mother allowed me to ‘help’ with the washing up. This meant doing the drying. I got praise for the thorough and conscientious way I did it, polishing the delicate pieces of old china till they reflected the light. My mother had a gift for making all dull jobs seem important and requiring craftsmanship. She said: ‘You’re a first-class dryer now.’ I preferred it to washing up in those days. Now it’s the reverse. I like putting on a big striped apron and taking over the sink.

The Letters of Lytton Strachey, which I have just been reading, are a mixed joy. Odd that a writer supposedly so fastidious in the use of words should have produced effusions in the 1920s using ‘divine’ or ‘divinely’ half a dozen times in a single letter, just like a Bright Young Person from Vile Bodies. On the other hand, they provide nuggets of discreditable facts, chiefly about the sexual tastes of the Great and the Good, such as the Labour Lord Chancellor, Jowett. He also relates how he himself was pleasurably crucified by the young Roger Senhouse, an elaborate business which involved making a blasphemous ‘cut’ in his side.

There are certain words, carrying overtones of money and privilege, which stir up strong emotions. One is ‘private income’. ‘What’s held me back,’ says Uncle Giles in The Music of Time, ‘is that I’ve never had a private income.’ J.B. Priestley used to say, disdainfully, ‘He’s got a private income voice.’ There were various euphemisms used by the squeamish to whom talking about money was indelicate. About 1870, someone noting a list of clergymen at Lambeth Palace inquired what was the significance of the letters ‘W.H.M.’ after the names of some of them. He was told they stood for ‘wife has means’. Another such emotive phrase is ‘expense account’.

It is said that when the British public is asked, ‘What is your favourite poem?’, the one chosen by most people is Kipling’s ‘If’. Is there any evidence for this? And is it still true? And what would the Americans choose? Walt Whitman’s ‘Captain’? No, obviously not. But then what? Longfellow’s ‘The Ship’, I hope. Musing on these things, I decided to compile a list of the best ten short poems in English. That is, my favourite ten: I stake no claims to canonical authority. Here is the result, in no strict chronological order, but according to whim. First I would pick Shelley’s sonnet ‘Ozymandias’, because it illustrates perfectly the essential merits of a good short poem.