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Tuesday 13 November 2012

By (slightly more) popular demand

Brother Sir Hugh says the photographs used in By Unpopular Demand (below) aren’t as he remembers me. I could say he started wearing glasses before I did but I won’t, it would be cruel. At his behest I am posting a more cheerful pic together with what I now see is an unfortunate written example of navel-gazing. I pray for your forgiveness.

 Obviously when I say I don't smile that's not quite true; I have in my time responded to jokes and friendliness. What I mean is I rarely initiate smiles. I distrust the gesture, don't do it well. Here my two brothers Sir Hugh (left) and Nick (right) beam away at the Frenchman we persuaded to take the photo. At best I am smirking.

Which is a shame. This was a happy occasion and grows in retrospective importance given Nick's illness. My failure is even sadder since at the time I was being introduced to sailing which I enjoyed enormously. Despite that I was unable to contort my face appropriately.

For other reasons I've had to reflect on my social inadequacies recently. I conclude I'm not an inter-personal person. Being inarguably a smart-Aleck, I've found a way round this. Social intercourse depends initially on certain familiar approaches which qualify as conversational clichés. I've spent a professional lifetime avoiding clichés. But of course this is sophistry.

The answer is to avoid social encounters which - with a few exceptions, mainly mano a mano - I do. Instead I write, these days more than ever before. I'm lucky in that blogging includes written exchanges with interesting people round the globe so I'm not exactly an anchorite. Americans find my situation unbelievable so there's written mileage to be gained there. Perhaps I need my own French valediction: au revoir becomes au récrire.

9 comments:

  1. Thanks for that.

    What's all this about praying?

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  2. Yes, thank you for that. I just knew you didn't look like a bassett!

    Lovely photo of you and your brothers, too.

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  3. Why do I think it should be reecrire
    (with its accents)? I read you and your kind because I know so little and if you prefer recrire it's ok with me.

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  4. Crow: Lovely? Lovely's for fuchsias.

    Ellena: When you come on this blog, please check-in your modesty at reception. Nobody visiting Tone Deaf ever says anything like "I know so little". I much prefer you to beat your chest, roar in a middle-class Canadian way, and say "It's reécrire, stoopid." If you're kidding, simply roar louder.

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  5. RR! I wish it were modesty. It's the evil lack of self-esteem.
    Reecrire with it's accents. Sounds like a High-Class Dessert on a menu.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Uh...nice? Well-composed or -edited?

    Full of testosterone?

    What would you rather I say about a pleasant looking assemblage of manhood?

    Geeze...

    :~}

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  7. Ellena: We all basically suffer from lack of self-esteem. I, for instance, run a blog to hide the fact.

    The Crow: Look, Ellena is pretty new to Tone Deaf and you're being an absolute pain, showing a very bad exemple. We're better than that, here at Tone Deaf. There's only thing worse than using a cliché and that's a cliché that's half wrong. But there's an even worse crime and that's revealing you've been paying secret visits to It Pays To Increase Your Word-Power in that pile of old copies of Reader's Digests you keep in the corner of your kitchen. Be inventive, Crow, be original; take Ellena by the hand and walk her towards the light in which the upper slopes of Tone Deaf are eternally bathed. (Moral: If youj must use clichés make them big and fancy).

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  8. Listen, thee alter coot! She's Canadien, and far too nice, as I have found Canadians to be, to lead into hell. God knows if she sticks around here, she'll become as corrupt as the rest of thy followers without any help from me.

    Original, hunh? I'll have to get back to you on that.

    ReplyDelete