Ventiak
an island somewhere in the brain
I have been reminded, through a conversation with a friend, of a peculiar quirk in my nature. It is all to do with the word 'whiskey'. The misuse of this term engenders in me feelings of passion that are at best unseemly and at worst downright embarrassing.
Under normal circumstances, I believe, I am a tolerant, perhaps even an excessively permissive person, free from almost all pedantic impulses. I can accept mispellings. I don't get apoplectic when someone writes of a dog 'It's bark was worse than it's bite.' I probably wouldn't even notice if 'there' was substituted for 'their'. When it comes to whiskey, though, something snaps in my head. I want to reach for a blue pencil if not a shotgun.
Let me put it simply and clearly. Whiskey is what they drink in Ireland and the USA. Whisky is what they drink in Scotland. There is no such thing as scotch whiskey (unless you happen to be a benighted Yank or a drunken Irishman). It amazes me how many famous writers do not seem to appreciate this point. Our own Bill Manhire is one of them. In his excellent autobiographical essay Under the Influence he talks consistenly of his father drinking whiskey. Given that Manhire senior was a Scotsman, this sounds highly unlikely. If it were true, then it would seem to require an explanation. Why did this man abandon the drink of his forefathers and take to something so alien? Where, too, was the editor that he or she did not pick up on this important point?
I could go on but I won't. Strong emotion seems ridiculous to those who can't share it. I shall calm myself. I shall change the subject and talk about less important things. Like my interview today with the wonderfully enthusiastic Lynn Freeman.
We had a very good and lively conversation, I felt. I don't think I said anything too stupid. Even if I did there's a fair chance she will be kind to me and edit those bits out. So, hopefully, it will advance the sales of the book.
And, thanks to Jennifer's hard work, we now have a venue for the launch - Unity Books, the best bookshop in the country - and we have a launcher, Marilyn Duckworth, whose offer to officiate I deeply appreciate.
Oh, and if you are interested in the interview with Lynn Freeman, you should tune in to Radio New Zealand National - Arts on Sunday at 2.30pm on the 4th February. The others will all be there. I might even have the courage to listen myself.
I have had a nice email from someone called Cynthia who says encouraging things about my writing and about the blog.
She also says she thinks she met Rupert at a national schools orchestra event in the early 80s. She remembers him as playing the double bass and having lovely blonde curls. He did not, however, respond to the eyes she was making over the harp, a fact that seems to cause her a frisson of regret.
I told her that she might indeed be right. Rupert did play the double bass and attended Hutt Valley High School in around 1984. However, I am not sure about the blond curls, although that too seems possible.
What I forgot to mention in my reply is that she should on no account blame his failure to notice her on her own lack of attractiveness. Even at that age, when the hormones are at there most compelling, Rupert would have been unlikely to notice anything that could not be strictly rendered in some system of modal logic.
Amanda agrees with me. She also got quite curious about Cynthia and about the fact that people can email me through this website.
'I answer every one of them,' I told her. 'I'm very responsible about that.'
'So how many have you received?'
'So far? Three.'
'Three? You surprise me.'
'I know it isn't many but...'
'It's three more than I might have expected,' she says.
I could have left it at that but honesty compelled me to confess the true state of things. 'Well, I have to admit that one of them came from my wife, Barbara. And another one I sent myself to test the connection.'
'And the third was from this Cynthia.'
'Yes.'
'Hmm. And you answered them all? Even the test one?'
'I need all the fans I can get,' I tell her.
'It was hardly unsolicited, though. If you sent it yourself.'
'Isn't unsolicited email stuff you don't expect to receive? Given I set this website up, I didn't expect anything on it to work. Getting that email was a very pleasant surprise, believe me. It deserved an answer.'
Which is more than my comment did, it seemed. Amanda just gave me one of her looks and went back to her crossword.
Incidentally, today marks the 51st anniversary of my leaving the land of my birth for these particular shores. I feel that should be worth some kind of portentous comment but I can't think of anything.
Oh, dear. I have my first review and its a bad one from someone called Steve Walker in The Herald on Sunday. Jennifer emailed me a scanned copy that is a bit hard to read but the gist is clear enough. At times like this like this one needs one's friends and mine, of course, gather round to commiserate as soon as I pull out the gin bottle.
'This fellow's completely missed the point,' Amanda says. 'He wants you to have written a piece of social criticism about modern life in the South Pacific. I mean, I wish you'd written that book, too, but you didn't so there's no point in him complaining about you putting bits in there that aren't relevant to that theme.'
'That's one of the Ten Commandments of Book Reviewing,' Felix says. 'Thou shalt not review some other book.'
'He doesn't seem very bright,' Janice says. 'He says here he's confused.'
'He says the story's confused,' I say.
Rupert laughs scornfully. 'That's nonsense. A story can't be confused. That's like saying the gin and tonic's confused or the verandah post is confused. To be confused you have to have a brain.'
'Confus-ing, then. I don't want people to think I've written a confusing story.'
They all think about that for a moment. Have I written a confusing story?
'This Herald on Sunday,' Trevor says. 'That sounds like a religious paper. Is this bloke a clergyman?'
'No. He's head of English at King's College.'
'Ah! That explains it,' Janice says.
'Explains what?'
'Well, he obviously has no sense of humour and he's awfully stuffy and self-important and gets really upset at the idea that someone else might be cleverer than he is.'
'I'm not trying to be clever,' I tell her. 'There's no mileage in that.'
'But you are clever,' she says. 'You can't help it. You think ideas are important. Which they are. Sometimes.'
'They're always good for a laugh,' Trevor says.
'What are?' Amanda hasn't really been listening. She's been watching the birds in the solotu trees.
'Ideas,' he tells her. 'Especially philosophy, that can be very funny.'
Rupert ignores this, which is a good thing. A major confrontation might otherwise be on the cards. He's preoccupied with a different matter. 'This reviewer here, he sounds pretty with it but he knows nothing about logic. He talks about 'clumsily syllogistic musings'. There aren't any syllogisms in your book, are there?'
'I'm not sure. I don't think so,' I say.
'I didn't notice any.'
'What's a syllogism?' Janice asks.
'An argument of a specific form consisting of two premises and a conclusion. For example:
All book reviewers take themselves too seriously.
Steve Walker is a book reviewer.
Therefore Steve Walker takes himself too seriously.
That's a syllogism. And a valid one, too.'
'It's not the syllogisms that worry me,' I say. 'It's the word 'clumsily'.'
'Ah!' Rupert grins. 'If there aren't any syllogisms, there can't be any clumsy syllogisms, can there?'
'Wait a minute. Did you say King's College?' Trevor asks.
'Yes.'
'Well, in the book, Leigh's son Ben is in his last year at King's College, right?'
'Yes, I think so.'
'Well, this bloke Walker probably knows him then. He might well have taught him English. So, what's he on about?'
'He's obviously into this fiction versus reality thing,' Janice says. 'Didn't we decide that was all rubbish?'
'Yes,' Felix agrees. 'Where would we be if anyone could tell the difference?'
'He thinks we don't exist.' Amanda is indignant.
'We don't,' Trevor says. 'Do we?'
'Speak for yourself!'
'Either we exist or he doesn't,' Rupert says. 'He can't have it both ways.'
'Anyway, the main thing is this schoolteacher obviously doesn't know which end is up. Like Janice said.' Trevor nods to emphasise the point.
'I'm sure he's a very nice man,' I say. 'Very intelligent and very well read. And he probably enjoys a good laugh now and again. Anyway, I don't like people dissing schoolteachers. I used to be one myself.'
'And what's one bad review?' Felix asked.
'It's all right for you,' Amanda tells him. 'You only ever get bad reviews. Poor Chris isn't used to it.'
'They're good for you.' Felix takes a big in-breath. He makes a fist and shakes it. 'Bracing!'
An unfortunate development from yesterday's blog. Trevor has become interested in probabilities. He has been asking Rupert about it and, as usual, has got the theory right and the practice wrong.
'This game of yours,' he said. 'You have to spot car number plates in numeric order. Is that right?'
'Yes,' I admit.
'And you're currently looking for a 107?'
'I am.'
'And the probability of the next number plate you see being 107 is 1 in 999. Is that right?'
'Yes,' I say. I am deeply suspicious as to where this is going.
'And the probability of the next number you see being 232 or 916 or 2 or 45 or any other particular number is also 1 in 999?'
'I believe so.'
'Rupert says it is,' he tells me.
'Then I couldn't possibly deny it.'
'Hmm.' He thinks about it for a moment. 'If the probability of you next seeing 107 is the same as the probability of you see the next number that you see, why don't you just look for the next number that you see? In fact, instead of trying to spot these numbers in a particular order, why don't you just collect a whole lot of numbers in the order that you see them? The probability of them occurring in precisely that order would be just as low, which would mean that the observations would be just as meritorious. What do you thin?'
'I'm not sure,' I say.
'In fact, I have an even better idea. Why don't you set up a camera down by the motorway and capture whatever numbers come in whatever order? That can be your collection and we can go down to the pub. Right?'
'Right.'
I have been outed. I confess, I used to be a trainspotter. I don't know how Amanda found out but she is now busy telling everyone we know.
My first reaction was to deny it stoutly or to dismiss it as an aberration from my English childhood but then I realised that the collectors impulse is still with me. I have a habit that I indulge in from time to time that is even more embarrassing in its way than writing down engine numbers in notebooks and later checking them off in the ABC of British Railway Locomotives. I have a game that I play with car number plates.
It goes like this. You have to spot all the numbers from 1 to however many in strict numerical order. So after 1, you have to find a 2 and after 2 a 3 and so on. It doesn't matter what the alphabetical part of the number plate is, just the numeric part. So ABC53 can be followed by XZ54.
I started this game about twenty years ago and so far I am up to 106. This may not seem a lot in twenty years but you have to remember that I don't devote a great deal of time to this exercise (I am not that much of an obsessive) and also that, in those early days at least, the chances of finding the number I wanted were quite small - 1 in 9,999 to be exact. These days the odds have improved and are getting better all the time.
About five or six years ago our number plates changed from two letters and four numbers to three letters and three numbers. Under the new system, the chances of spotting any particular number are 1 in 999 - about ten times better than they used to be. As more and more of the three letter number plates have been issued, my progress has improved. I think it took me about 15 years to get my first 60 - or about one every three months on average. Now its down to one every week or so. Of course, when the odds were smaller I lost interest more often and stopped looking so progress was slowed even more. Nowadays I feel a renewed enthusiasm. With luck I might get to 160 by the end of the year.
I'll keep you posted.