28 Saturday January 1 2022 | the timesComment
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1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GFwished a happy 354th birthday “to
the great Dean, Dr Swift. Almost all
his quotes are applicable to Twitter
but I think one of the most
appropriate is this: ‘Pedantry is
properly the over-rating of any kind
of knowledge we pretend to.’”
I imagine a detailed investigation
of Swiftisms would come up with
plenty that would be applicable just
as well to Feedback.Same old new year wish
‘T
he commencement of a new
year cannot, to the wise and
considerate, but furnish
matter for useful reflection.” Not an
original thought, but it launched one
of the first letters to the editor,
published on January 3, 1785.
Allowing for the language, much
of the rest of the letter sounds like
the sort of self-help homily we’re still
subjected to today. “Are we wiser and
worthier than in the preceding
year?” the writer asked. “Is our
advance in goodness evidenced by
universal benevolence, and a regular
self command? Have evil desires and
inclinations less power over us, or is
the government of the passions less
irksome? Are our tastes refined, our
tempers sweetened?”
Fat chance, said the writer. “Alas!
Our thoughts are too much engaged
by trifling, vain pursuits, the mind
lies fallow and the most noxious
weeds spring up in it. Happiness is
sought in every place but where it is
to be found, viz, within ourselves.”
Here’s to fewer noxious weeds and
more happiness all round in 2022.an exaggerated portrait of Mozart.
“However,” he says, “there are
numerous contemporary records of
his scatological language, obsession
with bodily functions, infantile
behaviour and so on. It’s quite
possible, in my view, that many of his
contemporaries regarded him as a
prat (or whatever the 18th-century
Viennese word was) as well as a
genius.”
Mozart’s sister, Nannerl, Richard
points out, had this to say about him:
“This same being who, considered as
an artist, had reached the highest
stage of development even from his
very earliest years, remained to the
end of his life completely childish in
every other aspect of existence.
Never, until he died, did he learn to
exercise the most elementary forms
of self-control.”
Even allowing for sisterly rivalry,
that sounds a fair definition of a prat.Swift’s travels in time
T
he photograph of a blonde in
sequinned shorts should have
been a clue but my first
instinctive reaction on seeing a
headline referring to “Swift” was that
we’d discovered some important
news about the author of Gulliver’s
Travels, rather than the nowadays
infinitely more famous Taylor.
In this I’d like to think I have
something in common with the Rev
Fergus Butler-Gallie, whose Twitter
account shares insightful reflections
about Carry On films and — usually
unconnected — the Church of
England. A month or so ago hegive us a better service for our
money and to find a method to
reduce costs, for that is the only way
by which charges can be lowered.”
A textbook case for the patron
saint of lost causes, I would say.Prattling genius
W
as Mozart a prat? In his
review of Nigel Kennedy’s
autobiography, our arts
commentator Richard Morrison
wondered, “How can a musical
genius capable of touching the soul
in so many different styles be such a
prat in daily life? I expect they asked
the same question about Mozart.”
This prompted an email from Peter
Hill, eminent pianist and honorary
professor of music at the University
of Sheffield. Professor Hill says he is
in the process of preparing online
talks about Mozart, and has read a
number of biographies, letters and so
on. “His extraordinary talent seems
to have aroused universal admiration
along with predictable instances of
professional jealousy. But I have
failed to find any examples where a
writer describes Mozart’s behaviour
as prattish. On the contrary, the
eyewitness accounts describe him as
dignified and courteous. He was high
spirited and with a sparkling sense of
fun, and a brilliant observer of
human failings and foibles — hardly
surprising in the composer of Figaro
or Così fan tutte. Could it be that the
fictitious characterisation found in
Amadeus, particularly the film of the
play, has entered the mainstream?”
Richard agrees that Amadeus gaveA
t this time of year, when
tradition and ritual rule,
it’s good to see that The
Times’s annual festival of
complaining about the
Christmas postal service is going as
strong as ever. One would hardly
think, from the expressions of
puzzlement, vexation and annoyance
on the last week’s letters pages, that
e-cards or online delivery services
existed. Certainly the complaints
would have come as no surprise to
any previous letters editor in the
paper’s history.
A hundred years ago this week we
trumpeted, in bold capitals, the
headline, “ELEVEN MILES IN FIVEA hundred years
of waiting for the
Christmas post
DAYS”. It was the latest episode in a
long-running campaign on the
shortcomings of the Post Office,
which resulted in a deluge of readers’
letters, especially relating to their
Christmas post.
“For instance, a lady informs us
that a parcel which she dispatched
on December 20 to an address in
Lyme Regis did not reach its
destination until December 27.
Another gives an example of a parcel
posted at Balham, which, bearing the
postmark December 22, reached its
recipient at Woldingham, only 11
miles away, on December 27.”
By today’s standards those delays
don’t actually seem drastic at all.
One “very old subscriber”, as we
described him, did put up a bit of a
defence of the Post Office, but only
by saying that some of the blame for
a rotten service should be put on
customers. “Let us give up grousing,”
he concluded, “for the sake of
grousing, and try to bring what
pressure we can on the Post Office toRos e
Wild
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