Editors' Introduction
Issue 7
HoW is a regular reader of the Guardian newspaper’s website (http://www.guardian.co.uk), not least, its section on football (i.e. soccer). There’s quite a lot of good sports writing to be found on the site, but one feature that we regularly turn to is not particularly informative about football. It’s called "Small Talk," and that’s just what it is. Small Talk interviews sporting figures, mostly (Sir Cliff Richard is one exception), with the emphasis on football, although rugby, snooker, and darts make strong appearances as well. There are a few questions about the interviewees’ career, and then Small Talk gets down to the so-called Important Questions: things like, favorite biscuit, last CD bought, and who would win in a fight between a lion and a tiger. It’s all suffused with an easygoing and charming wit, and the celebrity’s personality often comes through delightfully on the page. Here’s an example featuring Liverpool and Scotland legend Kenny Dalglish, moving from a career question to an "important" one:
Which goal was better - the winner in the 1978 European Cup final or the volley at Stamford Bridge in 1986?
The guys in the pub can argue about it. I'll put the two of them on a dead heat, there. I'll tell you what, it didn't matter that I scored the goals, it only mattered that we won. And it didn't matter what you won, you always enjoyed it.
What was the last CD you bought?
Motown Magic, is it?
Erm, possibly.
It's a compilation. Aye, Motown Magic.
Is it any good?
[Sounds highly excited] Oh aye, it's top notch, the old Motown Magic!
Does any one track stand out?
No, they're all classics on Motown Magic.
It helps if you know who Kenny Dalglish is, but not knowing is not an insurmountable obstacle. Clearly, none of this is important in any real sense. Dalglish comes off as a pleasant person; his response to the career question is modest, and his response to the CD question is good-natured. Again, not really important; but then, neither is most biography.
For an opposite illustration, consider the recent interview with the first man to run the mile in under four minutes, Sir Roger Bannister. Sir Roger comes off as a bit long-winded and full of himself—not that we’re saying he shouldn’t be. But he’s not exactly the sort of person you’d fancy having a pint with. Take, for example, his response to the career questions, and then the Important Questions:
Ah the book, The First Four Minutes - out now in all good etc. and so on...
Yes, it's been reissued to mark the 50th anniversary. And then I thought, that's that. I've said what I feel about it, I hope it encourages young people to get involved in things like this, and I got my head down and spent the next 10 years doing only medicine. After that I... [There then follows a no-stone-unturned recap of Sir Roger's life and achievements, which threatens to eat into Small Talk's Important Questions Time]... so I'm able to look again at what happened.
Right. You must have been knackered at the end of that run...
Well, the way I look at it is the pain of increasing lactate acid of the muscles, which increases because you can't get enough oxygen through breathing, I think that's rather cancelled out by the exhilaration and the mental excitement of it all. It tended to deaden the actual pain until the event's over [. . .] Right, well is there anything else you want to know?
Well, I'll be honest, Sir, yes. What's your favourite biscuit?
Oh I don't answer questions about biscuits.
Why not?
Oh no, no, no, no, no. I'm not into biscuits.
Eh? Everybody likes a nice biscuit...
Well, I'm not sure what the purpose of that aspect of the interview is. It's quirky, gameshowy, odd.
Odd? We just want to know what makes you tick...
Well, I like the odd round of golf, I took up sailing... and I took my Master's certificate at Pimlico Comprehensive School, learning about meteorology, weather signals and engine failure. And I've got 14 grandchildren, you know, how about that?
Yes that's ver...
And we went sailing on a cruiser across to France and had an engine failure in the middle of the most busy shipping route, in which all these transport container ships could not have seen my little deflector and my mast-head. So I decided my ambitions on the sea were greater than my competence. Then I moved to Oxford and I have a walking group and a book club and I still...
Yes, yes, but what about the lion v the tiger, who would win that?
No, no, no. It's not really important, is it?
Yes, it is. What sort of music do you like?
Well, classical, but I must say again that music isn't top of my agenda. I enjoy singing, and the instruments which truly move me are the horn, the trumpet and the cello.
Cheese or chocolate?
No, no, no. All right, I think you've got more than enough, there.
What about pie fillings?! Steak and kidney or chicken and mushroom?
Thank you so much. All the best.
Bah!
You see, Sir Roger is wrong. It’s not that "cheese or chocolate?" is important; in fact, it’s an everyday, boring sort of question. But it’s not Sir Roger’s record-breaking run that makes him who he is, nor is it his medical career, etc. It’s the everyday stuff.
Here at HoW, we’re after the mysteries of the ordinary. In this issue, Jim Kirchner engages in some table-rapping with two mediums of the spirit of Rock ‘n’ Roll, one of which is the film School of Rock; Cheryl Peletier-Davis convenes her own classroom on the Caribbean with "Calypso 101"; Margaret Fast relates the shocking true tale of a librarian turned into plastic; Allen Frost triangulates the ghostly connections between the Caribbean, Harry Houdini, and Humphrey Bogart; and Jeff Purdue visits the lost world of Yasujiro Ozu.
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