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THE TREMULOUS UPPER LIP
Was the British labium superior ever stiff? It’s something certain English
classes prided themselves on. The ideal of
the nineteenth century Raj was to continue
phlegmatically chewing one’s tiffin even
as mutinying sepoys marched towards one over
the blood-drenched lawn. You didn’t show
your fear any more than any other feelings:
to have done so would have been weak. Like
all ideals it was proved by its many exceptions;
but generally the affluent middle and upper
classes maintained this fiction in all seriousness.
Today our lips are veritably
wobbling. The change may have begun in 1997
with the death of Princess Diana when we
outdid each other to make them quiver more
than anyone else in the land. Now the paradigm
is to show your emotions even if you don’t
feel them. Tears, which used to be considered
private, are now to be recorded by television
cameras. We exult not so much in sorrow,
love or fear as in the exhibition of these.
'We sit there quietly and look around his
room,’ said Mr Jones.
‘It has not sunk in yet that he is not coming
back.
‘I go and sit in Rhys’s room and on his bed.
I go and draw the curtains and put the light
on every night. I’m still doing it because
it is really hard to stop.’¹ |
One recent example will suffice:
This is the father of the eleven-year-old
who’s just been murdered. Now I don’t question
his grief, but I am certain that something
happens to the most heartfelt feelings as
soon as they are subjected to television
scrutiny. Physicists tell us that inanimate
phenomena may ‘behave’ differently under
observation; but if this is true of subatomic
particles, it is a fortiori that much easier
to understand that a multi-atomic human being
is yet more reactive to examination.
Under the
alchemy of
being the object of attention
– nationwide
attention – genuine grief can
become maudlin,
gushing, mawkish, unctuous and
schmaltzy.
It can also produce bad poetry.
Rhys Jones’s
father was not only to write
but to share
an appalling piece of doggerel
with the public
in the pages of the Liverpool
Echo, which
I feel obliged to subject you
to all over
again:
Now God wanted a football match
And to play it up in heaven
But first he needed players
And select his first eleven.
Georgie Best, big Brian Labone
The legend Dixie Dean
Alan Ball and Bobby Moore
All made it in the team.
He needed one more player
Someone who would be quick
From up above he looked down
And saw Rhys there in his kit.
So Rhys was taken up above
God took him by the hand
To play the game he loved so much
Where sponsorship is banned.
There is no cheating either as
God is the referee
There are no mega wages
And the transfers they are free.
The games are live on telly
You don't have to subscribe
The players all stay on their feet
Cos no one takes a dive.
So Rhys plays now so happily
To the angels in the crowd
And every time he hits the net
They roar his name so loud.
Have fun my little blue boy
You're safe and in God's care
Till it's time for me to get my boots
And join with you up there. |
There, you see it. Even the ghost
of a sense
of humour doesn’t compensate
for this depth
of the bathos.
Maybe our upper lips
should rigidify at least a little.
¹The Telegraph, 31 August 2007.
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Evans Experientialism 
