Random reminder

Press, 30 August 1984, Page 29

Random reminder

RING A RING OF ROSES

Of course you may use the telephone. I shall close this door because a friend is resting. Help yourself. (Later). You are welcome. Goodbye. What on earth was she talking about? She must have been there for forty-five minutes. Could you hear? Dreadfully distinctly, thank you. She was — are you sitting comfortably? She was letting a friend know what she had said to them and what they had said to her, what she should have said to them, what she might otherwise have said to them, and what she planned to be saying to them next time. She hoped that the friend agreed that that was showing them what them was thought of, indeed, that that was showing them how little them was thought of, nay, verily, that if them thought that them was worth a second thought then them was quite

wrong and she could prove it. She proved it, at least to her own satisfaction, now and forever, in the past, in the present, in the future historical, and in the perfect conditional continuous. She said what she had to say, she said what she would like to have said, and she said what it was that she would be saying if it were to be that things were not to be as they were at the moment. She said ... are you listening? Not since about Tuesday or that last auxiliary verb cluster reminiscent oi Hemingway, whichever came first. I have been examining the telephone table. Have you become a doodler? No.

Then it must have been she. Never mind, it can always be re-polished. Anyhow, she did the decent British thing. What was that? She left six cents for the phone call.