THE PARROT’S RIVALS

Evening Star, Issue 22893, 26 February 1938, Page 3

THE PARROT’S RIVALS

[Written by Mart Scott, for the ‘ Evening Star.’}

“He would be a brave man who would keep a parrot and a wireless in the same house ” ; I had read tho words on this page a few weeks ago,, hut, beyond a passing sympathy for the parrot, I had thought no more about them. But yesterday I went to a party at a friend’s house and on the very doorstep was confronted with a babel of sound so awful that I realised that the worst had happened. Here was a brave spirit doing just what the writer in the * Observer,’ whose words I had seen quoted, had condemned. From tho turmoil of noise within the house three principal soloists presently ©merged—the owner of a high, incessant soprano voice tirelessly chattering, the blare of a wireless recording a troop of nasal Americans, the occasional melancholy shriek of a parrot. From the first moment I unhesitatingly preferred the parrot. It was a memorable afternoon ; and during its relentless course my prejudice in favour of cocky deepened. The din was startling to ears unaccustomed,to incessant noise. Presently I grew sufficiently inured to its blast to distinguish the words my neighbours shrieked at me, to grin, and make non-commit-tal replies at intervals. To appreciate the intelligence of their talk—if any—was beyond me. All I could do was to attempt to appear dess of a Moron than. I felt, and to divide my attention between the lady, the wireless, and the parrot. The last was certainly the least exacting of the various companions. For one thing, he did not demand answers; an occasional scratch on the side of the head, an inane “ Poor Polly,”,and you could turn your, back on him and know your social duty done. None of these tactics would have appealed to the soprano-voiced lady who had driven me into a corner and now held me more relentlessly, but much less beautifully, in thrall than ever La Belle Dame Sans Merci held her palelyloitering knight. Under this barrage I must appear, if not intelligent, at least politely sympathetic, while around me the waves of conversation rose ever higher, threatening to engulf the last remnants of my poor sanity and dreadfully punctuated the while by the shrieks of the parrot and the efforts of a humorous reciter on the wireless. It was a nightmare afternoon. I have in my youth been reluctantly present at those festivals known as “ musical evenings.” They were not the gayest of functions. Music alternated bleakly with conversation and neither flourished in the enforced partnership. You had just recovered from your initial shyness, just found a topic of'mutual interest with your neighbour, when your hostess announced blandly that Miss A. was about to sing, or—worse still—Mr B. to give a humorous musical monologue. For a time you suffered in silence, ceased talking with your best repartee unspoken,on your lips, avoided the eye of your companion, and sat in strained silence till the “item” was over. Then you tried feebly to recapture the conversation at the point where you left it, and had just got well launched again when item number two froze you once more. “ Talk spoiled by music,” the conversationists would say; “ Music ruined by conversation,” the artistic among us—usually the performers • themselves—were’ wont to lament. No, talk and “ items ” do not happily alternate.. , ; j But at least there was this advantage about the old musical evening; the conversation and the music did alternate : —. it did not mingle. No one dreamed of talking through an item; you listened in silence, however blasphemous. Today no one listens; the art is lost. Mechanical music has banished it for ever. Even the youngest of us would hesitate to be rude to a singer in the flesh; to mechanical music one may he as insolently indifferent as one chooses. Besides, it would be impossible to listen all the time, and, since the average wireless set is “ going ” for at least 12 of the 24 hours, one is forced to interrupt ' it at times or sink into perpetual dumbness—and I can hardly picture our young people‘of the present day submitting meekly to a fate so awful. This, it seems to me, is the greatest disadvantage of the wireless; it has destroyed the gracious habit of listening. Music has become the merest background’for talk, and the fact that much of it is not music at all, but only noise, does not make this less regrettable._ Our young people have become so inured to this so-called music that they do not recognise the genuine article when they hear it; certainly they do not listen to it. The wireless is always there, blaring through three meals a' day and droning far into the night. It has simply become a habit and no one pays any attention to it. Perhaps it is because of this background of noise that we are all a little apt nowadays to talk together. I was immensely struck by it at this party. No one really listened, to anyone else—save perhaps I, and that was simply because I was sunk in such a coma, drowned in such a sea of noise as made any intelligent effort impossible. Everybody else seemed brimming with energy and vivacity, talking, interrupting, shrieking each other down. It was necessary to shriek, for even in that large room the noise of voices, wireless, and parrot was deafening. Everybody talked, _ but nobody listened: the most they did was to accord a reluctant attention in order to. seize the psychological moment, the pause for breath or effect, and break in with their own tale. It was exhausting even for the merest onlooker.

The parrot seemed to find it so. At the beginning of the party he had seemed to enjoy himself, cocking his head this way and that, chuckling occasionally and a little disconcertingly at the folly of humane, giving vent to an occasional shriek on exactly the soprano note favoured by our most incessant conversationist. But as the afternoon went on, his exuberance subsided; the noise began to wear even him down, and I heard his secret chuckles presently giving way to sorrowful little noises, to soft murmurs of “ Poor Polly.” I felt for him, and insensibly drew nearer his cage. It was becoming an oasis; one of the quietest spots in the room. And then my mind turned again to those disparaging remarks made by that writer in the ‘ Observer.’ I remembered that he had remarked on the ugly qualify of the parrot’s voice; from such condemnation it was evident that he was neither a wireless fan nor a frequenter of feminine tea parties. There are worse sounds than a parrot’s voice. Moreover, the bird was behaving better than any_ of his rivals this afternoon; he had withdrawn from the contest, was ready to acknowledge himself beaten. Neither the wireless nor tho conversationists showed any sign? of tiring. The parrot has, indeed, various advantages over either of his opponents. You can silence him by throwing a dark cloth for a time over his cage; impossible to use such simple but effective moans with your acquaintance, and as for a wireless set

—though my fingers were at the moment itching to twist that knob, I would not have dared to do so. Imagine the silence, unprecedented, portentous, appalling, that would fall for a second on that room! . Then someone would say: “Has the power gone off? How awful!” There would be a general rush to the instrument, during which I would be unable to make my escape, and my crime would be discovered. My hostess would never forgive me—for what insult so dire as to turn off a new and very expensive wireless set ? —and my companions would accuse me of trying to emulate Greta Garbo without the excuse of her obvious attractions. No, I could not do that. At this moment a music hall soprano from across the Atlantic ended on the topmost note of her register. At the same moment the most insistent conversationist concluded a funny story with the words—too true, alas!—“ My dear, I simply shrieked!” Only the parrot was silent. I turned and looked at him; he was listening intently, head cocked, expression ludicrously concentrated. As the shrill notes met and clashed, his loose, wise little eye met inine, and I’ll swear he shook his head. “Poor, poor Polly!” he moaned, and «sank into a. spiritless coma for the rest *of the afternoon. I hid behind his cage and did the same.