AFTER DINNER SPEECHES

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 May 1927, Page 9

AFTER DINNER SPEECHES

PLEASURE OF GUESTS MARRED. A West of England Chamber of Commerce has decided to abolish after dinner speeches at its periodical dinners on the ground that they mai the pleasure of the diners,” and one of the rules at two recently-opened dining clubs in London is that, except on special occasions and by permission of the committee, after-din-ner speech-making is forbidden. Probably most men and women whose fate it is to.be compelled to attend many public dinners will feel cheered by this announcement (writes Basil Tozer, in the London ‘Daily Mirror’). , x For how many of us have not been bored almost to tears by those weaiisome, interminable talks inflicted upon us by men —seldom by women to whom it seems never to occur that nobody wants to hear them ? At a. dinner which I attended recently, and where most of the diners were people interested in the arts we hud no fewer than eighteen speeches, and they lasted for an hour and twenty minutes. Not more than four of those speeches were worth listening to, and long before they came to an end everybody was exasperated. Perhaps I ought in justice to add — though as a man it hurts my pride to do so —that two of the speeches worth listening to'were delivered by women. And that reminds me that at dinners at women’s clubs that I have attended the speech-making has almost always been a good deal brighter and more amusing than it is at dinners where only men are present. Try to analyse the reason for this, and I think you will presently decide chat it comes of our taking ourselves too seriously, sometimes terribly seriously, when we get up to make a speech after dinner, whereas women generally look upon the whole thing more or less as a joke. Also a newly-nourished man, particularly if he is at all flushed with wine is not particularly restful to the eye. and when, as often happens, he begins to meander and to repeat himself and obstinately ignores significant “hear, hears” and rappings on the table, he emphatically does “mar the pleasure of the diners consideiably, A woman, on the other hand, even if not. strikingly beautiful, invariably smiles pleasantly at her listeners whilst addressing them, and introduces a touch of humor into her talk here and there: while, if she does happen to be attractive-looking, nobody much minds. But perhaps the strongest reason of all why- after-dinner speeches may soon come to be generally taboo, now that opposition to them has set in, is that nearly all of us prefer to do the talking ourselves. Usually we have friends with us, at other times we have during dinner made new and often interesting acquaintances, and we would much sooner continue our conversation with them than be peremptorily called upon at. every moment to become silent and strain our ears to listen to what Mr This or Captain That may have to say about something which doesn’t in the least interest us.