The editors of a magazine enjoy the exquisite pleasure of seeing authors
with their metaphorical trousers down. Mere readers miss those sweet
moments when a writer's judgement lapses, his passion kindles and his
thought processes turn to slurry.
Now the Turtle has always been desperate for
articles, as you will have guessed from reading this far in the current
issue. As with popular revolution, it is usually only the SWP that can
be bothered to put pen to placard. But even the Turtle will not print
just anything. With a one-way air ticket to the States already booked,
I can reveal a taster of some of the pieces too awful to include even
in Turtles one to five. Without exception they are fine specimins of
moral bewilderment, political misunderstanding and cecity towards the
nuances of the English language.
No piece began better than that under the bizarre nom-de-plume of 'Jean-Luc
al'Thor'. A natural journalist, he understands how to hook the reader's
attention in the first paragraph:
"Since 1988 there has been a threefold
increase in the number of dysentery cases in England & Wales from
3,693 to 9,935 in 1992. Hepatitis has increased from 3,379 cases in
1987 to 9,020 in 1992."
(The Observer)
This is a disturbing report and should be of
concern to both opponents and supporter of water privatization.
Having punchily grappled with the essential question
in his opening gambit, the mysterious Jean-Luc lays forth a "radical"
programme in that novel sense of the word (meaning "conservative")
which Tony Blair has made his own.
The concept of ownership should be replaced
with a more flexibile concept. Such a concept would focus on the competing
and legitimate claims of the private, individual interest and of the
interest of wider society in the use of an asset. The individual who
operates the asset would be recognised to have an interest in the
use of that asset, but not to own it: it would not be 'theirs' but
be under their command or operation. If such a concept informed our
view of how productive assets should be used there would be a clear
basis for criticism of the behaviour of the water companies, a basis
which highlights the reality of interdependence and the need for co-operation.
A great idea, clearly expressed. Can I be alone
in reaching for the pills whenever I hear the word "interdependence"?
In Jean-Luc's favour, it should be said that he isn't the only one to
have smuggled in an article under a pseudonym. Gremlins in the Turtle's
computer had nicknamed Luke Purshouse "Rasputin" when he wrote
his definitive article on crime and punishment. Luke found this very
confusing, and when we explained he submitted his follow-up piece under
the name "Luke 'Rasputin' Purshouse" presumably under the
impression we would find this form of crotch-gobbling witty, and so
print his article. Sorry, Luke.
And at least Jean-Luc wasn't trying to be funny.
My sides generally remain unsplit by Turtle articles, but there is a
category of pieces I call Fabian Funnies that leave me especially perplexed.
These are written by "prominent" Fabians in the mistaken belief
that it is possible to be both maturely centrist and also amusing. Jeremy
Benson, the bulging-trousered philanthropist and one-time Labour Club
supremo, once wrote me a note to say
Just to show I'm not as humourless as everyone
probably thinks, I enclose another Turtle piece in a slightly lighter
vein - perhaps you could find a cartoonist to illustrate it? Could
you make sure its [sic] printed under the byline indicated -- cheers
Well, no actually, Jeremy. The byline in question
was '"Inside the Mind of a Tory" by "Treasure"',
a witty reminder that in a previous piece Jeremy had mistyped his job-title
as "the Treasure of the Labour Club". I am tempted to include
this faultless opus in toto, but alas, there is space only for snippets.
For the first time ever, and exclusively in
the Turtle, I can reveal the existence of an extraordinary new technique
known as DEBRA - Deducative Electronic Brain Response Analysis. This
allows certain ideas to be artificially stimulated in a live brain
and the responses analysed by computer...
... In order to make possible this research
I arranged to borrow the brain of a prominent OUCA member for a few
days while he was at the Tory Party conference in Blackpool, and I
would like to take this opportunity to extend sincere thanks to him
for it...
... The Tory's mind produced a rather curious
response: the screen of the computer I was using was suddenly filled
with the word "ME" repeated many times over. So violent
was the impact of this filter thatm for the safety of the system,
I had to remove the probes from the brain and start again...
... Despairing of getting an interesting answer
I keyed in the words "Margaret Thatcher", but even before
I had finished typing, it provoked a response similar to an orgasm
but so extreme that the brain exploded and thus, sadly, could not
be returned to its former owner on his drunken return from Blackpool...
Rest assured that the entire article will be
available on the internet if Jeremy ever becomes famous. Before leaving
the corpus Bensoni, I confess that I also saved you from Jeremy's heartfelt
appeal for reasonableness in the politics of Ulster. I acknowledge now,
too late, that by doing so I may have held back the peace process, and
I offer my sincerest apologies.
... It is rare that I find myself in agreement
with the sentiments of a headline in the Sun, yet when it showed Gerry
Adams helping carry the coffin of an IRA terrorist who blew up himself,
and nine others, in October, and declared the words "Gerry Adams"
to be "the most disgusting in the English language" I couldn't
really disagree...
... My third point, then, is that Labour should
have the courage to rise above the divisive politics of sectarianism
and put the needs of the ordinary people of Northern Ireland first...
But it is a pity that we have to wait until the
last paragraph for the admission - false modesty, Jeremy - that
I claim no expertise on this issue - much of what I have written is
based on simple common sense.
The mention of common sense brings us to Dan
Ornstein, another stand-up Social Democrat. Dan's foible is that he
rarely makes a clear break between sentences, with a full-stop and a
capital letter. The effect is a kind of stream-of-consciousness Fabianism.
His piece "Conspiracy Down at t'Mill", written "on behalf
of the collective consciouesness of the PRFP (People's Revolutionary
Fabian Party)" was an examination of the prevalence of Mill ("John
Boy"!) in prelims syllabuses. Whereas most of us might reckon that
Mill is a popular set text because he is easy to understand and in the
mainstream of British political culture, and that the University could
not confront first-years with "Kierkegaard, Kant, Hegel or Nietzsche"
without first removing all sharp objects from their rooms, Dan thinks
otherwise.
Quite simply, there is a conspiracy. A conspiracy
among those crusty old dons who decide what we learn. "We couldn't
possibly have all Freshers doing Hegel," they profess to one
another over a glass of vintage port. "They would become free
thinkers, radicals... even Marxists." At this point one bearded
chap collapses of a heart attack at the very mention of the M-word,
despite having been a Soviet spy for a brief period in the fifties.
Another category of articles was excluded on
grounds of space rather than embarrassment of feebleness. Among them
were Richard Johnson on electoral reform, and Pete Waddell's reply to
ALEX GRANT's scepticism about reforming the House of Lords. Sorry, lads.
Finally, let me say that I am deeply grateful
to everyone who spared the time to write for the Turtle and helped to
get it airborne. You took John Fitzgerald Kennedy's dictum to heart:
"ask not what your Turtle can do for you, but what you can do for
your Turtle". I enjoyed nearly every word. There were many scrapes:
unknown to the Mass Public, the Turtle was almost bought out last year
by an earnest young man from Charter 88 at a time when I was fed up,
and he knocked on my door proposing to turn our Chelonian Pleasure-Monster
into Oxfords Voice of Constitutional Reform. Yuk. As the Class of '95
leaves Oxford there will be another threat, but the Turtle will not
die. Editoraial HQ moves to the Us-of-A with Chris Brooke and I; future
issues will be simultaneously published in Oxford. Meanwhile,while remembering
the Turtles that might-have-been, let us thank the heavens that David
Walker answered my silent prayers by not writing "The Case for
Coal, Part II".
