Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Honour bright
Clearly a morning for musings. While drying up and trying to remove some splodge from a tea spoon which had not been washed up very well, the phrase 'honour bright' sprang into mind. I thought that it came from one of those songs one used, as a boy scout, to sing around the camp fire. For some reason the idea seemed very childish; that one could have honour bright. In practise, for me anyway, the reasons for doing almost anything are rather complicated and, quite often, not something I would care to explain in any detail to anyone else. While one may not have done many foul deeds in one's time, one has done plenty of grubby deeds, or at least off-white deeds. Or deeds, which have done no-one any harm, but of which one is not proud. Deeds which are naff but harmless; and while the naffness is clear to all, not always easy to articulate exactly why. So following the Freudian term 'good enough parenting' one might have 'honour bright enough' but not 'honour bright'. Bright enough to get you through the pearly gates. All matters on which I believe the Catholics lavish more thought and care that the average Prot.
Then it occurs to me that the phrase occurs in one of John Le Carre's novels. Perhaps the fat lady, Carrie, in 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy'. So off to Mr Google who tells me that the phrase is widely used, and the name of more than one book. Nothing about boy scouts, but it does prompt entries for various toothpastes. And contain the factlet that for a Roman aristo., honour was more about rank and position than good deeds. At which point I remember that an honour was also the name of a certain sort of land holding. The honour of so and so, where so and so is a place. OED confirms, a factlet among 3 pages of honours of various sorts. First recorded use of 'honour bright' being in 1819, then Dickens.
Talking of the OED, I saw in a recent LRB that I can now buy the second edition for £400. It started off at £2,000 a few years ago, but I guess the take-up at that price is not that great and has now tapered off to more or less nothing. But not yet moved to replace my 1937 version of the first edition, acquired second hand from Guildford Grammer School, for getting on for half the £400. Used it too much to be keen on letting it go and havn't got room for two of the things.
All this preceded by an interesting dream, the most complicated for at least a week. Another fantasy of power, drawn from my last two departments. A very important person had charged me with sorting out some very important crisis, with full powers. So I convened a meeting of suitable people and announced that we would meet for 40 minutes at 1500, every day for the duration. Then started off by getting everybody to form up into groups of three, each group being a country. The US, France etc. Gave them 10 minutes in their groups to come up with their solutions to the crisis, then we would have a plenary session at which each group had 1 minute to deliver. Groups were encouraged not to have their 1 minute if they had not come up with anything. Crisis much more important than looking good in committee. My own personal wheeze is to sell the Falklands to the Argies for lots of billions of pounds. Time for those little Englanders to do their bit for the mother ship. But I hold that back to stun the end of the meeting with.
The very important person had lent me his secretary to do the organisation. A bit of a frump: I didn't manage to organise her and she didn't manage to organise the meeting. So we wound up in a rather large space which was something of a public thoroughfare. From time to time crossed by construction equipment. It was also adjacent to a dentist, whose patients were going to and fro. Not very well provided with chairs, visual aids and all the usual meeting stuff.
The US team contained an eminent US citizen, so I invited them to go first. He started off by catapaulting a very elaborate paper dart across the room. Much chattering in the ranks which my unaided voice was not enough to quell. He does his bit. I am so busy trying to get some order into the meeting that I don't understand a word. He has another go. Same result. And again. So I have to take him aside and tell him that I will see him in private later. More chattering the ranks. I move to the head of a proper meeting table, large windows behing. Then the next team, I forget from which country, but the spokesperson was someone that I used to work with (one of two real people in the dream). He started off by kicking a football across the room, it passing me by rather to closely for comfort. He then started taking me down a peg or two, I started to feel uncomfortable and woke up. Seemed very important when I woke up; rather silly now!
And to close, a fragment from a dream of a week or so ago. There was a large grassed, low dome, in shape something like the roof of Bourne Hall but rather larger, raised up on a large number of short legs, overlooking a bend on a river. Maybe a car park underneath. By the means of various gymnastics, I was able to get from the bank of the river up onto the dome. Reasonable number of people up there. Then, all of a sudden, a shiny grey slick rose up out of the grass and flowed over the dome, leaving us standing in it. And then, just as suddenly it vanished. Just leaving a few dribbles over the edge of the dome. The shiny grey slick being the dominant image of this dream, now associating to one which I reported before, which, on inspection, turns out to also have involved a grey fluid, albeit of a rather differant sort. Perhaps dreams are all linked together under the surface.
I seem to remember that featureless, expansive fluids of the slick sort are said to be from that part of the personality which is laid down very early in life. Infantile in fact.
Then it occurs to me that the phrase occurs in one of John Le Carre's novels. Perhaps the fat lady, Carrie, in 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy'. So off to Mr Google who tells me that the phrase is widely used, and the name of more than one book. Nothing about boy scouts, but it does prompt entries for various toothpastes. And contain the factlet that for a Roman aristo., honour was more about rank and position than good deeds. At which point I remember that an honour was also the name of a certain sort of land holding. The honour of so and so, where so and so is a place. OED confirms, a factlet among 3 pages of honours of various sorts. First recorded use of 'honour bright' being in 1819, then Dickens.
Talking of the OED, I saw in a recent LRB that I can now buy the second edition for £400. It started off at £2,000 a few years ago, but I guess the take-up at that price is not that great and has now tapered off to more or less nothing. But not yet moved to replace my 1937 version of the first edition, acquired second hand from Guildford Grammer School, for getting on for half the £400. Used it too much to be keen on letting it go and havn't got room for two of the things.
All this preceded by an interesting dream, the most complicated for at least a week. Another fantasy of power, drawn from my last two departments. A very important person had charged me with sorting out some very important crisis, with full powers. So I convened a meeting of suitable people and announced that we would meet for 40 minutes at 1500, every day for the duration. Then started off by getting everybody to form up into groups of three, each group being a country. The US, France etc. Gave them 10 minutes in their groups to come up with their solutions to the crisis, then we would have a plenary session at which each group had 1 minute to deliver. Groups were encouraged not to have their 1 minute if they had not come up with anything. Crisis much more important than looking good in committee. My own personal wheeze is to sell the Falklands to the Argies for lots of billions of pounds. Time for those little Englanders to do their bit for the mother ship. But I hold that back to stun the end of the meeting with.
The very important person had lent me his secretary to do the organisation. A bit of a frump: I didn't manage to organise her and she didn't manage to organise the meeting. So we wound up in a rather large space which was something of a public thoroughfare. From time to time crossed by construction equipment. It was also adjacent to a dentist, whose patients were going to and fro. Not very well provided with chairs, visual aids and all the usual meeting stuff.
The US team contained an eminent US citizen, so I invited them to go first. He started off by catapaulting a very elaborate paper dart across the room. Much chattering in the ranks which my unaided voice was not enough to quell. He does his bit. I am so busy trying to get some order into the meeting that I don't understand a word. He has another go. Same result. And again. So I have to take him aside and tell him that I will see him in private later. More chattering the ranks. I move to the head of a proper meeting table, large windows behing. Then the next team, I forget from which country, but the spokesperson was someone that I used to work with (one of two real people in the dream). He started off by kicking a football across the room, it passing me by rather to closely for comfort. He then started taking me down a peg or two, I started to feel uncomfortable and woke up. Seemed very important when I woke up; rather silly now!
And to close, a fragment from a dream of a week or so ago. There was a large grassed, low dome, in shape something like the roof of Bourne Hall but rather larger, raised up on a large number of short legs, overlooking a bend on a river. Maybe a car park underneath. By the means of various gymnastics, I was able to get from the bank of the river up onto the dome. Reasonable number of people up there. Then, all of a sudden, a shiny grey slick rose up out of the grass and flowed over the dome, leaving us standing in it. And then, just as suddenly it vanished. Just leaving a few dribbles over the edge of the dome. The shiny grey slick being the dominant image of this dream, now associating to one which I reported before, which, on inspection, turns out to also have involved a grey fluid, albeit of a rather differant sort. Perhaps dreams are all linked together under the surface.
I seem to remember that featureless, expansive fluids of the slick sort are said to be from that part of the personality which is laid down very early in life. Infantile in fact.
# posted by Jim @ 12:47 AM 
