A Time to Be Silent

Making stately progress through a pile of old New Yorkers, I have reached an article about the Spice Girls from 2022. Apparently, Danish researchers concluded in 2014 that the Spice Girls’ first single, Wannabe, was, at least at that time, the catchiest song ever written.

There is so much left unexplained in that piece of data - how did the researchers define “ever”; how did they define “catchy”; above all, why did they bother?

Never mind, Wannabe is a very cheerful piece of music and a delight to hear - occasionally.

The thing though that really did amaze me in the article was the news - or information I suppose; it can’t really be news 28 years later, (although it is to me) - that in 1997 the Spice Girls went to South Africa to perform a concert for charity and, during their visit, they met Nelson Mandela and, when some journalist asked him how he felt about meeting them, Mandela replied:

“You know, these are my heroes. And I don’t want to be emotional but this is one of the greatest moments in my life.”

Of course, I wanted to know in what tone Mandela made this statement - I assumed he was being a little jokey.

I found the video, and the whole event is wonderfully good-humoured, except for one thing. It turns out that the future King of England was also present - 15 kilos ago, at least, by the look of him - and could he keep silent? No, he could not.

And as a result he spoiled things, butting in with a look-at-me intervention that serves no purpose other than to make everyone else there look confused and awkward.

What a pity the young prince didn’t have a quick read of Ecclesiastes as he was driven to the occasion.

You can see the exchange here, starting from about 2 minutes in.

Flim Flam

I listened to Any Questions on BBC Radio 4 yesterday, and it seemed to me that, despite indulging in quite a lot of demagoguery, Jeannette Winterson did identify a problem we have in the English-speaking world, when she asked, "When are we going to dignify ordinary life again?" We are dazzled by celebrity and quick money and flashy behaviour; we give too little respect to the well- led ordinary life:

At the other end of the spectrum, I was pretty shocked by the vox pop I heard from the streets of Brixton on the morning after Nelson Mandela died. A woman proudly told the reporter that she'd telephoned her employers to tell them that she couldn't possibly come in that day, as she was too upset.

Probably the first event of this kind that made any impact on me was the death of Winston Churchill (not often you'll see a naval officer engaged in ballet). I'm ashamed to say it, (although I was very young), but I'd never heard of him until then. The sense of sadness - mixed with a pride that the country had produced such a person - was intense.

It was unusually cold and foggy but day and night for three days people filed past his body, lying in state in Westminster Hall. There were no cellophane wrapped flowers or heart scrawled cards or teddy bears. I doubt anyone rang work to say they were too overcome to come in. Yet there was real emotion.