Saturday, February 04, 2023
A Necessary Function Which Stinks
Ronald Blythe, Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village (New York: Pantheon, 1969), pp. 160-161 (Hugh Hambling speaking):
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I talk to people whenever I can. I am very unguarded. You've only to put a few pennies into some chaps and you get some wonderfully unexpected talk. But it has to be the right moment. In Suffolk you won't get a thing back if you choose the wrong moment. They won't talk politics in the pub. Their attitude is puritan in such matters. Politics to them is a kind of necessary function which stinks. They stare straight back into Wilson's eyes on the pub telly with that hard blue gaze of theirs, and God knows what they are thinking!
