Collected Columns

by Michael Frayn

  (1964)

  Service with a smile

  ‘As you are aware,’ begins a letter that arrived the other day, ‘x Computer Services is your encumbrant service provider.’

  Well, no, in point of fact, I was not aware that x Computer Services was (or even were) my encumbrant service provider. I thought they were the people I had a maintenance contract with to repair various pieces of electronic apparatus when they go wrong. It comes as a slight surprise to discover that I have such a thing as an encumbrant service provider.

  A pleasant surprise, certainly. I shall drop it into the conversation when you are going on rather tiresomely about the wonderful little man you have who adjusts your bannisters, or tunes your euphonium. ‘If you ever need any encumbrant service,’ I shall say, ‘you might do worse than try the provider I have.’ You’ll be shaken. You haven’t got an encumbrant service provider yourself. The need for encumbrant service has never arisen in your rather less sophisticated lifestyle. You’re not absolutely certain, if you’re honest, what encumbrant service is.

  So you probably wouldn’t understand the rest of the letter, either. It’s all written in a very elevated style, which I think may be a little above your head, but which evokes confidence and respect in those of us who know how to appreciate the finer things of life.

  ‘We understand,’ it says, ‘in times like these IT Departments are under extreme pressure to provide internal services to there users. We are uniquely positioned to assist your organisation with a full portfolio of additional value added services … As you are already a valued customer of x, we can … encompass additional services within your existing contract.’ And they offer me a choice of On-site Resource and Outsourcing.

  You gape. You didn’t know I was an IT Department, as well as a man of letters and connoisseur of fine wines. You never realised what pressure I was under to provide internal service to various there users. The concept of a there user is probably beyond you for a start. Look, there are here users like me, yes? Here I am, using here in various ways – sitting, talking, etc. No mystery about it. You understand that? Well, then there are also users who are not here but there. There they are, using there. But to do this they require internal services from here.

  Which we poor IT Departments have to provide! Oh, yes, we earn our outsourcing all right, especially in times like these – because I don’t have to tell you what times like these are like. So I’m particularly glad to be offered not only additional services but value-added ones. And to be offered them not in a plastic carrier-bag, but in a portfolio, ready to be encompassed. And not by some scruffy street-trader propped up against a lamp-post, but by someone uniquely positioned.

  It’s embarrassing to watch you struggle with all this. All right, let me go back to the beginning and explain to you what encumbrant service is. It’s service so elaborate and gracious as to be a positive encumbrance to the less socially adept. You remember when you were staying in a grand hotel somewhere, and you picked up the phone to order a boiled egg from room-service? And you knew you’d get such a flourishing of napery and single-stemmed roses, such a flashing of smiles and a whipping-off of covers, and that you’d be required to perform such a nervous jumping up and down and smiling and thanking in return, such a juggling with gratuities which may or may not have been included in the bill, that you put the phone down again?

  Well, that’s encumbrant service, and a man of the world like myself is perfectly at home with it. One of the machines that x Computer Services look after is on the blink now as it happens. If it were yours you’d pick the phone up, then realise you couldn’t just blurt out in ordinary uncultivated English to service providers as grand as these that the screen was all kind of jiggering about, and you’d give up and go out for a hamburger once again.

  Whereas I put on my special voice for talking to earls and above, and I say easily … Well, let me just practise in front of the mirror for a moment.

  ‘I do most tremendously regret being encumbrant upon you, but I seem to be positioned so that I am requirant … requisant … of on-site resourcing … outsourcing … outsite onsourcing. Could you encompass this? I should explain that I am a servicee of yours. A receivee of your valued service … your value-added service … your valuable additional service with added value. I am, I should perhaps explain, a here user. A here and now user. A here and in-times-like-these user.

  ‘Or rather was, until my equipment became service-requisant. I am a here and formerly in-times-like-these user. An existing here and formerly in-this-day-and-age user. An ex-existing user who is urgently desirous of becoming a re-existing user.

  ‘The thing is, the screen’s on the blink … Sorry! – I mean on the nictitate … It’s gone all kind of funny … has become in some sense inducive of cacchination … inductive of risibility … Well, let’s not beat about the bush, let’s not flagellate about the berberis. It’s afflicted by an encumbrancy … positioned in discommodant mode … internally subfunctional … functionally value-deficient … defective in its functional modality …

  ‘Anyway, I am desirous of achieving disencumbrancy of this encumbrancy. Would you be positioned to offer, ex-portfolio, external service to which value had been added, where the value in question resides in the successful encompassment of the value-added service?

  ‘And if so, could you do it in times like these? I mean, in times remarkably like these? In times more like these than tomorrow will be?

  ‘May I say how much value I should esteem to be added to your already valued offer if you could extend its presently existing potentiality into fully potentialised existence?’

  You see? That’s what I call style. It needs a little effort, but it’s so encumbering.

  (1995)

  Services rendered

  FIRST SERVICE

  Tonight they are holding my favourite service, the Annual Service for People in Advertising, in All Souls, Langham Place – and the sixth in the series, no less.

  Still, not everyone in the advertising industry will find the somewhat traditional atmosphere of All Souls congenial. Since the moral welfare of advertising men is a subject close to my heart, may I recommend the Harvest Festival which CADCAR (the Congress of Advertising, Confidence, and Allied Racketeers) is holding in St Swiz’s, and which many in the industry will find more up-to-date and relevant in its approach? For those who are thinking of going, here is the order of service:

  HYMN

  We put our trust in Swiz,

  For only Swiz has Fiz, etc.

  LESSON

  From the Book of Amazing Free Offers

  1. These are the generations of Swiz. Thomas Noggin begat Joseph Noggin; and Thomas Noggin and Son begat Noggin Holdings; and Noggin Holdings begat Noggin (England) Ltd; and Noggin (England) Ltd begat Oho.

  2. And Oho begat Fub; and Fub begat Guf; and Guf begat Swiz; and Swiz begat twelve million pounds.

  RESPONSES

  Blessed be the name of Swiz.

  Let the name of Swiz be praised.

  The hoardings shall blazon it forth.

  And the air shall be loud with the clamour of it.

  On the page it shall be written.

  On the page, yea, across two pages.

  In special supplements shall it be sounded forth.

  And bruited even in the editorials.

  (The copywriters and public relations men walk in procession to the front, bearing pieces of copy, designs for cereal packets, plastic giveaways, samples of tournedos and whisky they have bought for journalists, and newspaper cuttings of stories they have originated. These offerings are judged by a panel of well-known television personalities, and Golden Calf statuettes are awarded as prizes.)

  (Here endeth the first part)

  It’s new! It’s true! It’s made for you!

  For knees in trousers, knees in cassocks,

  You cannot better CADCAR HASSOCKS!

  CADCAR! CADCAR! CADCAR!

  (Here beginneth part two)

&nbs
p; LESSON

  From the Second Book of Unsolicited Testimonials

  1. There dwelt in the town of Screwe, that is over against Twicester, a certain poor woman.

  2. And it came to pass that unto her appeared a man in shining raiment that said: I am come from Swiz, and am sent forth by him to inquire if there be any in this city that keep his name in honour.

  3. For unto him that keepeth his name in honour shall be given cause for rejoicing, and great increase shall be his.

  4. Then saith the poor woman: all my life I have kept faith with Swiz, and have not deserted him. And lo, she shewed the man her Swiz, which was of family size. And he drew forth from his scrip two more Swiz, and gave them to the woman, saying: Thou faithful servant, thy treasure is multiplied threefold.

  5. And he saith unto her: Unto those that keep faith with Swiz, with them shall Swiz also keep faith. For that which is white shall be whitest; and that which is whitest shall be whiter than white. Ten thousand are the women that have witnessed unto this miracle, and it is written: Can ten thousand women be wrong?

  6. And the woman was amazed, and gave thanks, and magnified the name of Swiz.

  SERMON

  On the text from the Book of Fub: ‘Shall a man labour for truth, when that which is not true comforteth multitudes? For truth is like the butter that was put unto the test. An hundred women partook thereof, and of those hundred were there nine and ninety that were deceived, and knew not the false butter from the true. For the false butter was smooth and finely apparelled, and they knew it not.’

  HYMN

  Who would an adman be

  Hymning sweet fictions,

  Must labour valiantly

  ’Gainst state restrictions.

  Consumers flee away,

  I’ll fear not what they say,

  I’ll call the night the day,

  To be an adman.

  (1961)

  SECOND SERVICE

  I’m sorry to say that the helping hand I tried to offer my friends in the advertising industry in the last piece by announcing (free of charge) the order of service for the advertising men’s Harvest Festival at St Swiz’s was not too well received.

  The hardest things of all were said by Mr Mark Chapman-Walker, a director of Television Wales and West, about the extract from the article which later appeared on BBC Television. It was, he said, ‘so staggering in its irreverence, bad taste, and general unfunniness that I am not surprised that a large number of people complained’.

  Mr Chapman-Walker is also a director of the News of the World, so his views on matters of taste command respect. In fact I have decided that the best thing I can do is to go right back to the beginning, and give the details of the service in St Swiz’s with an attempt at the reverence, good taste, and general funniness which in the good old days made Mr Chapman-Walker’s paper the trusted and respected companion of eight million families every sabbath.

  THE VICAR AND THE WOMAN IN THE FRONT PEW

  What a vicar alleged he saw going on quite openly in his own church at Harvest Festival was described yesterday when Michael Frayn, a journalist, of 29 Tregunter Road, Screwe, was found guilty on three charges of irreverent staggeringness, gustatory badness, and general humour lessness.

  The Reverend Harold Admore, vicar of St Swiz’s, said that he had held a Harvest Festival for advertising men. But his first reaction to what met his eyes on entering the church was one of disgust. In answer to a question, he replied it was the smallness of the congregation that had disgusted him.

  SEX MIX-UP

  Admore said that besides the men there were a number of women present. The sexes were mixed. He thought that some of the women had been brought by the men, but that others had ‘simply walked in on their own from the street’. Many of the women were wearing make-up and high heels.

  ASSOCIATED WITH COLOURED MAN

  Admore stated that he took as the subject of his sermon man’s quest for good, likening it to the skilled tracking which was associated with the Red Indian. His intentions throughout the alleged incidents, he said, had been entirely honourable.

  Miss E. Grewsom said that she had been sitting in the front pew all the time that the events mentioned were alleged to have been taking place. She agreed that the vicar had used certain words. They were clearly audible from where she was sitting. She also saw him make certain gestures.

  SHOCKED

  She recalled distinctly that at the end of the first hymn, and on several other occasions, the vicar had used a four-lettered word. It had stuck in her mind, she said, because of the tone of voice in which he had uttered it, and because it seemed to be constantly on the lips of everyone present, women as well as men.

  Under cross-examination, Miss Grewsom admitted that she had been shell-shocked while serving with the ATS.

  NOT HIS BABY

  Mr P. J. Nunbetter, a church-warden, gave evidence that he had heard Admore make a certain suggestion to a younger man. As a result of this suggestion, the younger man had played the first hymn.

  Nunbetter said he did not remember which hymn it was, since the musical side was ‘not his baby’.

  INDULGED IN ORGY

  Questioned about money that was alleged to have changed hands during the evening, Mr R. O. Platter, another church-warden, admitted that he had collected it.

  He said he did not know how much was involved, and that it was none of his business to ask what services were expected in return for the money.

  ‘My job is simply to collect it,’ he said. ‘You seem to think I had nothing better to do than to indulge in an orgy of speculation.’

  NOTHING ON

  In a statement, Admore was alleged to have admitted being a miserable sinner, but to have added: ‘The police have nothing on me.’ His wife gave evidence that he had always behaved perfectly normally, so far as she knew.

  As stated, Frayn was found guilty on all three charges, and sentenced to five years’ corrective reading of the News of the World.

  (1961)

  The sleepy sickness

  The ailment of the age seems to be a combination of sickness and tiredness. Everyone’s suffering from it.

  The Duke of Edinburgh is sick and tired of making excuses for this country. A great many of us, according to Sidney Silverman, are sick and tired of the North Vietnamese always getting the blame.

  ‘People are sick and tired of listening to criticism of the Holy Church,’ declared Father Joseph Christie, the acting Catholic chaplain at Cambridge, after cutting short his fellow-Jesuit Archbishop Roberts in the middle of an address to Catholic undergraduates on the grounds that it was heretical, and closing the meeting.

  ‘I am convinced,’ said Father Christie, ‘that there will be an enormous amount of approval for myself.’ I dare say there will. All sorts and conditions of men, I gather from the papers, are sick and tired of something. If it’s not hearing their Church criticised that they’re sick and tired of, it’s seeing traditional morality and family life undermined, or hearing oaths on television, or all this soft treatment for criminals.

  And if there’s any one group that’s sicker and tireder than the rest, it’s some of us. Some of us, if some of us are to be believed (particularly Labour politicians), are sick and tired of pretty well everything.

  No wonder we had to abandon the National Plan. There can scarcely be a soul left well and fresh in the country.

  Nor are sickness and tiredness the only symptoms produced on these occasions. Mr Patrick Wall MP last week defended the removal of Father McCabe from the editorship of the New Blackfriars magazine on the grounds that its criticisms of the Catholic Church would ‘cause distress to millions of Roman Catholics in Britain and elsewhere.’

  The New Blackfriars has a circulation of 2,000, but of course distress, like sickness and tiredness, is very catching. Great outbreaks of distress are perpetually being diagnosed or predicted among people of all denominations and outlooks as a result of exposure to unfamiliar ideas.


  What is not always appreciated, I think, is that we humanists, agnostics, Britain-knockers, morality-under-miners, and so on, get sick and tired, and suffer distress, just like anyone else when the ideas and values that we hold precious are called into question. Day in, day out, we are sniped at. Often I can hardly finish reading the morning papers, there is so much in them that offends my susceptibilities.

  ‘What’s the matter, dear?’ asks my wife anxiously. ‘You look rather sick and tired again this morning.’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ I lie bravely, my face grey with fatigue, my brow fevered. ‘It’s just that there’s a rather clever fellow in the paper here pouring scorn upon all that some of us hold most sacred. You remember that rather beautiful idea some of us had of arranging for humanist school-children to say special humanist prayers at morning assembly? Well, this clever gentleman apparently finds something rather funny in it. That’s all.’

  ‘Perhaps some of you ought to go back to bed today,’ suggests my wife solicitously.

  ‘Perhaps some of us ought to. Some of us were going to try to make a personal contribution towards raising national output today by writing slashing attacks on various reactionary prejudices and superstitions. Now, of course, the country will just have to do without that.’

  But that’s nothing compared with what some of us have been through on other days. There have been occasions when my wife has found me suffering really acute spiritual distress after hearing ideas at variance with my own publicly disseminated.