The female of the species is more deadly than the male
(Rudyard Kipling, poem)
You may have heard, mainly because Frank and I keep on mentioning it, that they've now published a book of these My Word Stories.
One consequence of that is that over the past few weeks we've both been rather involved in what they call the promotion of this book.
So the publishers decided that they'd send me round the country making speeches at literary luncheons. The theory being that these speeches would so convulse all present with helpless laughter that they'd rush into the foyer and snatch up copies of the book by the armful. That was the theory.
There's only one thing wrong with the theory and that's the word luncheon.
All my life I've been the victim of what my mother calls a delicate stomach. Any unfamiliar kind of food and the whole of my internal workings go into a rhythmical kind of side-to-side lurching, like worn-out windscreen wipers. Inside flump flump flump from one side to another. Because I eat indegestion tablets like other people eat grapes.
Now bearing that fact in mind let me tell you the kind of meal you get at these literary luncheons. Generally it's a sort of beige-colored soup, roast chicken, ice cream, coffee, all served at the same temperature. Which is why, after making eighteen of these speeches in twelve major cities, the number of books purchased after the meal amounted to no more than one. And that was only because I had nothing to read on the train.
Well, the publishers naturally, they got rather sniffy about this. So prior to the luncheon they booked for me in Cornwall I sent them a letter apologizing. I said, "I'm sorry, but if strange foods upset me, what can I do?"
And by return I received a three-word telegram, "Don't eat it."
They're not monks, these publishers. And I thought that is a good idea.
So in that quaint old Cornish town I pleaded religious grounds and sat through the whole meal without touching a crumb.
And by the time the lady chairman got up to introduce me I felt MARVELOUS. And she said, "Ladies. Ladies, we have a real treat in store today. Someone, who in this troubled and darkening world, is going to bring us the precious gift of laughter. But before I ask him to set us all rocking with his hilariosu quips I have one official duty to perform. Would you all please rise and stand for one minute in silent tribute to our honorary secretary who died last night in such tragic circumstances."
Then, for the longest sixty seconds in recorded history, that whole gathering stood up with heads bowed and a silence that was broken only by the occasional sob.
The moment they sat down, Madame Chairman announced, "And here he is, then, the irrepressible funster, Mr. Denis Muir."
Just looking across at that sea of faces, many of them with the tears still trickling down their youth-dew blush-on, I felt a familiar sensation inside: windscreen wipers.
At this time even worse then on the occasions when I'd eaten the grub.
So when the publishers wrote to me asking me why it was nobody in Cornwall bought a copy of the book after the meal but that four ladies had asked if they could return theirs, my reply was terse and to the point. Given the choice, I'd rather partake of the meal then suffer the kind of introduction that this lady had given me.
Or as I'd actually put it in the telegram, "The female of the speeches is more deadly than the meal."
Denis Norden
559b
