The Word Cloud

This year Santa delegated to my teenage daughter the task of providing me with a most amusing volume. This is a collection of letters to but not published in the Daily Telegraph called “Am I Alone in Thinking…?”.  Amongst the reasons for reading this newspaper, which I do occasionally rather than assiduously, sits the letters pages. One might think that the letters that were not published are inferior to those that were. I am pleased to report that this is not the case. Rather I suspect the contrary as they come almost universally from the “ordinary person” rather than, for example archbishops or (self) important politicians.

As I contemplate the musings therein I am drawn to conclude that all life is indeed out there and that it is in fact a wonderful thing. The book is a relatively slim volume containing a condensation of the observational wit that makes Britain great; not published in the pages of the Telegraph on the advice of their lawyers or simply for reasons of political correctness, available space, or something else. I am bound to acknowledge that the contributions are not all from this sceptred isle and whilst many of those from other lands do credit to the wit, humour and erudition of their nation a few, and here I am thinking of a particular gentleman from Texas, do not.

I will mention in paraphrase two that sit on the plateau of excellence that this collection achieves:

There is a genteel man who finds it intensely humiliating to be asked at airport check in if he packed his own bag because it forces him to admit that he no longer has a manservant to do it for him, and my favourite so far (although I have not yet finished) is from someone (male) gratefully thanking them for their front page picture of Kate Winslet in a plunging neckline, remarking that the article concerning her being up for two Golden Globes was most apposite.