First published in the Column 8 on 24th June, 1992
This week I want to talk about going overboard. That doesn’t mean my wife fell off the fishing vessel she once had her eye on, while hauling in her latest marlin, because she didn’t.
Rather I want to use the phrase, going overboard, in its
other sense, of going to extremes. How it came to mean this I can’t understand,
though maybe some more philologically-inclined person can. (That’s someone with
a dictionary in the cranium.)
Perhaps the connection comes as follows: a person who goes
overboard, ie, over the top, is an extremist. A person who has literally gone
overboard is in extremis, ie, in dire straits (and not the Cook or Foveaux
kind). I can’t confirm this theory, however, as my tame philologist is away
hunting a snark.
To get back to the point. Going overboard is now a problem
in many areas of life. I don’t wish to criticise the Inland Revenue Dept
(certainly not when I’m expecting a tax rebate this year), but I feel lately
that they’ve gone overboard. No longer will one piece of paper do; everything has
to be sent twice, and on a different form. Thus I can expect to get a piece of
mail from this department in my business post virtually every day.
One day next month’s PAYE pay-in form
comes solo; on another day there will be a statement, stating I’ve paid my last
payment. Always it will included a piece at the bottom on which to note other
payments I may wish to make – if any. And always it will include an envelope,
so I can send my ‘if any’ payments in. I now have a drawer full of unused IRD
envelopes.
When I read the other day that some couple had received
something like eleven pieces of mail from the Inland Revenue in one day, I didn’t
even raise an eyebrow. Mail from the IRD has been going overboard for ages.
The electricity people have been going overboard too,
(though not with surplus electricity). We have been bombarded with ads for a
long time now telling us that energy-wise electricity is the only way to go. All
those people who believed this propaganda will now be gnashing their teeth a
little, methinks, especially since these same advertisers are trying to
convince us to stop using the wretched stuff.
Don’t let it seep out through the plug! Five minute showers!
(Obviously they don’t have a house full of teenagers.) Turn the thermostat down
– what thermostat?
Most ridiculous of all, they tell us we should all snuggle
into the same room, because it’s cosier. The only problem is, which room?
The one where The Fresh Prince of Bel airs himself,
and Quantum
leaps – neither of which I want
to watch? The one with the word processor, which obviously the others don’t
want to watch. Or the bedrooms, where the kids should be doing their homework? While
it might improve their study habits, I’m not sure if we as parents could cope
with the cute kitten, or hunk-abundant posters, or the strange mess in the
corner that’s been dying for a week.
A few nights of that cosiness could induce the parents to go
overboard. Let’s get real. We’ll just turn off all the heaters and wander
around in the dark tripping over our blankets and dropping candle grease on the
carpet.
Finally in this discussion of overboardness, during the week
I misunderstood some news about Robert
Maxwell. I thought I’d heard that he hadn’t drowned after all when he went
overboard, but he’d turned up. (It’s amazing how the news is garbled when you’re
trying to open the latest piece of literature from the IRD with the lights
off.)
Imagination went wild: had Maxwell intended the scoop story
of a lifetime? ‘Maxwell drowns, but later washed up alive!’ It was not to be. When
Maxwell went overboard, he definitely missed the boat…
 |
| Robert Maxwell, photo courtesy: Dutch National Archives |
