In Retrospect

First published in Column 8 on the 9^th October, 1991

Today is something of an anniversary. I don’t suppose it will go down in history as being equivalent to Caesar crossing the Rubicon or Hannibal the Alps, but I thought I might make a little note of it.

Today marks the anniversary of the first Column 8. Forty-seven columns later (I had time off for good behaviour), I’m still surprised at how many usable ideas there are in the world. Or to put it another way, I’m surprised how an idea can be teased out to fill up the space allotted.

Because it’s an anniversary, I need to apologise for some errors. These are the ones I know about.

Early this year an elderly ex-serviceman rang up to say that I’d turned the name of the leader of the Iraqi nation back to front. I’d called him Mr Hussein, when, of course, he’s Mr Saddam. The same person went off on to a tangent to inform me that daylight saving isn’t the same as it used to be, and since daylight saving has just arrived, I’ll tell you what I learned.

New Zealand was originally only 11½ hours ahead of UK time. In 1926 we extended this to 12½ hours and then a couple of years later brought in summer time, which for some months of the year made us exactly 12 hours ahead. Still with me?

However, what was officially only daylight saving time became normal time in 1945 after four years of being emergency daylight saving. (Nature’s contribution to the war effort,  no doubt.)

Finally in 1974 (while I was out of the country) we had another change. We gained an extra hour in the summer, making us 13 hours ahead of GMT. (I tell my wife every year that rising an hour earlier affects me adversely for weeks, but in her inimitable fashion she scoffs.)

The other major mistake of my year was to confuse Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. Someone sent me a letter via the Midweek on this, and I lost it two minutes after I read it. My apologies to the writer for not answering personally. Everyone knows that Art Garfunkel sang Bridge Over Troubled Water – don’t they?

I’ve had some interesting phone calls over the time I’ve been writing this column. One very nice lady rang to ask my advice about her rhododendrons – I must have appeared more knowledgeable than I am.

I tried to say in a later column that it’s necessary to read what I’ve said, not what you think I’ve said. Anyway, Column 8 is a not too subtle mix of fact and fiction. Supposedly in article writing these days that’s the trend.

After another column my wife received a phone call when I was out. An elderly lady was very concerned about the things I’d written on the English language, when I’d said there were words lacking in our vocabulary.

She said English was already difficult enough for foreigners to learn without adding yet more words.

Not everybody agrees, but I think English is not the world’s most difficult language to learn, or to spell.

Most European languages, for instance, have at least as many messy verbs. And long ago the English wisely rid themselves of all the cases – many nations still suffer from these, needing to know whether cats or dogs or wart hogs are masculine, feminine or neutered. If you can’t get that right, all your adjectives and verbs and various other grammatical bits go astray.

Mark Twain once translated the following directly from a German textbook:

Gretchen: Where is the turnip?

Wilhelm: She has gone to the kitchen.

Gretchen: Where is the accomplished and beautiful maiden?

Wilhelm: It has gone to the opera.

(Here’s to another year.)

see below

This piece goes to show how accessible I was as a columnist. Of course there were plenty of people who read the column who already knew where I lived, or knew my telephone number. But getting direct mail, or phone calls (perhaps they got the number from the phone book, which in those days was still a highly accurate publication) is something that probably wouldn’t happen any longer. People did occasionally write directly to the Midweek, but others obviously thought it more appropriate to approach me directly.

As for English spelling, I might have exaggerated a bit, but the language itself is a piece of cake compared to many in the world, which is presumably why it’s been so successful at exporting itself.

I don’t appear to have a copy of the column in which I discussed daylight saving, though I did rant on it elsewhere on my blog some years later. The photo attached above, however, has an interesting history, as shown below (inaccurately?) - courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and Archives New Zealand.

A chorus of opinion from “eminent men” on the subject of daylight saving was in the spotlight on this day 24 October 1912.

When the S S Ruepehu set sail to New Zealand it was carrying 12 pamphlets on the English Daylight Saving Bill from the London High Commission. One of the intended recipients was MP T K Sidey who was introducing a similar bill into the New Zealand Parliament. The pamphlet, which set out the case for daylight saving, includes comments from everyone from the King of England to a Piccadilly shopkeeper. “Sunshine destroys germs and raises the vitality,” declared the Earl of Meath who was also chairman of the London Metropolitan Gardens. A London businessman had this to say of one of his book keepers, “a capable fellow” who had been “wasting away” with an undiagnosed illness: “Poor fellow his life has been lived without sunshine. We buried him five months later in the Highlands of Scotland!”

Despite this call to action New Zealand’s reaction to the pamphlet was muted. Daylight saving was not introduced here until 1927.

Shown here is the pamphlet from London