It wasn't often that the Major made a thought-provoking contribution to the talk It was a moment to savour. "Was Queen Elizabeth I plain Queen Elizabeth until the present one came along and made numbering necessary?""Of course she was," said the Major. Until 1939 the Great War must have been the Only World War.""Does that mean that George I was called King George until there was a second King George?" said the grey-haired lady. I don't think anyone ever called it anything but 'the war'.""I don't suppose it was ever called anything but the Great War afterwards," said the Major. "You couldn't call a war the First World War until you'd started the Second one.
"But the thing about the war is...""It's a funny thing," said the resident Welshman, shooting off at a tangent before anyone could catch him, "but wars don't get given a name until afterwards While a war is being fought it's just 'the war' I bet during the Boer War nobody called it 'the Boer War' I bet it was just 'the war' I'm sure that's true of the First World War. You have to agree to be the loser before the other side can win.""Maybe," said the man with the dog. We've won, haven't we?""The Germans had won against the French in 1940," said the resident Welshman "But the French never agreed to be the losers. We may think it's over, but they don't.""Well, it doesn't matter what they think. "There isn't a war going on that I know of.""The war against Iraq.""Oh, that war That's all over now We've finished that.""Not in Iraq they haven't.
He just does it."This war..." he said again."What war?" said the lady with the grey hairdo. It didn't often work, because everyone else was talking loudly. But when he talks softly and stops in mid-flow, people are afraid that they might miss something, and they pause to listen to him I don't know how he does it Nor does he. "This war..." said the man with the dog, as he ordered a pint, and stopped in mid-sentence. It's his new technique for getting people's attention The annoying thing about it is that it works He used to talk loudly to get people's attention. Who would possibly trust those scary jogging characters with getting you someone's phone number? They look as if they'd say: "I'm afraid I can't give you the number for Woolworths in Swindon, sir, because yesterday another voice told me to burn it to the ground." More from Mark Steel.
