By K. A. Laity
While it's faded a bit from the news, the Twitter joke trial (#twitterjoketrial) will have a lingering impact, not only for its outrageous assault on reason and human rights, but for its less immediate effects on humour.
In case you missed it, the brief story is young man in love (or lust -- does it really matter?) is ready to fly off to see the woman he'd formed an attachment to via the net. If you're still snickering at internet match-ups, I'm sure you must be one of those folks lucky enough to meet fabulously interesting folks in drunken pub crawls or on blind dates set up by your friends (yes, that weird guy they thought was "perfect for you" is an indication of what they think you will settle for).
However, when Paul Chambers set off to fly from Nottingham to Ireland, only to be met by delays (anxiously watching the ash reports myself this past week, I can relate). Among the frustrated tweets he sent was the mocking, "Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your sh*t together otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!"
Yes, it is stupid to make jokes about bombing airports. But is it really worth giving a criminal record (apparently killing his career) and a £1000 fine over that kind of stupid remark?
Not surprisingly I first heart of this story from comedians on Twitter like Graham Linehan, Rebecca Front and Bill Bailey, who know that if we must lock down our speech to mere factuality, comedy is dead. David Mitchell's Observer column expounded on this idiocy and the humourlessness all this overcompensating panic has led us to now.
One of the best responses, however, came from Allan Green, AKA Jack of Kent, who tweeted "Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!" #twitterjoketrial. Everyone please RT.
This is one of the brilliant bits of civil disobedience I've seen in ages. What could be more "safe" and comforting than beloved -- venerated, even -- poet, John Betjeman? To many, he is an institution. Yet even institutions have their irascible moments. The Slough Betjeman captures in 1937 lacked many of the charms the current city has (though even today it retains some taint of that image or else it wouldn't have ended up as the setting for The Office). Doubtless, Betjeman would have been horrified at actual bombs dropping there, but then he understood the difference between satire and a credible threat.
That's the key. The power of Jack's quotation of this poem is its immediate demonstration that context is everything. I wish I'd seen more people retweet the message. Sadly, I'd guess that few probably recognized the poem: perhaps some Office fanatics and dyed-in-the-wool Betjeman fans (probably not much overlap there), and of course [cough] English professors. People as an indulgence these days -- something morose teen-agers do, or arty-farty types in berets -- but it used to be the articulate language of objection. Not that it was always safe: Ovid got himself exiled, Blake died nearly penniless. But we need someone to speak up for reason and sanity: it can't always be the jesters.
However, they seem to be the only ones we can trust.
Photo of Sir John Betjeman via JohnBetjeman.com