Welcome to Kington: The Selected Columns of Miles Kington

By Miles Kington

The very best columns from a body of outstanding comic writing by the irreplaceable, irrepressible Miles Kington.

For decades the columns of Miles Kington were a refreshing spot of lunacy in the dull acres of the world's news. From the arguments between gods past and present (as recorded in the minutes of United Deities meetings), to unlikely agony aunts, all-purpose Shakespeare plays, and interviews with ‘sock psychologists’, nothing is too trivial or unlikely to attract Kington’s attention and wit.

Selected here are over a hundred pieces, each a powerful antidote to doom and destruction with their irreverent, absurd and sometimes surreal attitude to life. They are amongst the best journalism and humorous works of the past fifty years. Read on.

‘Every single day over more than two decades, his column [was] witty, topical, erudite, acutely observed…Quite simply, no-one in modern journalism is capable of such an output at such high quality.’ Simon Kelner

‘As with the very best in any sphere of endeavour, Miles’s trick was to make it look easy. His lightness of touch amounted to a kind of genius. But behind the conversational prose lay craftsmanship of the highest order. His standards never wavered.’ Simon O’Hagan

• Language: English
• Publisher: Canelo
• Release date: Feb 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781910859155

Miles Kington

Miles Kington was literary editor of Punch and a writer for the London Times. He also wrote a regular column for The Independent, from its earliest days until the week he died. The author of several bestsellers in the UK, he died of cancer in January 2008.

Book preview

Copyright

Welcome to Kington – The Selected Columns

Miles Kington

Canelo

Introduction

For decades, Miles Kington wrote columns for the Independent, the Times, and just about anyone else who’d have him.

Welcome to Kington is a selection of just over a hundred of the very best: from unlikely agony aunts, to all-purpose Shakespeare plays, to interviews with ‘sock psychologists’. These columns – amongst the best journalism and humorous writing of the past fifty years – are classics of their genre.

A treasury of Kingtonia awaits you! Read on…

The Gods

I am privileged today to bring you another set of minutes from the most recent meeting of the United Deities, the regular get-together of gods past and present which assembles to survey how our poor old planet is getting on…

The chairgod said that as usual the first item on the agenda was the possible merger between the Jewish God and the Christian God. He assumed that nothing had been done to effect a rapprochement between these two sister religions, or he might have heard about it on the grapevine.

The Christian God said it was not a good time of year for him to get anything done, as he had to deal personally with Christmas and attend millions of carol services and nativity plays, in spirit and in person, which was a bit of trial even when you were omnipresent.

The Jewish God said, with the best will in the world, baloney. It was a long time since Christianity had much to do with Christmas. It was just a feast of giving and taking, eating and drinking. After all, it was not even a Christian festival in essence – it was an old pagan midwinter festival which had been taken over by the Christian God from the old Welsh gods.

A Welsh god said, not so much of the old, thank you very much.

The Jewish God said he was sorry.

The Welsh God said no offence taken.

The Jewish God reiterated his feeling that Christmas was Christian only in name. If any supernatural figure could take responsibility at Christmas time, it was not the Christian God, but Father Christmas. (Laughter). Come to think of it, continued the Jewish God, why had Father Christmas never been invited to attend one of these sessions?

The Christian God said he didn’t want to cause the Jewish God any distress by breaking the news to him, but apparently Father Christmas didn’t exist. (More laughter.) In any case, Christmas was not just a church festival; it was also his only son’s birthday, and he felt quite strongly about that.

Zeus said that if he had to bother every time one of his hundreds of children had a birthday, he would be a suitable case for retirement. Why, he did not even know the names of half of them. But then, in his day, gods had a healthy sex life, unlike some namby pamby gods he could mention …

The chairgod said this wasn’t getting anywhere and if the Jewish God and Christian God approached reconciliation in this spirit, he wasn’t surprised that it never happened.

The Christian God said maybe the big question was not why he and the Jewish God were not blood brothers, but why the Jewish God and Allah had not come to some agreement. After all, it was not Christianity and Islam that were daggers drawn in the Middle East.

The chairgod said he did not see why politics had to be drawn into this. It had been agreed long ago that the gods were not responsible for the actions of their followers. If they were, then every god should feel very guilty indeed, as humans tended to behave badly no matter who they followed.

Except, said Allah, followers of Buddha who did tend to be peaceable, and he would like to give them credit for that, and to apologise for what was done in the name of Islam to the biggest statues of Buddha in the world. Buddha said nothing as usual, but onlookers said they thought they detected a slight smile.

The Christian God said that if they thought Buddhists were exempt from bad behaviour, they were talking through their haloes. Burma was one of the principal Buddhist countries in the world, yet their history was hideously bloodstained …

The chairgod intervened hastily to remind them that political point-scoring was a human vice, not a divine one, and at this rate they would be talking about sport, which was so far beneath contempt that even an Australian god would not descend to it, if there were one.

An Australian aboriginal god said, what did he mean, even if there were one? There were plenty. And the aboriginal folk didn’t play any violent team games till the white man arrived, so to that extent they were more civilised.

The chairgod said, yes, well, he was sorry and now could they move on to the next item which was the state of play in North Korea?

More of this tomorrow, I hope.

And here it is:

The chairgod said that in view of the recent reports that North Korea was going to reactivate its nuclear programme and thus perhaps blow up the planet, and leave them all without any worshippers, they might perhaps call on a Korean god to comment, though he had to be absolutely honest and say he couldn’t remember off-hand if there were any Korean gods.

So much for omniscience, said an unidentified Inca god, to laughter.

Omniscience was all very well, said the chairgod, but it was a relative thing. (More laughter.) Might he remind those present that although they were all omniscient, for otherwise they would not be gods, the truths they all knew differed alarmingly from each other. If this were not so, there would be no point in having these meetings.

Thor, Norse God of thunder, said he could not see any point in these meetings anyway, as they always ended peacefully in harmony. His idea of a good meeting, he said, was lots of hammers thrown and lots of people dead.

The chairgod said it was a lucky thing for the world that war gods were outnumbered by other gods more interested in agriculture and the sea, and so on.

A voice said that he was a Korean god and would be pleased to answer any questions.

He was asked to give his name.

He gave it.

It being impossible to pronounce, the chairgod directed that for the time being he should be referred to as Our Korean friend or perhaps the Divine Member for Korea (more laughter).

The Korean god said that things had been quite quiet recently, as antique dealers always said when business was disastrously slow. The fact of the matter was that for fifty years at least half the Korean nation had been in the hands of the Communists, who had declared that there were no gods. It was difficult for a god to do business with an atheist state.

The Russian Orthodox god said, excuse him, but fifty years only? Try doing business with a godless state for eighty or more years! It was a mighty advertisement for faith that Christianity had survived all that time under the Soviet system.

The chairgod said that faith kept everything going. Why, even after the collapse of Communism there were still people who were convinced Communists!

A Greek god said that maybe it was only possible to be a convinced Communist when there was no Communism around.

The chairgod said that that sounded clever but did it actually mean anything?

The Greek god said that after all Marx and Engels, who predated Communism, were rather greater thinkers than Lenin and Stalin, who were actually running Communist shows.

The chairgod said, yes, well, that sounded very clever but time was getting on and perhaps they should invite more comments on the Korean question.

A Japanese god said that with the greatest respect, he questioned whether Korean culture was capable of handling a nuclear industry.

The Korean god said that he was sick and tired of the Japanese coming the high and mighty with Korea. Japan had enslaved and raped and subjugated the Koreans for hundreds of years, and it was about time they got their comeuppance. If Korea had a nuclear industry, and Japan didn’t, it was easy to see where the first bomb was going to fall. Let nobody forget that the last time a nuclear bomb had fallen, it was on Japan. Perhaps those gods present could understand why it was so tempting to bomb the Nipponese!

Thor said Yoicks tally ho, this was more like a proper meeting and offered to lend hammers to both sides.

The chairgod said he proposed an adjournment for ten minutes for a calm glass of ambrosia and a cooling of tempers. Thor said he was a wet blanket to beat all wet blankets but everyone else agreed, and the meeting adjourned.

More of this some other time.

A Global Warning Sceptic Speaks

We have all seen experts on global warming. They come on the TV and shake their heads and say that if we do not mend our ways, we will court disaster. If we do not cut emissions and persuade the Americans to sell their cars and buy bicycles, we are on the road to perdition. These experts then look extremely sorrowful and pocket their fees and get in their cars and go home till it is time to prophesy doom elsewhere.

But not all experts on global warming are like that.

Professor Lance Bastable is a cheerful expert on global warming. He thinks that global warming is rather a good thing. Not only that, he also doesn’t think it’s happening.

‘Well, clearly the earth is warming up just now, I don’t deny that, but the earth has always warmed up and cooled down. There’s nothing new about that. What is new is that we have convinced ourselves that we are entering a new and final phase of the earth’s existence and that we are all on a big dipper car which is going to get faster and faster and finally get out of control. It’s an entrancing theory. The only thing that is wrong with it is that there is no evidence for it whatsoever.’

But surely…

‘Everything that is happening today has happened before. These changes are within normal parameters. Indeed, I might say that past changes have been much more extreme than what we are getting now. Ice ages have come and gone. Continents have been submerged. The Sahara Desert was once fertile farming territory. And we think that a few floods show the end of the world!’

But surely…

‘Shall I tell you what the trouble is? The trouble lies not in the climate or the use of fossil fuels or pollution – and don’t forget that we have had drastic climate changes in the past without benefit of global industrial pollution – but in our perception of what’s happening! And our perception of weather is based on a very short memory span indeed; a lifetime as far as personal memory is concerned and a few hundred years when it comes to statistics. The hottest October since records began, you hear people saying. But when did records begin? Yesterday!’

Yes, but surely…

‘So we think that what is normal is what we know. We think it is normal for winters to be cold and summers warm. We think it is normal for Africa to be hot and Russia cold, for the monsoons to come on a certain date and for the primroses to be out by a certain date. What short term rubbish! What is normal on our planet is for things to change! Ice ages, earthquakes, fire, floods, those are the normal things. As soon as we have taught ourselves to view change as normality, this so-called global warming emerges as just another shifting pattern, and nothing to be frightened of at all. Do you know what would frighten me? If there were NO global warming or anything like it! Because then I’d know that our planet had stopped changing and its batteries were running down.’

Yes, but doesn’t he think that…

Professor Bastable is not a man who listens to interruptions, or even notices them.

‘Historians are gradually coming round to the theory that war is the normal state of affairs, not peace. We’d all like to think that peace is the norm, but a peaceful nation is a non-evolving nation. Same with evolution. Experts always called it the survival of the fittest but Darwinians now think that it is the failures who survived best. I mean, if the ancestors of man who were best adapted to life in the jungle, just stayed in the jungle, and those who couldn’t survive there had to leave and adapt to the world outside, it was change that saved them! While the jungle-dwellers just got smug and decadent! Maybe that’s why America came out on top in the jungle of modern life – because it’s populated by the outcasts of all other nations! Same with weather. We’d like to think that an unchanging climate allows life to flourish, but it just leads towards a vegetative life. Change – that’s what we need more of!’

But surely…

‘Sorry! ‘ says Professor Bastable. ‘Got to run. Some other time. Meanwhile you can find all this and more on the first programme of my new TV series, an episode I’ve called Come On In – the Global Warming’s Lovely!’

Lance Bastable’s new TV series, Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Warmth?, accompanied by book, video, board game and T-shirt, starts next week on the BBC Disaster Channel.

Trust the National Trust…

The National Trust is a hundred years old this week. But it doesn’t behave like an elderly organisation. It behaves like an outfit that knows where it’s going. And where it’s going is up. Fast. The proof? In 1995, there are plenty of organisations that are celebrating their centenary. And who was first off the starting-block? The National Trust, that’s who.

‘We didn’t get where we are today by pussy-footing around,’ says the genial, no-nonsense, cigar-chomping head of the National Trust publicity machine, Jim History Man Cavalciani. ‘We got where we are today by moving fast. That’s how we operate. We hear of a property that is in difficulty, we move in, we get the owner out, we take over. OK, so maybe we don’t always get the owner out. Maybe sometimes we let the owner live in a small corner of the property. We let him have the illusion that he is still in charge. But believe me, there’s only one person in charge. That’s us. Any more questions?’

The National Trust is a ruthless organisation. Within minutes of a property passing into their realm, it has been transformed into the image of the National Trust. Labels have appeared on all the furniture, descriptive notes are attached to every quoin and lintel, and an elderly lady has been stationed in every room to survey your actions as you pass through.

‘She may look like a harmless elderly lady,’ chuckles Jim History Man Cavalciani, ‘but you’d better not mess with her. All these dames are trained in close combat, they are armed and they are possessed of a wicked line in backchat. If you stray too close to something valuable, or just happen to pick up a valuable heirloom to have a closer look, you are liable to have your wrist in a vice-like grip and tears in your eyes. These girls would have given James Bond a hard time, believe me.’

And yet they all look so harmless, surely?

‘That’s the beauty of it,’ grins Jim History-Maker Cavalciani. ‘You wouldn’t think that any of these babies could make a dent in anything much bigger than a scone or shortbread biscuit. Ask them a question about the date of the fireplace, and as like as not you’ll get a simpering reply: ‘Oh, I’m not the normal lady, I’m afraid. Edith would know the answer to that, but she’s not back till Tuesday.’ Baloney! That’s what we tell them to say. That’s the National Trust image. Know what the motto of the National Trust is?’

‘In Trust for the Nation’, isn’it?

‘Yeah, something like that. Wanna know what the real motto is? I’ll tell you. Who Preserves, Wins.

Hmm… A bit like the SAS?

‘The SAS?’ says Jim Mr History Cavalciani, smiling mysteriously to himself. ‘That bunch of grannies? Those Boy Scouts on steroids? Those Gladiators in glad rags? Yeah, you could call us a bit like the SAS. Except that, unlike that dumb outfit, we’re serious. What have the SAS ever done except capture the occasional embassy or piece of rock? Whereas we in the Trust have secured almost every piece of historic real estate in Britain worth capturing. We have erected a genteel facade of jams and gloves for sale, all the while sitting on a beach-head of heritage which we can use as a springboard for…’

At this point the telephone rang, and with a snarl Mr Jim Heritage Hunk Cavalciani plucked a mobile phone somewhere out of his shoulder padding and said into it: ‘National Trust Trouble-Shooter. What gives?’

As he muttered confidentially into his phone, it gave me time to reflect that the National Trust was, indeed, ideally posed to move into the big-time. On its spacious grounds it could hide or disguise almost any scam. With its resources and contacts it could cover up any operation. It had more rooms marked Closed For Refurbishment than anyone except maybe the Queen. Who knows what was happening behind those closed doors?

‘I gotta run,’ said Jim History – We Got it! Cavalciani, snapping his phone shut. ‘Spot of trouble in Wilbeck Towers. Lord Wilbeck cutting up rough. Trying to talk to the press. We don’t like our tenants talking to the press.’

But you’re talking to the press, I pointed out to him. He turned his cold eyes on me.

‘Where did you say you were from?’ said Jim Mind Your Manors Cavalciani.’ The Independent? Never heard of it. Are you in difficulties? Maybe we’ll move in and take over. We’ll let you know. After it has happened. That’s how fast we move. Goodbye.’

Goodbye, I said.

But he had already gone.

From the High Court

There is a most curious court case going in at the moment in London, in which a charge of drunk and disorderly behaviour is being most strenuously contested by the defendant, on grounds which – the experts think – have never before been advanced in a court of law. Mr Horace Hubble, an author, claims that although he was indeed drunk in a public place, it was fully justified by the research he was doing…

But perhaps you would get more of the flavour of the case if I bring you some of the actual proceedings. Here is the moment when Mr Hubble first takes the stand.

Counsel: You are Mr Horace Hubble?

Hubble: Yes, I rejoice in that name.

Counsel: Oh – you rejoice in it, do you?

Hubble: Oh, yes. With a name like that, you’ve got to rejoice in it, otherwise you’d sink.

Counsel: Horace is a most unusual name, is it not?

Hubble: Not if you are living in ancient Rome.

Counsel: But we are not living in ancient Rome.

Hubble: That doesn’t stop modern people being christened Julius and Nero and Rufus.

Counsel: Or Caesar?

Hubble: I have never met anyone called Caesar. I have, however, eaten several life-saving salads of that name.

Judge: Excuse me a minute! Mr Godfrey, will you please tell me the point of these irrelevant exchanges? Is this some superannuated music hall routine?

Counsel: No, sir. I am jousting verbally with the defendant in order to confuse him and establish my mastery of the situation.

Judge: Then you have started badly, I would say. Carry on!

Counsel: Now, Mr Hubble, you appear on a charge of being drunk and disorderly. I gather you do not deny that on the date in question, last October, you were drunk?

Hubble: Very drunk.

Counsel: Very drunk.

Hubble: Very drunk indeed.

Counsel: Quite so. Could you tell the court the reason for your drunkenness?

Hubble: I had been drinking.

Counsel: And why had you been drinking?

Hubble: To get drunk.

Counsel: And why did you wish to get drunk?

Hubble: Because I wished to get a hangover.

Counsel: Why on earth would anyone want to inflict a hangover on themselves?

Hubble: For the purposes of research.

Counsel: And why on earth … Oh, just tell us why, Mr Hubble.

Hubble: Certainly. You may not have noticed this, but every year at Christmas time there are certain articles which are much in demand in the press. Every year, sure as clockwork is clockwork, there will be features in almost every publication on ‘How to Behave at the Office Party’, and ‘Six Great Recipes for Mulled Wine’, and ‘Those Winter Blues – are they a Myth?’ and, of course, the one about last minute Christmas breaks. There are also articles on ‘How to Cure a Hangover’. I had been commissioned to write one. I was doing research into it. Therefore, I had to get drunk.

Counsel: But surely there can be no new research into hangovers? All that is known about hangovers must be known by now. Would you not merely look up the cuttings of other pieces on hangovers and copy out the most commonplace facts and figures? Is that not the way journalism works? Did not Mr Kingsley Amis himself write an article every year on how to cure hangovers which was, in essence, always the same article as the year before?

Hubble: Yes, even the great Kingsley Amis did that. But I was determined to see if it were not possible to do some original research on the subject.

Sensation in court.

Counsel: Did hear you aright? Did you say that you were going to do some investigative journalism?

Hubble: Yes.

Judge: This is a sensational development. I think it calls for a short adjournment.

More of this tomorrow!

And here is the promised sequel:

Yesterday I brought you part of a very unusual trial going on in London at the moment in which writer Mr Horace Hubble, facing drunk and disorderly charges, claims in defence that he was doing research on an article on hangover cures, and that he couldn’t investigate the cures if he did not first get drunk.

Here is some more of his fascinating testimony.

Counsel: I can see the logic behind your claim that you had to get drunk to produce a hangover. But why did you have to do it in Oxford Street? Would it not have served your purpose to get drunk in the privacy of your own home?

Hubble: Most of the time, this would be true. But on this particular occasion I wanted to test the theory that exercise diminishes drunkenness.

Counsel: This is a new theory to me.

Hubble: It is my own theory. I have noticed that when I have been dancing constantly at parties, drink seems to have much less effect on me. It is almost as if the activity of the body drives the alcohol fumes out. I wanted to see, under controlled conditions, if this were true. So I decided to drink a lot and then go for a long walk.

Counsel: Along Oxford Street?

Hubble: I had not intended to go along Oxford Street. I had intended to walk through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. However, I set off in the wrong direction from Marble Arch and went along Oxford Street by mistake.

Counsel: It cannot be very hard to tell the difference between Oxford Street and Hyde Park.

Hubble: It is when you’re drunk. Or at least, when you’re drunk, you don’t care very much about the difference between one and the other. This was the difficulty I kept encountering. Every time I embarked on a serious test of a hangover cure I had to get drunk first, and by the time I was drunk, I often couldn’t care less about the hangover cure. Horace Hubble when drunk had