Real presence or virtualism?

The Warden

One of the novel expressions of my new normal role is the delivery of my weekly Chapel service; thinking it would be wrong to deprive a new audience of my polished homiletical skills, this is produced via iMovie in a digitally re-mastered form and then simultaneously released to my dearly beloved brethren and sistren. I would like to think that the end-product would rival the oratorical charms of a snake-handling pastor, but I am yet to receive the call from Kentucky.

To my credit, I have long had a gift of being able to say so very little with so many words, and in my more hubristic moments, I might add so eloquently. Nevertheless, I have always felt I present better ex tempore when my creative ability to waffle achieves a greater level of fluency than anything I might have delivered given time to prepare. Essentially, the problem lies in the fact that my memory cannot retain extended script at all well without a significant effort, and the act of recall prevents elegance in any delivery. Reading, I have always found, erects a barrier between speaker and the spoken; my solution, therefore, has been to sneak a brief verbal handrail to guide my thoughts and my mouth through whatever it is I want to say. For the most part, this works well so long as I actually remember what the sparse aide-mémoire means. The simultaneous over-concentration on thought and expression has recently developed somewhat irritatingly into the mispronunciation of words which have hitherto never been an issue, and playback has thus become a truly painful experience.

For all these reasons, I have always been truly impressed by those who are able to speak honestly, clearly, and thoughtfully in public without recourse to script or notes. It is a genuine talent which is incredibly effective and which, for the most part, is rarely practised and even more rarely taught in schools.

Given the importance we attach to an ability to speak clearly in public, this is bizarre – muttering as bad mannered as illegible handwriting in that both prevent clear communication.

The dangerous flip-side to all this, of course, is the charlatan or the snake-oil salesman of the Wild West whose oratory masks a lack of considered content.

Throughout recent weeks, we have been treated to the broadest display of the world’s leaders, political, scientific, and other. They have all been faced with a demanding challenge: to explain complicated science and statistics clearly, to guide firmly, and to reassure calmly.

Some have managed this with aplomb – Angela Merkel or Jacinda Ardern are two clear front-runners – while others have startled the global community with their ad libbing or simply confused a country as to what they should do next.

In legacies of lockdown, there may be a rise in STEM as more young people become interested in virology, but hopefully we will pay attention to mastering communication too.

And while all this rumbles on, some of us are left to work out whether ‘face-to-face’ means real and in person, or whether we are still in the virtual world.

The Dog

Himself has been a little distracted of late and this means that Mrs Warden has been promoted to accompany me on my pre- and post-luncheon peregrinations; this has always provided the odd moment of sport when patience and legs may both be equally tested to the max.

Of course, she uses all the same commands in words and whistles: ‘-NG-S’ [we never deploy my name except to conjure my presence]; ‘Heel’; ‘Sit’; ‘Out’; ‘Dead’; and so on.

The trick is to lull her into a false sense of security and when she is least expecting it, just ignore – this normally yields a double gain: first, irritation in the moment [pure gold], and secondly, the subsequently heated discussion between Warden and Mrs as to how the command should precisely be uttered and issued [pure platinum]. Now, where’s that hare?