![\"Page](\"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/1972DiaryPage-300x233.jpg\")
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I came across my 1972\u2020<\/sup> diary the other day. Interesting to see the things I was doing and making note of as a sixteen- to seventeen-year-old. For example, the entry for the 5th September is, \u201cBack to school. Boo!\u201d The following Saturday, it\u2019s \u201cNorfolk Broads\u2014holidays!\u201d<\/p>\n Aahhh\u2014those were the days\u2014when pupils could take a holiday during term-time without parents having to factor the fine into the budget.<\/p>\n The diary itself was probably a freebie given away with Dewar\u2019s whisky\u2014the bottom of each left-side page (or \u201cverso\u201d) has \u201cWhite Label Scotch Whisky\u201d printed on it. (Which prompts the question, \u201cWhat\u2019s a sixteen-year-old doing with a whisky freebie?\u201d Besides, no one in my family home drank the stuff!)<\/p>\n Just as interesting as my scribblings were the little bon mots<\/em> at the bottom of each recto. (\u201crecto\u201d is the opposite of \u201cverso\u201d. Oh\u2026 you didn\u2019t care. Sorry.) Viewed through the ultra-sensitive, politically-correct magnifying glass of today, some of them are \u201cout there\u201d, but in 1972 they were just\u2026 amusing.<\/p>\n The oh-so-true \u201cLawyers get much more for divorcing people than clergymen do for marrying them\u201d seems to have aged well, although I\u2019m sure fewer people are married by a clergyman (or woman) these days, while lawyers are busier than ever untying knots.<\/p>\n Chuckle-worthy comments such as \u201cThe best thing to take when one is run down is the number of the car\u201d and \u201cIf you want to be remembered, borrow something\u201d also seem harmless still, although it\u2019s surely only a matter of time before road accident victims object to making light of traumatic events and low-grade kleptomaniacs balk at being singled out for attention.<\/p>\n But the weightist \u201cA detective states that fat men are hard to shadow, probably because they always look round\u201d might prompt raised eyebrows among the amply-proportioned. Although the online OED doesn\u2019t warn us, \u201cfat\u201d seems to be one of those words that we can no longer use in adjectival form.<\/p>\n And the sexist \u201cThe fellow who says that he understands women has never driven behind a woman driver\u201d might get you beaten up with a handbag. The same goes for \u201cFiremen dress and turn out in less than thirty seconds. There are no women firemen.\u201d, except that the beating up might involve firefighting apparatus of some kind. This one also fails for the falsehood in the last part.<\/p>\n Or how about this: \u201cThe most curious thing in the world is a woman who isn\u2019t.\u201d It seems that the writer regarded curiosity as a flaw. (I don\u2019t.) I assume the writer was confusing curiosity with nosiness. I also assume the writer was stereotyping. I also assume the writer had a death wish.\u00a0<\/p>\n Interesting snippet for logophiles; in the first half of the last century, \u201ccurious\u201d meant \u201c\u2026inquisitive. Often in bad sense: prying. (The current subjective sense.)\u201d<\/p>\n So I guess the bon mot<\/em> author was working from an old dictionary.<\/p>\n How do you feel about this one? \u201cA miss with a mission often looks for a man with a mansion.\u201d You may vote\u2026 now. (This reminds me of a similar phrase: \u201cA mistress is what goes between a master and his mattress.\u201d Funny in its day, but in these days of neo-Victorian moral value judgement, maybe not so much.)<\/p>\n These days, a significant majority of us use electronic diaries. And I have yet to see one of those that includes bon mots at the bottom of each page.<\/p>\n But I\u2019m sure there\u2019s an app for that.<\/p>\n \u2020 It was actually an unused 1967 diary that I use as a 1972 diary. After Feb 29, it worked as far as days of the week were concerned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I came across my 1972\u2020 diary the other day. Interesting to see the things I was doing and making note of as a sixteen- to seventeen-year-old. For example, the entry for the 5th September is, \u201cBack to school. Boo!\u201d The following Saturday, it\u2019s \u201cNorfolk Broads\u2014holidays!\u201d Aahhh\u2014those were the days\u2014when pupils could take a holiday during term-time without parents having to… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[181,490],"tags":[664,544,518,545,546,547,548],"class_list":["post-1150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fake","category-the-commentaries","tag-500words","tag-bon-mot","tag-diary","tag-fireman","tag-packrat","tag-recto","tag-verso"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1150"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1531,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1150\/revisions\/1531"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}