Losing one’s temper over wanton displays of outrage
There is a lot of confusion these days about the various levels of anger people can experience. Not everyone, for example, understands the difference between “seething” and “fuming”. I thought I would clear these matters up.
Seething is what you do at the supermarket checkout when the customer ahead of you is fumbling and causing delays. Eye-rolling may also occur. Fuming is mostly reserved for celebrities when tabloids report that their toyboy lover has been spied outside a nightclub, looking the worse for wear and accompanied by the star of a long-forgotten TV reality show. Commuters may also fume when their train is 15 minutes late.
Fury is what you experience when you discover your tattooist has misspelt the word “Serendipity” on your right shoulder, or if your train has been cancelled. It is generally the prelude to a demand for a refund. Ire is posh fury, strictly reserved for senior civil servants and academics.
Rage is the default position of backbench MPs and football managers. It is, in fact, a supercharged form of indignation and can be ignored. Resentment is only authentic if it has been harboured for at least two generations.
Simple anger has been discontinued. It has been replaced by what is known as “very real” anger. Pique is a pleasurable condition claimed by connoisseurs of slights, such as being seated at the wrong table at a wedding or, even better, uninvited to a royal wedding. (In these circumstances, persons such as ambassadors may indulge themselves in a little ire.)
Choler, spleen and dudgeon are out of fashion and should be avoided. Wrath is reserved for God – and also for the BMW owner who finds somebody has taken his usual parking space.
I have written a TV sitcom called Dad’s Royal Mail, set in the postage stamps department where a Mr Mainwaring leads a motley bunch of men in a war with the Royal Mint over who can do the most commemorating.
“Now pay attention, men. We have to keep alert at all times. Your Royal Mint johnnie is a devious sort and you never know when he is going to come up with a new coin design. I’m afraid that Peter Rabbit 50p caught us on the hop. And they matched us with Votes for Women and the RAF centenary. We have to respond and hit them hem hard.”
“Permission to speak, sir. Our series of Game of Thrones stamps showed them what we’re made of. Those Minty wallahs don’t like it up ’em.”
“That’s all very well, Jones, but we need another anniversary or something to celebrate.”
“My sister Dolly made some awfully good gooseberry jam last week. That would look good on a stamp.” “Thank you, Godfrey.”
“We’re doomed, I say. Doomed. The Royal Mint has vastly superior numbers. Only one thing can save us: a series of stamps depicting the history of embalming.”
“That would not be good for r morale, Frazer. What do you have to contribute, Wilson?”
“I was just thinking about that series of owls we’ve just issued. Do you think it was wise, sir?”
at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion
“Mr Mainwaring. Mum says it was 50 years ago that the Royal Mint moved to Wales. We could do a stamp to commemorate that.”
“You stupid philatelist!”
Why do the messages in fortune cookies have to be so relentlessly optim optimistic? We went to our favourite Chine Chinese restaurant a couple of weeks ago an and, as we were leaving, the beami beaming manager pressed us to take some c cookies.
I ca can’t remember what mine said, of course course. Something about success being within my grasp, I expect. Or my go goals being around the corner. An imp important figure probably had a me message for me that would be to my adv advantage as I travelled the path to ric riches and good health. It was all the usual stuff that I knew already. It w would have done better just to wa warn me that I was about to un unwisely nibble a tasteless bit of pas pastry.
La Last week I was horrified to disco discover that this lovely restaurant had ab abruptly closed down. Why didn’t the co cookie warn me about that?