The parish church is a place of communion and communication, but during a service my daughter prefers to hear extempore prayer rather than the words of the prayer book. However, I have a deep regard for the wisdom of those early writers whose words address today’s human condition as much as they did in 1662 and, although technology has developed since the death of John Baskerville one of its earlier printers, the book and his typeface live on.
I was brought up a Methodist and, being used to extempore prayer, remember one preacher who used to end his prayers with the phrase, “Forgive me Lord for my much speaking.” This admission however, did nothing to allay the suspicion that he had been vaccinated with a gramophone needle.
Communication is a word much in vogue nowadays but, if we liken it to a penny, we realise that without its two sides of transmission and reception, the coin of communication would not exist. Male readers will of course know this, having spent years carefully listening to wives or partners, before patiently carrying out their instructions.
The hardest part of communication is listening, which may explain why there appears to be more talkers in the world than there are people wanting to listen to them. Despite knowing this, technology is making life even easier for the talker. They can now ‘talk’ via text message, email, fax, facebook or Twitter. (Tweeting for those readers who don’t know, is the latest method for sending 140 characters [including spaces] around the world in seconds.)
There is no doubt that we live in a world in which information is available by the bucket full, and its sheer volume creates a problem called ‘information overload.’ This occurs when there is so much data that the human mind acts like the computer chip, and slows down to give more time for processing. In the case of a computer, the problem is solved by adding more electrical memory. Hey presto, the answer is the same with the mind, there being zillions of unused network connections in the brain (even us oldies have trillions) already available for immediate use.
One of the secrets to creating new brain memory is to classify and categorise data so that you will know where to put it in your head. Once in, the next step is to link it with something already there. This will greatly increase the possibilities of finding it again. Data also linked to emotions is much easier to find, for example, you are unlikely to forget where your passports are kept if the third drawer down once fell on your foot as you got them out.
Communication is not just a human thing, and country folk will always have a tale or two to tell about the lengths their animals will go to tell them something. Sheep will baa and gather at the gate of the field they want opening, dogs will pull your sleeve, cats will make eye contact before leading you to their empty dinner plates, and a Peewit (lapwing) will pretend to have a broken wing whilst leading you away from their nesting site.
There is no doubt that animals know how to communicate with each other and with us when it suits them to do so. I sometimes wonder if the same can also be said of insects?
One September evening some years ago, I donned my white trousers, put on my wellington boots and completed my stylish outfit by slipping into a fetching capacious ecru top replete with a wide brimmed hat surrounded by fine black netting. I then put a curious metal tool into my pocket, and took up position behind the bee hives in preparation for removing the supers and taking off the honey.
Bees tend to get upset when they are burgled, and so preparation starts a few days earlier. This involves placing a couple of one-way traps in such a way as to allow them to leave their pantries but prevent them returning. It is then usually possible to remove the boxes without too many angry residents.
One year, although I thought I hadn’t communicated my plans to the bees, they anticipated the raid and thwarted me by pretty well eating all their stores before I got to them. This experience resolved me to take off the autumn-honey in August, which I have done ever since.
Thinking about being thwarted by bees and of how husbands always listen carefully to what their wives have to say, reminds me of the tale of the lady who was caught shoplifting canned food from the grocery store.
The charge sheet listed a tin of apricots and the Judge enquired as to how many were in the tin. To which she replied, “Six my lord. “Then you shall have six weeks in prison” he declared. Whereupon her husband seated at the back of the courtroom cried out,
“My Lord, she also stole a tin of peas.”
View from the Pew 