I note with happiness that Christopher Hitchens is still turning in his weekly column for Slate. This week’s production is a rather discursive essay on the sexual peccadilloes of Anthony Weiner and John Edwards, but it has one lovely anecdote at the end that I must pass on:
In my time at Oxford, there still persisted a quaint survival from the Victorian era. A special part of the river bank set among the willows was reserved for nude male bathing, with membership restricted to dons and clergymen. Prominent signs and barriers prevented boats and punts containing females from approaching this discreet stretch. On one fateful Sunday afternoon, however, a recent flood had washed away the signs and weakened the barriers. A group of ladies was swept past the rows of recumbent and undressed gentlemen. Shrieks of embarrassment from the boat, while on the shore—consternation. Pairs of hands darted down to cover the midsection. All but one, the hedonist and classicist Sir Maurice Bowra, whose palms went up to conceal his craggy visage. As the squeals were borne downstream, and the sheepish company surveyed itself, Bowra growled, “I don’t know about you chaps, but I’m known by my face around here.” How long will this traditional view endure?
Pfffft!! That’s hilarious!
LOL. My dad used to tell me this story. Except it was different:
He said that, in Japan, if you’re caught naked, you hide your face and not your genitals. Precisely because people know you for your face, not your phallus.
I always took it with a grain of salt, but I liked the story. It’s what I’ll do, for sure, if ever caught naked.
Oh c’mon… your S.O. might want to see your face some of the time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZPzivgc7aQ&feature=related starting at 0:30
As far as I recall it was still in active use in the 1970s as I went on a sort of Three Men in a Boat/Sweet Thames Run Softly punt holiday around 1977/8, & we went by. Or did I imagine it?! Very surprised it is not used now in these more liberated days. The story in in the Wikipedia entry =
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parson%27s_Pleasure
This sort of thing seems normal in Munich parks.
As Sir Maurice didn’t have the cultural common sense of the Japanese to guide him, but only the idiot mores of British prudery, his quick thinking is all the more remarkable.
You have concealed the truth, Jerry. A “discursive” essay! (“…but it has one lovely anecdote at the end”) Balls. It’s beautiful, it’s hilarious. Chortle chortle…
I wish I could remember where I first read that anecdote.
It must have been well over 30 years ago, and I don’t think it was Hitch.
David B
Excuse me if you’ve seen this before (I may have posted it on another thread) but…
A man was a guest at a golf club, and after a round he went for a shower. When he emerged, he found to his horror that between the shower and where he had changed were now four women playing bridge. He kept his composure and covered his face with his towel as he hurried through.
“Well! That certainly wasn’t MY husband!” said the eldest women.
“Nor mine,” said the next.
“Nor mine.”
“I don’t think” piped up the youngest “that he’s a member of the club.”
Yes, that’s roughly the version I heard about 50 years ago. I know the approximate date because I can picture a prominent alumnus of the Cal Band (UC Berkeley marching band) telling it to a group of undergraduates, including myself. In an even earlier version from my mother (mid 1950’s), the man was a redhead and wrapped a towel around his head. One of the women, encountered later, casually remarked “nice try, Red”.
You forgot the part where the second woman agrees that it isn’t the first woman’s husband.
Actually, the Hitch has been quite productive of late. His regular Slate column, a mini-essay for Vanity Fair, a long review essay for the NY Times on Hochschild’s new WWI history, a live-streamed debate, a double-exchange with Noam Chomsky over the bin Laden killing, a short piece for Free Inquiry magazine, a long review essay on Rosa Luxemburg for the Atlantic, annnnnd…… his excellent Kindle Single “The Enemy”. “The Enemy” sums up Hitchens’ view of the career of bin Laden, his symbolic and ideological role in the world, and the significance of his death.
And that’s all just in this pas 30 days. Not bad for a cancer patient.
It’s a lovely telling of the anecdote.
Great to see him doing so well.
Parson’s Pleasure, the area was called in my day and still “active” when I was there (1986-89), but there weren’t any barriers and I can’t recall any notices. We went past in a punt with female company on board and there was no reaction from the gentlemen on display!
I’ve definitely heard the story from somewhere else as well. Does Hitch think he really experienced it? Or is this just creative license?