The dying art of conversation ?

Why chattering classes have nothing to say.

Amelia Hill, education correspondent
Sunday February 20, 2005
The Observer

The art of conversation is dead but the artistry of chatter is thriving, with Britons overwhelmingly admitting they rarely talk about anything more serious than traffic and television. According to a survey of more than 2,000 adults, almost two-thirds of us admit to indulging in shallow chit-chat at the expense of weighty dialogue - even though we secretly long for more meaningful exchanges.

'Brits have lost the skill of conversation,' said Ronald Carter, conversation expert and professor of English Language at Nottingham University. 'Considered communication has been the first casualty of our rushed, modern lives.

'We can't exchange thoughts and opinions reflectively when we're in a hurry and so we resort to banal banter,' said Carter, who has published more than 20 books and 100 papers on different aspects of spoken language.

'We have got used to chatter and have stopped making the effort to reach any more significant conversational depth.' The survey, by Telewest Broadband, found that despite the cultural stereotype, the British weather is no longer regarded as an acceptable topic of small talk. Instead, we prefer talking about last night's TV, office gossip and traffic. Carter believes that considered opinions are the first casualty of an excess of small talk.

'Too much chatter means we keep our real thoughts to ourselves,' he said. 'We risk becoming rigid and thoughtless in our opinions,' he added. But Dr Jonathan Miller, the neuroscience researcher, TV presenter and author, disagrees. 'Conversation is not an art and anyway, big conversation bores me,' he said. 'Turn-taking in conversation is the important thing. I'm interested in how people watch each other when they are conversing, how they respond to various topics, rather than what those topics are.'

Lemn Sissay, named as one of the 50 key black British writers, fetes small talk: 'Talking about traffic and patio doors is the Western Buddhist mantra,' he said. It's a way we can find inner peace in today's society. Small talk can give away so much more about people, and be much more fascinating than big talk. I truly respect those who can sit around and discuss patio doors for half an hour and get something out of it.'

The survey also found that more than two-thirds of people believe the telephone is the best way to have intelligent conversations, although Ned Sherrin, presenter of Loose Ends , the Radio 4 comedy show, a lexicographer and author of 20 books, admits hating the telephone. 'I would rather see the contours of their face, the clouds and the flicker of their tears. I find the telephone irritating and unsatisfactory, and like to get them over with as quickly as possible,' he said.

Soviets in Afghanistan

On this day 16 years ago... (15 Feb 1989)

Last Soviet troops leave Afghanistan

Liz Thurgood and Jonathan Steele in Kabul
Thursday February 16, 1989
The Guardian

As the last Soviet soldier marched out of Afghanistan yesterday, apparently wiping away tears, Pravda said in Moscow that in future decisions to send troops abroad should not be taken by a small conclave but by the Soviet Parliament. Nine years and seven weeks of Kremlin military involvement ended five minutes before noon, when the Soviet forces commander, Lieutenant-General Boris Grosmov, walked across 'Friendship Bridge' linking the Afghan border town of Hayratan with Termez, in the Soviet Union.

Hours afterwards, the Kremlin appealed for an immediate ceasefire and an end to arms shipments by all countries. The statement said that the withdrawal of Soviet troops under last April's Geneva accords could provide a basis for restoring peace in Afghanistan.

But the absence of Soviet troops could now touch off a bloodbath between the two heavily-armed Afghan sides, poised for a decisive struggle.

The Afghan government confirmed its fear of a bloody struggle yesterday by revealing that it had considered asking Moscow to halt the withdrawal of Soviet troops.

The government said it would have been entitled to ask them to stay. It accused the United States of not only failing to end its support of the Mojahedin operations out of Pakistan, but said that Washington had actually increased 'the quantity and sophistication of weapons being sent across the border'.

This amounted to 'a brutal trampling underfoot' of the agreements signed in Geneva.

Kabul was quiet yesterday, with no new rebel rocket attacks after the ones which killed five people on Tuesday. People showed no signs either of panic or jubilation as the decade-long Soviet intervention came to an end.

It was a day of quiet, but without the peace which many Afghans a few months ago had almost miraculously expected to see by now.

The government sought to appeal for international support by saying its position had 'enhanced the UN's authority, which Pakistan and the US were undermining'. It also poured scorn on the shura (gathering) which is still limping along in Islamabad, saying that 'the real forces inside Afghanistan were not represented'.

In Islamabad, Afghan rebels said an interim government for their country was presented for approval on Wednesday to the shura. Mr Abdurrab Rasul Sayyaf, spokesman for the shura, said the proposed government would be headed by the US-educated engineer, Mr Ahmad Shah, a fundamentalist Muslim. Mr Sayyaf said that a new list would be drawn up if the shura rejected the proposed cabinet.

Kabul accused Pakistan of trying to annex Afghanistan under the aegis of a Pakistan-Afghan confederation, and described as 'ominous' Islamabad's purported decision to send armed forces into Afghanistan to aid the Mojahedin.

Afghanistan would take all necessary defensive measures, based on the UN Charter and the Soviet-Afghan treaty. this may have been a hint of requests for air strikes from Soviet territory on rebel concentrations.

General Gromov was the last of some 103,000 Soviet troops to be withdrawn.

Asked what he felt as he walked the last few steps on to Soviet territory, he replied: 'Joy, that we carried out our duty and came home. I did not look back.

'The day that millions of Soviet people have waited for has come,' General Gromov told an army rally afterwards. 'In spite of our sacrifices and losses, we have fulfilled our internationalist duty totally.'

The Soldier

The Soldier
by Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England.
There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam;
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.