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Oliver Cross: A former Chemic Tavern barman and Keith Waterhouse
Woodhouse's own columnist supreme Oliver Cross talks about a former Chemic Tavern barman and the late Keith Waterhouse.
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Waterhouse really had a way with words
I was upset by the death of Keith Waterhouse as a fan rather than a sort of ex-colleague because I don't think you can accept reflected glory from an un-met person who just happened to work on the same newspaper as yourself ages ago.
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But I was very pleased to have some connection with Waterhouse because his 1981 book Daily Mirror Style was for a long time my bible, although
Waterhouse wouldn't have liked that word, it being a clich.
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The book, written as an in-house manual for Daily Mirror journalists
but so good it went general, is really about the sensible use of words, primarily by journalists but also by everybody who needs to express themselves without falling foul (is that a clich as well?) of pomposity, bad grammar, tired writing, shoddiness or nonsense.
And I shouldn't have said 'really' in the last paragraph because the book is very much against unnecessary words; For example, Waterhouse looks at the newspaper headline 'Just why is Alien giving America the creeps?' and asks 'Why just why? Why not just why?'
Which of course needs italic letters, but Waterhouse is generally in favour of using italic, bold and other unsettling typefaces sparingly;
I think his general view is that it's rude to shout at readers and it's better to use words, rather than the typography, to engage their attention.
Which is all very well if the words are by Waterhouse but us normal folks need all the props we can muster.
From light ale to dark matter
A reader writes: Dear Mr Cross, can you confirm whether the Chemic Tavern in Woodhouse, Leeds, which you keep going on about, really exists because it seems rather unconvincing to me. I suffer from an obsessive-compulsive disorder and need to know whether to file your columns under 'fact' or 'I should cocoa'.
Mr Cross replies: Please don't file my columns at all because this will reveal numerous inconsistencies and endlessly repeated pictures of knife-throwing acts.
However, on the Chemic Tavern front, I can assure you that everything you have read about it is not only as true as a verruca but can also be confirmed by Professor Nigel Smith.
Prof Smith, one of the world's leading astrophysicists, at present spends much of his time down SNOLAB, a two kilometre hole in Ontario, Canada, looking for dark matter – particles left over from the Big Bang.
And here I should admit that I'm totally lost, but then so, on a different level, is Prof Smith who thinks that he will need to spend five or 10 more years down a dark hole seeking dark matter because, he says, "when it comes to dark matter, it's hard to get answers."
Well yes, but accepting normal definitions of matter, meaning things you can touch, I have to report that the Chemic Tavern must be real because Nigel Smith used to work there as a very visible barman, which he could hardly do if he were fictitious made of dark matter.
I wonder, incidentally, whether there is a link between Oy Nigel! (as he was then known) going, as part of his duties, down to the bottom of the Chemic Tavern cellar and his subsequent quest for a dark matter. It could turn out that not only does the Chemic Tavern exist, it's also, rather indirectly, on the verge of changing our understanding of reality.
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Weather for Leeds
Saturday 19 May 2012
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