Monday, December 11, 2006

Bon mot of the week

I have from time to time been accused of being 'tactless'. This is, I hope (I insist), an unfair charge. I believe, on the contrary, that I am an extremely tactful person; it's just that I like to 'push the envelope' sometimes.

I have long been inspired by this desk calendar aphorism I discovered in my childhood, attributed to Jean Cocteau (although, if he said it at all, presumably he said it in French):
"Tact consists in knowing how far we may go too far."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I guess your email is cut off again?

When was your last tactless gallop accross a conversation?

Re scarves and bikes it put me in mind of the 60's actress who lost her head as her fashionably long scarf was caught is the wheels of her sports car. She was one of my fathers pin-ups at the time and he related the story to me as a warning.

the A

Anonymous said...

Ah, yes, Artist, m'dear - but that was ANOTHER post.

Was there really another victim of scarf-entanglement in the '60s? I don't think I've ever heard of it before. And it's a difficult subject to Google for - "death by scarf"?!

Isadora Duncan is the FAMOUS scarf victim - but that was back in the 1920s.

And you're up VERY LATE!!!