Omega (19) "And indeed it is. The great University city of our fair land. The seat of learning and the font of knowledge. Is that where you want to go?" "Yes!" I said decisively. "Well, let's have a look at the timetable if our bovine friends will just allow us to squeeze through..." The Gryphon approached the company of bulls, many wearing cheerful straw boaters and scarves, and with a few polite and firm excuse mes, he made his way to the front and gazed up at the timetable finding instruction from its seemingly arcane symbols. He placed a claw on the back of a bullock, with the newspaper headline (Red Victory Likely) prominent. His other claw traced a route across the columns of destinations and times. "There's a bus to Lambdeth Central in just a few minutes from bay number..." his eyes gazed up at the headings, "...bay number Nine. The same bay where my bus is leaving in fact. But a little later than yours, I'm afraid." He squeezed back out past the broad backs of the bulls. "Now the next thing is to buy a ticket. I trust you have sufficient for the journey. It'll cost you nine shillings and nine pence." The Gryphon led me along to the ticket office window where another dragon took my two crowns in his claw and hesitated over a groat, before handing me three pennies as change. "Are you sure you only want a single?" He wondered. "The return fare is only a shilling more expensive." "No, that's fine," I replied returning with the Gryphon to a bay where the huge number 9 was displayed, but no list of destinations. We sat on the narrow flap-down seats, and the Gryphon unfolded and refolded his newspaper. The headlines tantalised my eyes during this rather fastidious process: Whites Certain to Win Suburbs, Illicit Gains Spider Vote, Blacks Threaten Immigrants. A diverse selection of other passengers were lined up on the plastic seats or stood guard by their luggage. There were a few jocund bullocks; a young woman in a long green overcoat; an elderly dragon with a pitifully thin column of sulphurous smoke trailing from his nostrils; a diprotodon in a dapper three-piece suit; a snowman sweating in the mid-afternoon heat; a turtle in a bonnet with a basket of eggs; and a large black swan. "There are quite a few heading to Baldam," I remarked to the Gryphon. He frowned slightly, wagging his large tufted ears. "I'd be very surprised indeed if very many were going to Baldam, however attractive a destination it may be. Most will, like me, be catching the following bus, which is for the City. More people go to and from the City than any other destination, so statistically I would assume so too is the majority of this motley crew." "Do you live in the City?" "Goodness no! Although I have been tempted there by the pay and the availability of work. I'm a teacher, young man. I teach at a school in a town perhaps nine leagues from here. I teach Mathematics and General Science at a Lower Secondary Modern. I have been enticed by the opportunity to teach at a City Grammar School or perhaps even one in Baldam, but my wife and children are happy where they are so relocation is quite unlikely for the moment." "What's your school like?" "A very ordinary school, young man. With a very ordinary syllabus: Latin, Greek, Home Economics, Physical Education, Geography. Not very different, I imagine, from the school you may have attended." "Perhaps," I replied, reflecting that none of my teachers had beaks, wings and leonine tails. "I suppose schools are much the same wherever you go..." "Well, you're showing your ignorance there, young man. As a result of the incoherence of the Coition government's education policies there's quite a free-for-all of approved syllabi in this nation. Boroughs are at liberty to institute any model of education they wish. In this town, for instance, the children are not so much educated as indoctrinated. And indoctrinated it seems to me in the most appalling nonsense that there ever was. And such practice isn't unique to this pillar of political bias. There are boroughs dominated by one or other of the multitude of churches where even such basic facts as the law of evolution, the principle of genetics, the curvature of space and Gödel's Theorem are denied them. I abhor education which seeks not so much to enlighten but to conceal." The Gryphon snorted his distaste and reorganised his newspaper. Whites May Lose Out to Blacks, I briefly glimpsed. Reds Get The Blues, another headline ambiguously announced. "The objectives of education are forever perverted by ideological or religious prejudice. Education isn't simply to fit students into a mould determined by national or local government. It has the much nobler task of adapting future citizens to an unpredictable future and inculcate values of common decency and virtue without which the realm will degenerate into ignorance and dullness. I recognise the difficulty in distinguishing between the aims of schooling a pupil for the society in which he or she is born and that in which he will ultimately belong. The world changes so fast! Steam Trains. Computers. Phasars. Interplanetary cruisers. Who knows what next! And the poor teacher is no better at predicting the future than the futurologist whose predictions swing so wildly from the complacently optimistic to the deeply depressing. It is education's duty to anticipate the changes ahead and ensure that the student has the appropriate grounding in Ancient Latin, Classical Mythology or Euclidean Geometry to confront that future. "Undoubtedly, education must also pertain to the ethical instruction of future adults. Without moral guidance, who is to say what degrees of amorality may pervade in the future? I would hate to see any pupil of mine ignorant of the proper rules of etiquette; lacking appreciation and respect for their elders and betters; and unprepared for the mores practised in the factories, workshops, power stations and supermarkets that will employ them. Unless of course such jobs become totally superseded by mechanisation. I despair of the so-called modern schools in the City which provide not even the minimum of moral guidance, complying with anarchistic doctrines which assert that the pupil's character is like a flower which will blossom when abandoned to free expression. Such a flower will simply be swamped by weeds and be a very sorry sight indeed." "Aren't there other reasons for education?" I questioned, finding the Gryphon's views remarkably similar to those held by teachers in the Suburbs. "Yes, indeed," the Gryphon agreed, thoughtfully scratching the feathers on his chin with a claw. "There is the motive which inspires governments of all complexions to fund the education of its younger members; and that is the provision of an educated and skilled workforce. What hope has any society unless it has the army of doctors, lawyers, accountants, clerks, estate agents, teachers and Classics scholars that all societies need? There has to be a material justification for any society to disburse so much of its Gross National Product on something of no immediate benefit. If education were measured in terms of productivity, shares dividends, stimulus to consumption and national defence, I daresay it would rank very low; but every society needs to have its eye on the long to medium term however much its snout may be buried in the trough of more immediate concerns." The Gryphon paused to further re-organise his newspaper. He smoothed it flat with a claw so that the half-finished crossword faced upwards. He looked back at me. "Where is it that you come from, young man?" "The Suburbs." "I guessed so. People from there are very distinctive. But you don't find many of them so far away as this. So, why have you left the Suburbs? Are you considering settling down in the fair city of Lambdeth?" "No, I'm actually on a quest. A quest for the Truth." "The Truth? You're not an Illicitist are you?" "No, not at all. I was intent on finding the Truth before I was aware that anyone else was interested in it." "Is that so? I must say it is a most curious quest for someone from the Suburbs to be engaged in. I would have thought that Suburbanites would be the very last to indulge in such a cockeyed fanciful endeavour. But as they say, it takes all sorts! And I suppose it would be unlikely that even in such a homogeneous environment as the Suburbs there wouldn't be some with a penchant for the crazy, the futile and the misguided. My advice to you, young man, is simply to abandon your quest now, take your bus to Lambdeth and, after a short holiday, return to the Suburbs. You will never find the Truth by travelling about the nation by omnibus." "Is it totally futile?" I asked, discomfited by the Gryphon's apparent common sense. "In the way you're going about it ... frankly, yes!" The Gryphon lowered his eyes to his crossword, hummed softly and then returned his gaze to me. "The Truth, young man, is not a physical thing that you can just go off and look for, whatever these fanatics in this town may say. The Truth is nothing more and nothing less than the accumulated wisdom and knowledge of the ages: exactly what I am paid to impart to my pupils and with which they will carry on the noble tradition of imparting the same wisdom to future generations. The Truth is just a convenient term for the knowledge gathered under such more precise headings as English Literature, Trigonometry, Algebra, Political Geography, Inorganic Chemistry and Religious Education. There is nothing mystical, fantastic or exotic about the Truth. It doesn't wait for us in a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. It doesn't live with the fairies at the bottom of the garden (and they have assured me of that!) It is something to be unearthed only after long hours of dedicated study and research, poring over books in libraries, taking notes in lectures and doing the exercises attached to the end of every text book chapter." "Is the Truth really as dull as all that?" "It is. It must be. It is prosaic, unexciting and unremarkable." "Is it possible to know all the Truth there is to know?" "Of course not. Well not for anyone of your species or mine, although no doubt the boffins are working hard at inventing machines which could store all the knowledge that currently exists and all that may exist in the future. What they would make of such an enormous amount of knowledge, I don't know. I have heard that with enough data one can extrapolate patterns and shapes of fractal, multidimensional and complex systems which help in the understanding of the world, finding simplicity in chaos and complexity in order. But for all that, how can the Truth be anything other than the sum total of disparate disciplines? In studies as diverse as linguistics, logic and electronics, metaphysics, religion and quantum mechanics. So, if you still seek the Truth, take advantage of your visit to Lambdeth and ensconce yourself in the university library." The Gryphon sighed and looked at the company gathered around the bus station. He discreetly indicated the woman in the green overcoat who was reading a magazine on her lap. "Do you recognise her at all, young man?" I scrutinised the woman carefully. She was too engrossed in her magazine to notice that we were watching her. "No, I can't say I do." "I may be wrong, and I am definitely not an expert on these matters, but I believe she's a film actress. But what she's doing here, I don't know!" "A film actress!" I examined her with more care, but there was nothing about her that resembled what I imagined an actress might look when not working. "Are you sure?" "Not at all. But if she is the actress I think then she makes her living from displaying her naked body to the prurient and dissolute. An immoral and shameless harlot." "A pornographic actress?" "No less! And what more disgusting occupation can there be? Other than prostitution of course. Spreading filth and low morals to the weak minded and the easily led. Totally perverting the moral purpose and æsthetic value of her profession. I have often had to confiscate pornographic material from my pupils and I am certain that her face is one I have seen in magazines about the pornographic film industry. Well, not certain, but the likeness is otherwise rather remarkable." "Is that so?" Although fairly attractive there was nothing about the way she dressed or behaved that would lead me to suspect this. "Pornography is just one thing about the modern film and theatre I find impossible to condone. And it is not merely the nature of pornography itself I find most unacceptable, but the way it has demeaned the noble theatrical tradition represented by Shakespeare, the author of Titus Andronicus and The Rape of Lucretia. Theatre should raise the sensibilities of the audience with unambiguous moral messages and refined æstheticism. It is, or should be, an educational tool to supplement the pedagogical tradition in moulding the character. It is an effective means of disseminating knowledge to one in full possession of the requisite critical faculties." "What are those?" "An understanding of the subtleties of the medium. An ability to penetrate the superficialities of the story and action to see the moral truths expressed therein. An appreciation of the metre and structure of language in expressing these great truths. Without such things the audience is merely entertained, and not instructed." "Is that such a very bad thing!" "Yes, it is, young man!" The Gryphon insisted, indicating a poster for a film, Georgia Brown and the City of the Undead, amongst the political propaganda, featuring several heroic characters painted above a lengthy listing of the cast, producers, director and technical staff. "Films like that, promising nothing more than sex, violence and action, beget an æsthetically and culturally illiterate population, who believe life is nothing more than a sequence of events lacking moral significance and in which the most disgusting and unwholesome activities are routine. It trades on being entertainment, when in truth it is a perversion of even that term. How can it be entertainment when it features violence, death, sexual perversion, crime and gross horror?" "Perhaps the film isn't aspiring to be art." "Only film and theatre aspiring to art is ever worth making. And if it fails to achieve any artistic value, it should not have been made at all. I cannot accept that any creative endeavour should aspire to merely divert. That is such a sad waste of effort." At that moment, a double-decker bus pulled into the bay with the words Lambdeth Central prominently displayed above the driver's cabin. The doors of the bus opened with an exhalation of air and several people disembarked. Then, after bidding farewell to the Gryphon who continued to wait for his own bus, I queued up behind a couple of bullocks in straw hats who were being escorted in by a diminutive dragon in an official uniform. Once they had filed down to the front of the lower deck, I entered the bus and climbed up to the totally empty upper deck. I walked down the aisle to sit at the front, shaded by the tinted green glass of the windows, and stretched out my legs. While waiting for the bus to stir and gazing at the Gryphon reading his newspaper, I heard another person clamber up the stairs and stumble down the aisle. I turned my head round to see who it was and saw the woman in the green overcoat the Gryphon had been discussing. She smiled at me, and slumped in the seat across the aisle from me. "Are you off to Lambdeth Central too?" She asked, crossing her long legs demurely.
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