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Citation
- The Pharmaceutical Journal
- 2011;
- 287:
- 99
Silly season exclusive
By Bystander
16 Jul 2011
The coming few weeks (roughly from mid-July until the end of August) are often described as the silly season. Why? Because news tends to be sparse and the tabloids compete for readers by publishing petty stories under attention-grabbing headlines.
There are several reasons why serious news is likely to be in short supply. Political reports dry up because of Parliament’s long summer recess. Legal reports are scarce because most law courts suspend their sittings for the summer. And other news is scant because organisers of potentially newsworthy events tend to avoid the late summer when punters may be away on holiday.
The end of the silly season traditionally arrives in September with the tedious round of political party conferences. These have to be got out of the way before Parliament reconvenes in October and can again provide us with some hard political news.
Anyway, in the spirit of the silly season, I now offer you an exclusively piddling news item of my own.
My trivial scoop is the revelation that this week saw the 150th anniversary of the birth of the expression “silly season”. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term first appeared on 13 July 1861 in the Saturday Review, a weekly newspaper that was established in London in 1855 to cover the topics of politics, literature, science and the arts. Four days later the Morning Chronicle also used the term, but honourably attributed its origin to the Saturday Review.
After a gap of six months the term re-emerged in an item published in the Sheffield & Rotherham Independent. Other publications then took up the expression and it has remained in common use ever since. (The Saturday Review was not so long-lived, however, since it lasted only until 1938.)
And you cannot have a much more trivial news item than that.
Silly Season Exclusive
Bystander mentions that the expression "silly season" dates from 1861 in a newspaper called The Saturday Review.Something that I have wanted to share with readers of the PJ for some time also dates from 1861 and this,although it is only a random link,is the novel Silas Marner by George Eliot,published in that year.
Silas Marner is the weaver of Raveloe,which is a village in North Warwickshire.Interestingly for people who work in pharmacy is the fact that Silas has an ability to treat people with medicinal herbs.He has "a little store of knowledge which he has inherited from his mother" and this includes the use of foxglove,dandelion and coltsfoot.
The slim novel is also a study of village life.There is the overbearing Squire,who talks in a "coughing ponderous fashion" and has difficulties controlling his two sons.A critic wrote that the depiction of the behaviour of the lord of the manor is intelligent and amusing,but it ceases to be amusing when we realise he escapes village censure.There are also the commonplace rector and the tiresome doctor.It is probably lucky that George Eliot,the pen name of a lady writer,didn't find a chemist to portray.
Silas Marner,who is an "alien looking" individual exiled from another part of the country,also has epilepsy and this too is an interesting study.
This book,I feel,is a "must read" if you want to look at English ways and the way a village operates.It valourises the quality of kindness in a harsh world.Raveloe is described as being a long way from "the vibration of a coaching horn and public opinion".
It was probably the kind of place where the term "silly season" wouldn't really apply to ordinary village lives.
In that spirit...
Hello Bystander and Andrew Low,
In the spirit of silly seasons, I want to fast forward to September 2009 at the heart of the debate in America about health care reform when the president of the Unite States decided to make a speech to kids about good old traditional values of studying, working hard and motivation (http://openlta.com/), it was silly seasons all over (http://bit.ly/pT86K) with some parents possitively hostile to these messages!
In August 2010, I blogged about what I call silly season mark II (http://bit.ly/9PpIVN). This was based on what I perceived as an attempt by certain group in the US to target a specific vulnerable faction of the population.
Whilst the first silly season was outside the time range described by Bystander, the second was bang in the middle of the silly season. It may well be due to the differing political calendar in both countries.
It is interesting to note that the concept of silly season was a British invention which the Americans have now adopted so heartily.
So, in the spirit of this season, will you be surprise to know that the British Cricket team is at the cusp of being number 1 in the world (http://ind.pn/qOYavx). Certainly nothing silly about that!