Review - The Second Mouse Gets the Cheese

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Review - The Second Mouse Gets The Cheese - Colin Spedding

This is, without doubt, the strangest book we've ever reviewed. You really have to know some context to understand why it's here at all, because at first sight a book on proverbs and their uses isn't a natural fit with a popular science website.

Sir Colin Spedding was Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Professor of Agricultural Systems and Director of the Centre of Centre for Agricultural Strategy at Reading University (UK). A highlight of Spedding's lectures is the way he uses proverbs to illustrate his point. In this slim volume (64 pages), he explains his enthusiasm for the proverb, gives a little background to where proverbs come from, and looks at the application of proverbs to a wide range of topics from education to, erm, fruit.

This is mildly interesting stuff. I was rather surprised that the section on "proverbs, their uses and origins" makes no mention of the biblical book of Proverbs, which must be one of the earliest published collections and surely must be seen as something of a benchmark - this is very strange.

When it comes to the proverbs themselves, the real problem is that it's a humour-related topic, and that makes it a very personal thing. Although proverbs don't have to be humorous (can't get too many chuckles from "many hands make light work"), the best ones seem to have a distinct thread of humour running through them, but it's a very dated kind of humour - more Flanders and Swann than modern humour, a sort of whimsy with a mild bite.

Towards the end of the book, Spedding says "The vast majority of proverbs strike me as rather obvious, even trite... and making trivial points." I couldn't agree more, and the trouble is, for me this applies to almost all the proverbs in the book, not just the ones he picks out as not very good. In the end, anything attempting to condense wisdom into a few words is likely to come across as banal. There are some exceptions, which I think will vary from person to person. I like one of Spedding's favourites - "If you do not change direction, you will finish up where you are going," which I think does illustrate his point that a good proverb can make you think (even though it arguably is still trite). But I can't get at all excited by something like "The cleverest monkey may drop a coconut" or "Whilst the sheep bleats it loses its mouthful." In the wise words of Catherine Tate, "Am I bothered?"

It's interesting that most of the best snippets listed aren't proverbs at all, but quotations - Spedding points out that really good quotes eventually become proverbs. This is probably true, but it's also probably true that as they do so, they lose their edge with over-use.

Overall then, a genuinely interesting and quirky book, but one I've some issues with. It isn't really about science, just happens to be written by a scientist (which is why it squeezes in here). It's rather expensive for its size. I would have liked to have seen a lot more research into the origins of sayings and proverbs. For instance we're tantalizingly told that the often quoted old Chinese saying: "May you live in interesting times," actually comes from a science fiction story by E. F. Russell, but not what the story was or how it was used in it. (In case you're interested, it was U-Turn, written under the pseudonym Duncan Munro, and a character tells us the saying is an ancient Chinese curse. This is the oldest known reference, though we don't know if Russell was using something he'd heard elsewhere.) The origins of the proverbs (why does the bible have a book of them, for instance?) is much more interesting than many of the proverbs themselves. I have never heard Professor Sir Colin speak, so can't comment on his use of them in lectures - clearly this made a big impact on his audience, but the effect is very much watered down in the book. I suspect you have to have been there.

Also in hardback:

Reviewed by Brian Clegg

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