Pulse

administration because they didn’t go wrong.’
    ‘Larry goes native – a joke, and a cynical one at that. Congratulations.’
    ‘When in Rome …’
    ‘No, what I’m talking about is why we, as non-fascist non-nutters, believe what we believe.’
    ‘Believe what?’
    ‘Anything from two plus two equals four to God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world.’
    ‘But we don’t believe all’s right with the world or that God’s in his heaven. On the contrary.’
    ‘Then why do we believe the contrary?’
    ‘Either because we’ve worked it out for ourselves or because experts tell us it’s the case.’
    ‘But why do we believe the experts we believe?’
    ‘Because we trust them.’
    ‘Why do we trust them?’
    ‘Well, I trust Galileo more than the Pope, so I believe the earth goes round the sun.’
    ‘But we don’t trust Galileo himself , for the simple reason that we’ve none of us read his proof. I’m assuming that’s the case. So who or what we’re trusting is a second level of experts.’
    ‘Who probably know even more than Galileo.’
    ‘Here’s a paradox. We all of us read a newspaper, and most of us believe most of what our newspaper tells us. But at the same time every survey says that journalists are generally regarded as untrustworthy. Down there at the bottom with estate agents.’
    ‘It’s other people’s newspapers that are untrustworthy. Ours are reliable.’
    ‘Some genius once wrote that any sentence beginning “One in five of us believes or thinks such-and-such” is automatically suspect. And the sentence that is least likely to be true is one beginning “Perhaps as many as one in five …”’
    ‘Who was this genius?’
    ‘A journalist.’
    ‘You know that thing about surveillance cameras? How Britain’s supposed to have more of them per head of population than anywhere else in the world? We all know that, don’t we? So, there was a rebuttal in the paper by a journalist who said it was all hooey and paranoia, and went on to prove it, or try to. But he didn’t prove it to me because he’s one of those journalists I always disagree with anyway. So I refused to believe he could be right about this. And then I wondered if I didn’t believe him because I want to live in a country with the largest amount of surveillance cameras. And then I couldn’t work out whether that was because it made me feel safer, or because I somehow rather enjoyed feeling paranoid.’
    ‘So where is the point or the line at which reasonable people stop assuming truth and start doubting it?’
    ‘Isn’t there usually an accumulation of evidence leading to doubt?’
    ‘Like, the husband is always the first to suspect and the last to know.’
    ‘Or the wife.’
    ‘Mutatis mutandis.’
    ‘In propria persona.’
    ‘That’s another thing about the British. Well, your kind of British. The Latin you speak.’
    ‘Do we?’
    ‘I guess we do. Homo homini lupus .’
    ‘Et tu, Brute.’
    ‘And in case you think we’re showing off our education, we aren’t. It’s more despair. We’re probably the last generation to have these phrases at our disposal. They don’t have classical references in the Times crossword any more. Or Shakespeare quotations. When we’re dead, no one will say things like “ Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? ” any more.’
    ‘And that’ll be a loss, will it?’
    ‘I can’t tell if you’re being ironic or not.’
    ‘Neither can I. ’
    ‘Who was that British general in some Indian war who captured the province of Sind and sent a one-word telegram back to HQ? It simply said: “ Peccavi ” … Ah, a few blank faces. Latin for “I have sinned.”’
    ‘Personally, I’m extremely glad those days are over.’
    ‘You’d probably prefer “mission accomplished” or whatever they say.’
    ‘No, I just hate imperialist jokes about killing people.’
    ‘Pardon my Latin.’
    ‘Right. So moving swiftly back to Galileo. The earth going round the sun is something that’s been proved as much as anything can be. But what about, say, climate change?’
    ‘Well, we all believe in that, don’t we?’
    ‘Do you remember when Reagan said trees gave off carbon emissions, and people hung signs round the trunks of redwoods saying “Sorry” and “It’s all my fault”?’
    ‘Or “ Peccavi ”.’
    ‘Indeed.’
    ‘But Reagan believed anything, didn’t he? Like, he’d liberated some concentration camp in the war when all he’d done was stay in