Monday, July 1

 I suppose there were times in the past when July 1st was an important day.  I would be frantic closing off the financial books for the previous year, tidying up all the loose ends and hoping that nothing untoward would be found by the auditors when the accounts were delivered to them.

Now, of course, it's just another day and the most important decision is whether to put out the sheets or not.  It's cold but it's not raining so probably a good idea.

Today's story is called Whistling, from 2021.

Even though I will publicly deny it, I do have some bad habits and one of them is that I whistle, constantly and in the wrong places.  And I admit that it’s a particularly unattractive and tuneless whistle.

 My Dad was a whistler and I think whistling was particularly prevalent in his generation and the one before.   In the post-war years, millions whistled while they worked: window-cleaners, builders, delivery boys and, of course, the seven dwarfs. Performers made a living by whistling; no Music Hall bill was complete without a whistler and Ronnie Ronalde, in the 1950s, was acclaimed as the best and most successful whistler in the world. He topped variety bills and every one of his records passed the old grey whistle test, as the Americans say. The first top-40 record I remember which featured whistling was Singing the Blues with Guy Mitchell.

 

Every cowboy performer worth his salt had whistling in his repertoire but there has been some publicity recently suggesting that whistling has become a casualty of modern life. The Sydney Morning Herald, for example, in 2016, bemoaned the fact that whistling is passe and blamed the proliferation of portable music players and even suggested that modern music is less whistleable.  I agree that it’s rare to hear whistling today.  Perhaps whistling has become regarded as what you do when you have nothing else to do and, in our more frantic, busy society it’s no longer acceptable to admit that you’re not busy.  Better minds than mine will have to study whether that is a valid assumption.

 

In fact, there’s a lot of psychology around the art of whistling and there are researchers making a living studying it.  To give it a touch of respectabilty, it’s classified as ‘momentary musical performing’ like singing in the shower or humming while you do the housework.  More men whistle than women and, I believe, older men whistle more than younger ones.  There’s a Scottish and Irish proverb that says: ‘A whistling woman and a crowing hen will always come to some bad end’ but I’m not sure that is the reason that women don’t whistle; it’s probably more to do with their better developed sense of what’s attractive.  However, there is, on Youtube, a video of the Laurelpark Ladies Whistling Choir, performing Bohemian Rhapsody.  Is nothing sacred?

 

There’s quite a bit of superstition about whistling.  It's said to be unlucky to whistle at night and that might have something to do with a belief in evil spirits stalking in the darkness or it might be a throwback from experiences in war when a careless whistle in the dark might give your position away. In Japanese and Chinese culture, people avoid disturbing the quiet of the night by whistling, believing that the disturbance will bring danger.   In Turkey, whistling at night is regarded as calling for the devil.

 

Sailors whistle to increase the wind and, in Russia it’s said that whistling indoors will bring on poverty.  They have a saying ‘whistle money away.’  In the UK, there is a superstition regarding the Seven Whistlers, who may be spirits or birds, and whose whistling foretells death or disaster.  In 1900, hundreds of mine workers stopped work because a strange whistling had been heard in one of the mines.  

 

Apart from the Laurelpark Ladies Whistling Choir, a whistling  enthusiast can winkle out quite a lot of interesting material on Youtube.  There is even a Sydney Conservatorium of Music Whistling Choir’s rendition of Monty Python’s ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’.

 

So, I’m in good company with my whistling habit.  Sadly, my repertoire is very limited and I tend to whistle the same tune whatever the situation I’m in.  My wife tells me I whistled ‘The hills are alive with the sound of music’ for years but, lately, I’m stuck on Abba’s: ‘Take a Chance on Me.’  

 

A British YouGov survey found that 47% of people found whistling irritating but I just put that down to misophonia or ‘selective sound sensitivity syndrome’.   And it might also be jealousy: 67% of people claim they can’t whistle at all.  But I celebrate, every day, that I can.