STEPHEN FRY

I sometimes think that when I die there should be two graves dug: the first would be the usual kind of size, say 2 feet by 7, but the other would be much, much larger. The gravestone should read: ME AND MY BIG MOUTH.

I suspect most of you will have heard of the shitstorm that howled about the head of Jan Moir, a journalist who wrote a beastly article in the Daily Mail about the death of Stephen Gately the day before his funeral. I don’t propose to stop and pick over the carcass of that epically ill-judged piece of gutter journalism. Its malice, stupidity, incoherent illogicality and crass insensitivity have been superbly anatomised by many others and besides, too much time has passed, a whole 24 hours at the time of writing and for the online world, which is still a child, a year is a decade and a day a whole month.

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Well my goodness me what an extraordinary response there was to #oscarwildeday

For those who didn’t participate or might have been away or not yet following me, December 1st was designated #oscarwildeday. I promised prizes for those who tweeted the best original or made up Wildean remarks or posted pictures of themselves or others in Wildean poses.

Collage by @taluta © Tatula 2008

It has been an unbelievably time-consuming but pleasurable task to find winners. I’m sorry it’s taken so long, but I landed in New York on the day itself and have been busy ever since.

The three categories then are
1. Original Wildeisms,
2. Creative Manglings
3. Pictures

There are two winners in each category. The prizes, of a value exceeding rubies, are vouchers for a free download of my readings of Oscar Wilde short stories: download details on iTunes or stephenfry.com, follow links. Winners should email Andrew Sampson to claim their prize or send him a Tweet @sampsonian

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Everything we know about people is wrong.

Well, perhaps that’s going a little far. But, really. Take Oscar. Oscar Wilde. He stands for one thing and one thing only. Wit. Sharp wit. Glittering wit. Keen, wicked, penetrating wit. Camp. Clever. Crushing. Proud, peacocky and impertinent.

Recording Oscar Wilde and Anton Chekhov. © Samfry Ltd 2008

Wrong. Wrong, wronger, wrongest.

Certainly Wilde was witty, certainly he is remembered for firing off epigrams like a belt-fed mortar. But look properly at the man and his works and you will see that the spirits that most animated him were in fact those of sympathy and imagination., which are really one spirit. Wilde was an artist; he was of course prince among artists in his time. He championed art above everything. But that is because he understood that art is the product, not of intellect, wit or superior faculties of understanding, but of imagination. As it happens he had intellect, wit and superior faculties of understanding and he had them in spades. Such qualities can make a critic, a businessman, a lawyer, a politician, a scholar or a general. They can fit a person to be almost anything; anything, that is, but an artist. To be sure they are fine qualities for an artist to have, but they are not necessary or sufficient for the making of an artist. For that what is needed is imagination.

We know that imagination is about making things up. About pretending. About creating worlds, pictures, situations and characters all out of our head.

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