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THE TITLE of John Betjeman’s autobiographical book, Summoned by Bells,
referred to church bells, real bells. I can recall the indignation shown
by a friend of mine when he discovered that while robing himself for some
ceremony, his local vicar put on a tape recording of peals from somebody
else’s famous bells, which duly sounded from loudspeakers in the tower.
Bellringers and bells not needed. No doubt the indignation would have been
shared by Betjeman.

There may be some followers of Islam who are equally outraged by the
use of electronics to amplify the muezzins’ calls to prayer from the mosques
of Cairo. An official report from the Egyptian Academy of Scientific Studies
reveals that the noise in the city is possibly the worst in the world and
drives about six million people – half the population – to sedative and
sleep-inducing drugs, mostly Valium.

Five times a day, the call to prayer is blared out through loudspeakers
from thousands of mosques and, according to the report, is worse because
the calls are far from synchronised. Added to the row are blasts from a
million car horns, sounded almost continuously by drivers who take no notice
of traffic regulations. The report says that noise levels in some parts
of Cairo are 10 times as high as those internationally recommended as limits
to prevent people suffering from tension and other nervous ills.

Perhaps we ought to be thankful that we have not had to suffer from
amplified calls to prayer, so far. At least, I have never seen any mention
of such a thing. And in Britain, car horns are used mostly in apology or
thanks, or as discreet signals to somebody wheeling a supermarket trolley
that the car is over here.

A SOUTH African dentist of my far-too close acquaintance attempted to
take his victim’s mind off the imminent torture by playing Count Basie records.
As the drill whined up to full speed and the tip approached the jacked-up
jaws, a nurse lowered the needle on some appropriate selection, such as
One o’clock jump or Lester leaps in. The dentist’s initial was L.

As an occasional condemned, trudging to the chair, I always considered
that the Basie number Shout and feel it was in the worst possible taste,
though I never mumbled a criticism as I washed out the bits of tooth and
tartar with pink solution. There might have to be a return visit, I thought,
and if I made some remark he might put the boot in with Blow top.

So I was interested in the news that a laser system developed in the
US might revolutionise dentistry and, incidentally, allow me to enter a
dental surgery without wearing gloves. A reputation in dentistry circles
for slight eccentricity is a small price to pay for being able to conceal
knuckles whitening at 20 yards’ distance from the waiting room door.

The yttrium-aluminium-garnet (YAG) laser can burn out decay, clean teeth,
remove scale, set filling materials and do practically everything else in
dental treatment. The system is being tested all over the world. Its inventor,
Terry Myers, of the American Dental Laser Company, has been quoted as stating:
‘There have been virtually no complaints from patients and the procedure
is almost always completely painless.’

Not good enough, Myers, say I.

‘Virtually’ no complaints? That means there have been some; you can’t
fool me. And what’s that ‘almost always’ doing there? Back to the drawing
board and the YAG is the best course, I reckon. There seems to me ample
scope for improvement. Myers also said that ‘the patient is totally relaxed’.
I know one open-mouthed patient who wouldn’t be, even if Basie was playing
You can depend on me.

IT’S been hard work wading through a paper with the title of ‘The predictive
validity of graphological inferences: a meta-analytic approach’. The authors
are Efrat Neter and Gershon Ben-Shakar of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The paper describes a strenuous attempt to get to grips with the methods
of graphologists and to test the validity of their conclusions.

It seems disturbing that 85 per cent of European firms are said to use
the alleged ‘science’ of graphology in selecting people for jobs, that in
Israel it is used more often than any other personality test and that its
use is spreading, when the material – the handwriting – is variable and
its inter pretation dependent on individual assertion and belief.

The researchers found that the content of the handwritten scripts examined
was important. In other words, it is possible to make reasonably accurate
inferences about a writer whose handwriting sample is taken from a letter
applying for a job, because it contains personal information. It seems that
graphologists should be presented with ‘neutral’ scripts, which is often
not the case. The researchers looked at data from the examination of 1223
scripts by 63 graphologists and 51 lay people.

If the validity of graphologists’ conclusions is taken to mean success
in predicting people’s future behaviour, then it was clear that psychologists,
with no knowledge of graphology, easily outperformed the graphologists.
Where neutral scripts were used, the validities of the graphologists’ conclusions
were nearly zero. Their analysis, the authors write, shows that graphologists
are no better than anyone else at predicting future performance on the basis
of handwritten scripts.

It is not possible to do the paper justice in a small space. I am aware
that I may be guilty of not doing graphologists justice, either. But it
appears that picking people for jobs from what graphologists have to say
is a shaky procedure, at the least. But none of that would impress a businessman
I heard at a party, extolling graphological selection and poking a fellow
guest in the sternum.

‘Remarkably accurate,’ he was saying.