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Pub Talk and the King s English Henry Fairlie 　　1 Conversation is the most sociable of all human activities. And it is an activity only of humans. However intricate the ways in which animals communicate with each other, they do not indulge in anything that deserves the name of conversation.　　 2 The charm of conversation is that it does not really start from anywhere, and no one has any idea where it will go as it meanders or leaps and sparkles or just glows. The enemy of good conversation is the person who has something to say. Conversation is not for making a point. Argument may often be a part of it, but the purpose of the argument is not to convince. There is no winning in conversation. In fact, the best conversationalists are those who are prepared to lose. Suddenly they see the moment for one of their best anecdotes, but in a flash the conversation has moved on and the opportunity is lost. They are ready to let it go.　　 3 Perhaps it is because of my up-bringing in English pubs that I think bar conversation has a charm of its own. Bar friends are not deeply involved in each others lives. They are companions, not intimates. The fact that their marriages may be on the rooks, or that their love affairs have been broken or even that they got out of bed on the wrong side is simply not a concern. They are like the musketeers of Dumas who, although they lived side by side with each other, did not delve into,each others lives or the recesses of their thoughts and feelings.　　 4 It was on such an occasion the other evening, as the conversation moved desultorily here and there, from the most commonplace to thoughts of Jupiter, without any focus and with no need for one, that suddenly the alchemy of conversation took place, and all at once there was a focus. I do not remember what made one of our companions say it--she clearly had not come into the bar to say it, it was not something that was pressing on her mind--but her remark fell quite naturally into the talk.　　 5