Dialogue: If you want to be a real bore, then you've a lot to learn

We've all heard it said that everyone has a bore in them, and the plain fact is that it's true. Everyone does have a bore in them. But it's no use just talking about it and putting it off till you've got a bit more time on your hands.

There's only one difference between professional bores and people who fancy that they might get round to boring some day, and that difference is that bores bore.

Bores don't waste time telling people how they are working hard on boring and any day now they'll burst onto the boring scene with a dazzle that will throw all other bores into invisibility. No sir, true bores just go right ahead and bore. For sure they don't get it right all the time but the only way to learn to bore is by boring.

That's the tough news and I thought I'd give it to you straight. The best thing you could do now is to put this paper down, buttonhole someone and bore them. You'll make mistakes but you'll also have made a start.

Your first hurdle is your natural modesty. You've seen great bores in action and you've stood in stupefaction and wondered how anyone could be so boring.

You may not have said so in so many words perhaps, but somewhere in the soundless reaches of the soul you have felt it. You could never be that boring.

Well, take a moment to reflect that the bore who so arouses your wonder was once a demure uncertain fawn not unlike yourself. Hard to believe, I know, but he once doubted his opinions, deferred to others, thought listening was a virtue and worried about what other people thought.

Like you, he was weak. Like you, he had no fun at parties. But since that date he has gone on a journey of discovery and so can you. Each one of us, be he ever so lowly, has a bore in him, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

And indeed that is perhaps the nub of it in one sentence - don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Indeed don't let anyone tell you anything.

When you first try to bore you will trawl your mind for something to be boring about and come up with an empty net. Don't despair. You are just fishing too deep. Go to the surface of your life. You need look no further than your children. They make perfect beginner's boring material. If you are childless, pets are just as good. I began my own career with dogs.

As a nervous beginner you will feel the need to arm yourself with facts - an early hero of mine could manage a full hour without digression on medium-density fibreboard - but as you grow into boringness you will find yourself discarding facts as a porcupine discards its quills. A bore does not have to know things. He only has to bore. Manner, in short, is greater than matter.

Dogmatic certainty is everything and facts are nothing.

For example, I have no idea if a porcupine discards its quills but so long as I state it emphatically and allow no interruptions I can bore. If your technique is sound, people will shrink from trying to correct you, just as you shrink from correcting the bores you so admire.

From then on the joys are unlimited. You will become a connoisseur of boring. Remember always that a bore is a body as well as a voice. The good bore uses his body like a sheepdog. Even while he is boring he is quietly guiding his victim into a corner, nudging him by imperceptible shifts of the feet until he has him pinned against the fridge. Then he uses his arm like one of those barriers at army camps to block the only route of escape.

Eyes matter, too. As a good bore you must always look straight at your victim. He feels obliged to meet your manic gaze and so cannot scour the room for help.

To begin with, your victim may try to contribute to the conversation. "Ah yes," he'll say, "that reminds me of ... " Quash him instantly and hard.

Reduce him to expressions of agreement only. If these are not forthcoming, insist on them. "Am I right or am I right?" is a phrase that all bores master. It works unfailingly. You can sense your victim slump.

When his eyes finally fall to his feet and he swirls the dregs in his glass and watches himself dig the toe of his shoe into the carpet and swivel it about, you know you've got him. It's a lovely moment. Once you've found the joys of boring you will see social functions in a whole new light. Dishing it out is far more fun than taking it.