DOES your conversation take a shallow dip or dive deep and meaningfully?

According to a new survey, and how often it is that the words "according to a new survey" can get a column going, the art of proper conversation is dying.

Apparently, and what a useful word that is to drop into a sentence, we are all too busy being trivial and shallow to have the more weighty sort of discussion.

Conversation is dead, but chatter is alive and flourishing.

According to... (cut and paste the rest as above), more than two-thirds of us engage in chit-chat at the expense of proper discussions. Apparently times two, we are in too much of a rush to say anything thoughtful.

A passing professor, always a useful person to drag into the debate, says: "Brits have lost the skill of conversation".

Prof Ronald Carter is an expert in conversation, which I suppose must be a talking point. He believes "we can't exchange thoughts and opinions reflectively when we're in a hurry and so we resort to banal banter".

Ah, banal banter - I wondered when the professor would get round to that. The thing is, as it happens and all that, banal banter passes the time very nicely. Sometimes there is nothing better than a spot of gossip, nattering or flip-flopping comment about what was on the television last night or whatever.

A passing talking head, equally handy at such moments, disagrees with the professor, saying: "Conversation is not an art and anyway, big conversation bores me."

This is Dr Jonathan Miller of all the annoyingly clever and brilliant people. How comforting that such a professional clever-clogs should be opposed to conversations measured in weight.

Dr Miller, as quoted in one of the Sunday papers, says he is more interested in how people watch each other when talking and how they respond to what is being said.

In other words, it is how we engage that matters, not whether or not we have anything important to say.

Here's the trouble with big conversations.

Most people, on hearing a large topic being rolled weightily into place, either sigh or panic, or possibly do both. In general big conversations leave the average listener worrying they won't have anything to say. So they shut up and wait for the big words to hit their eardrums - or they drop a little grenade of banality into the conversation and watch the shrapnel fly.

Some people, so I have heard it said, cannot resist the temptation to make smart-ass remarks at such moments. But we don't want to concern ourselves with them.

A DIFFERENT survey comes along and, as they do, it contradicts the first. Indeed, really there are two different surveys. The first, conducted in Italy, concluded the United Kingdom was the most cultured nation in Europe.

How surprising and uplifting. There is nothing wrong with being considered cultured - even though, as a society, we sometimes delight in being as deliberately uncouth as possible.

One problem with culture, which can be taken to mean drama, books, films, music, museums, art galleries and so forth, is that it attracts people who like big conversations. And once they start spouting forth, more ordinary mortals retreat to hide behind the biscuit tin.

Yet a survey conducted for the Arts Council of England discovered more people participate in and appreciate the arts than had been previously thought. A quarter of the 6,025 people surveyed said that they had seen a play in the previous 12 months. A much higher proportion, of almost 90 per cent, said they attend some sort of art-related venue during the year.

How comforting to think we are not, in fact, a nation of binge-drinking, fast-food chomping football hooligans. Instead, we are actively engaged in culture at various levels.

That is so encouraging I can't even think of a suitable banality to wrap matters up.

Updated: 09:29 Thursday, February 24, 2005