Saturday, April 04, 2009

Blatantly Brilliant

I'm not going to lie; I am addicted to English. There's something about it which is so utterly, mind-bogglingly brilliant that I pity those poor souls upon whose cluttered brains I inflict myself in the vain hope of encouraging a similar amount of excitement.

Perpetual whingeing on their part as to the complicated, convoluted - and frequently ignored - grammar rules, of the third person 's', of the lack of any agreement and of the intricate but fascinating mysteries of the present perfect - they with their stri/uctured tongues, condemned to a life of unvolution where rules and words must be approved by bearded 'experts'*.

Their frustration is borne of jealousy of a language which does what it likes, without let or hindrance. It wanders hither, thither and whither it so wishes - rules are obeyed but they are simply the toys with which we play. A vocabulary between whose walls lie words from almost anywhere you can think of; the words themselves probably do little more than doff their hats to their progenitors but they're ours now and we'll do with them as we please.

It's an accepted maxim that 'you are what you eat' but I personally think you can tell a lot more about a people by what they say. Take for example the brilliant lunacy of the phrase "wouldn't say boo to a goose".

Has anyone you know, have known, knew, met, heard about, ever in your life, lives past or throughout the convoluted tracts of history ever actually said 'boo' to a goose?

"My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, Commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, Spooker of the Canada Goose , loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next ... "

"... we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and we shall say boo to their geese, even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old."

Let's face it, it's hardly a great measure of courage. Then again, maybe it is.

New Year's Resolution #28: Say 'boo' to a goose




* expert /'ekspɜ:t/ n. ex- a has been; -spurt a drip under pressure

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Tintin and the Brazilians

It's Monday. It's just gone three. School is done for the day and I'm mid seizure. Nothing about which to get concerned as I am the doer as opposed to receiver and the seizing is of nothing more dramatic than a few moments respite before returning to the chaotic fold of the teachers' room to prepare for the weeks ahead. A macchiato and a slice of something calorie laden to goad the brain into something resembling life.

Around me are fragments of the population, serenely going about whatever it is they do: A brace of Chinese girls nursing their lattes; a brace of Chinese guys sharing a coffee but not a conversation. A nervous looking girl of possibly Irish descent, grabs her belongings and scuttles for the stairs in the manner of someone who arrived early, has been killing time and is now convinced that they're more than a thirty second walk from where they're meant to be in half an hour's time.

A sullen pair of ladies ignoring each other and a Japanese guy engrossed in his Crackberry, his English grammar book, lying spread-eagle on the table; an anxious lady of Asian origin but of blatantly suburban England fashion sense plays a gentile game of musical chairs with herself while she waits for her matronly companion to return from the barista's hallowed realm bearing caffeine based refreshment and smackerel of something indulgent.

A scene much like that being played out in coffee shops across the world.

Or is it.

Sitting at the back of this scene of global homogeneity, of intra-urban cosmopolity (yes, I made it up, but it works and so it's staying), of 21st Century socio-ethnic down-turn down-time is an incongruous bespectacled figure. His colouring and dress sense mark him out as being of northern European origin.

If I were a gambling man I'd say he was Belgian given, that is, the style of his eye-wear and his tailoring. The bottle of sparkling water underscores his irrepressible mainland European heritage; the paper he sits before bears all the outraged hallmarks of the outraged harbingers of outrage that are the outraged journalists of the Daily Mail.

A comfort-abetting shuffle in his seat, a cursory glance around, and so, without further ado, to the nudes.

For yes, there, twixt the pages of portentious doom-mongering, of middle-English, middle-class, middle-aged whinging and uber-Conservatism lies a panoply of visual titillation. A wide - in every sense of the word - cross-section of female society rubbing shoulders and everything else with the good and the great, if only from the stapled security of print.

Were you inclined to purchase of the top-shelf, would Costa Coffee on Shaftesbury Avenue, the heart of the West End, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon be your chosen reading venue?

Clearly it would if you were Tintin.