I had an interesting email exchange today with a BBC staff member from Nottinghamshire who claims that Midlanders are not unified by a sense of belonging. More specifically, he says that people in Nottingham have no interest in what's happening in Birmingham and that Derby residents aren't bothered about hearing the news from Staffordshire and so on. He doesn't believe that the Midlands, as a single entity, actually exists. He says the people who live in his corner of Nottingham are much more interested in places like Sheffield and Leeds. I was quite surprised by his comments. In fairness, he does live in the North of Nottinghamshire, north of the River Trent, which, I discovered whilst making A1 The Road Musical, is generally the point at which Midlanders suddenly start calling themselves Northerners, but I still maintain that Midlanders, true Midlanders, have a strong sense of kinship.
What unites us is undeniably intangible. I guess we all know how it feels to live miles from the sea in locations that people are usually passing through. I think, as a result of this, that Midlanders can have a somewhat inward-looking stance which has a fairly catastrophic effect on self-esteem. I have discussed this in several previous blogs, so shan't enter this particular verbal cul-de-sac here.
The media doesn't encourage any of us to label ourselves as Midlanders or feel any pride in our Midlands heritage. It seems that they want everyone to be either northern or southern. To entertain anything else would mean that the world can't be painted in clichéd shades of black and white. The BBC, for example, has a large pot of funds which it dedicates to projects which celebrate "the north" (whatever that is.) Senior BBC figures whom I've spoken to about the Midlands identity have all felt the need to talk about the Asian community in Birmingham as somehow representative of the Midlands. I often feel they think everything else that goes on in the area is bland and vanilla. No wonder we struggle to find our identity.
I called my parents at lunch time to see if they could throw any light on the matter. My Dad feels the East Midlanders care more about their rugby than those in the West and that the north-south-biased transport networks in the UK have traditionally prevented Midlanders from exploring their own region.
And yet, despite all this, I continue to feel a great affinity with all Midlanders whether they're from Brum, Cov, Newton-In-the-Willows, Clun or Corby. I have even grown to accept Derbyshire as part of the gang! As a lad, I didn't used to feel I had a great understanding of Derbyshire, which always seemed an other-worldly sort of place, covered in hills and snow and really only the place where Simon Groome and Goldie used to go tobogganing.
I wonder if I maybe place too much emphasis on searching for my tribe? Perhaps it's because I've lived all over: born in Shropshire, grew up in Northants with ancestors in Leicestershire, Warwickshire, Birmingham and Staffordshire. To an outsider, they may seem like disparate, somewhat random places, but they're all in the Midlands. My family have stayed within the confines of this geographical area, never moving south or north (apart from the Welshies!) I feel very proud to be the grandson of a man who ran a soup kitchen during the Coventry blitz and I think Midlanders will have more of an idea of the significance of this statement. When I go to the Midlands, I see names that I recognise on gravestones and hear speech patterns and inflections that make me feel comforted. These feelings are too powerful to ignore.
Any thoughts from Midlanders on this issue would be interesting. Do I simply need to acknowledge that the Midlands doesn't exist and move on? Or is it okay to cling to a romantic ideal that all Midlanders have something inexplicable in common?
Saturday, 7 May 2016
Thursday, 5 May 2016
Join the Kew
What a lovely day! We've been in Kew Gardens with my parents all afternoon curtesy of Daryl who gave us some tickets which I was able to give to the parents at Christmas. The weather couldn't have been more perfect: a hot bright sun, a dark blue sky, and a gloriously refreshing breeze accompanied us all day.
We met the parents at Highbury and Islington after voting in the mayor election (both of us opting for the same, somewhat illogical combination of Labour and Lib Dem), putting the car into the garage to be patched-up, and buying some lovely picnic things.
We took the overland train from Highbury to Kew Gardens through all those rather romantic-sounding stations like Hampstead Heath and Finchley Road and Frognal. The railway line cuts through a swathe of greenery. London is so leafy. People who live outside the city are often rather shocked to discover this particular fact.
The area around Kew train station is very special. It's hardly surprising that houses in that neck of the woods sell way into the millions. There are all sorts of lovely little shops and the roads to the gardens are lined with stunningly well-maintained trees.
Kew Gardens itself is a very special place, particularly at this time of year. The star attraction is almost certainly the bluebell wood around Queen Charlotte's Cottage. It's the most extraordinary sight: a blanket of blue and purple underneath old English Oak trees stretching as far as the eye could see. In the shade, the delicate flowers are the darkest indigo, but in the sun, they glow brilliant shades of lavender and lilac.
The smell is intense. British bluebells have a similar aroma to hyacinths, and I learned today that they're actually known as wild hyacinth or "hyacinth non scripta." At one point the smell became almost overpowering when it merged with the aroma of wild garlic.
The birds were plainly very happy to be alive in Kew today. They were singing almost constantly, and, at one point, we were joined by a lovely little robin who wanted to sing to us for a while from a branch just above my head.
We sat and watched the ducks, geese, coots and swans on a bench by the lake for some time. Several of the ducks seemed to be gay. One couple - both male - seemed very attached to one another. Then they started mating! I didn't know where to look!
We crossed the bridge to get away from a swan who seemed intent on puffing itself up to a great height to intimidate us. As we made a hasty exit, we passed a bloke with a broken arm, "been this way already have you?"
We had our picnic down by the Thames with the glorious Syon House positively glowing on the other side of the water. My Mum had neatly cut out a newspaper article about the Battle of the Somme to show me. It came in the form of two pieces of paper, perhaps twenty centimetres square. At one moment a crazy wind blew-up which literally took the pieces of paper out of my hand, instantly carrying them high into the air. At the same point, a vortex of dust rose high from the path beside the river. The pieces of newspaper rose higher and higher - like a pair of helium balloons - perhaps forty feet into the air, right across the river and into the woodland in front of Syon House. How bizarre is that?! We wondered if we'd just witnessed one of the infamous Thames corridor tornadoes. When I say infamous, I mean totally unheard of, despite the fact that the Thames corridor actually experiences more tornadoes than anywhere else in the world. They're just not at all powerful. Or interesting!
We walked back to the main gate and drank cups of tea in the main cafe, before buying lollipops and heading back to Highbury where we went our separate ways.
We met the parents at Highbury and Islington after voting in the mayor election (both of us opting for the same, somewhat illogical combination of Labour and Lib Dem), putting the car into the garage to be patched-up, and buying some lovely picnic things.
We took the overland train from Highbury to Kew Gardens through all those rather romantic-sounding stations like Hampstead Heath and Finchley Road and Frognal. The railway line cuts through a swathe of greenery. London is so leafy. People who live outside the city are often rather shocked to discover this particular fact.
The area around Kew train station is very special. It's hardly surprising that houses in that neck of the woods sell way into the millions. There are all sorts of lovely little shops and the roads to the gardens are lined with stunningly well-maintained trees.
Kew Gardens itself is a very special place, particularly at this time of year. The star attraction is almost certainly the bluebell wood around Queen Charlotte's Cottage. It's the most extraordinary sight: a blanket of blue and purple underneath old English Oak trees stretching as far as the eye could see. In the shade, the delicate flowers are the darkest indigo, but in the sun, they glow brilliant shades of lavender and lilac.
The smell is intense. British bluebells have a similar aroma to hyacinths, and I learned today that they're actually known as wild hyacinth or "hyacinth non scripta." At one point the smell became almost overpowering when it merged with the aroma of wild garlic.
The birds were plainly very happy to be alive in Kew today. They were singing almost constantly, and, at one point, we were joined by a lovely little robin who wanted to sing to us for a while from a branch just above my head.
We sat and watched the ducks, geese, coots and swans on a bench by the lake for some time. Several of the ducks seemed to be gay. One couple - both male - seemed very attached to one another. Then they started mating! I didn't know where to look!
We crossed the bridge to get away from a swan who seemed intent on puffing itself up to a great height to intimidate us. As we made a hasty exit, we passed a bloke with a broken arm, "been this way already have you?"
We had our picnic down by the Thames with the glorious Syon House positively glowing on the other side of the water. My Mum had neatly cut out a newspaper article about the Battle of the Somme to show me. It came in the form of two pieces of paper, perhaps twenty centimetres square. At one moment a crazy wind blew-up which literally took the pieces of paper out of my hand, instantly carrying them high into the air. At the same point, a vortex of dust rose high from the path beside the river. The pieces of newspaper rose higher and higher - like a pair of helium balloons - perhaps forty feet into the air, right across the river and into the woodland in front of Syon House. How bizarre is that?! We wondered if we'd just witnessed one of the infamous Thames corridor tornadoes. When I say infamous, I mean totally unheard of, despite the fact that the Thames corridor actually experiences more tornadoes than anywhere else in the world. They're just not at all powerful. Or interesting!
We walked back to the main gate and drank cups of tea in the main cafe, before buying lollipops and heading back to Highbury where we went our separate ways.
Wednesday, 4 May 2016
Ghastly man
I had the most horrifying conversation this morning with someone on the switchboard of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. I basically phoned, at the suggestion of one of my contacts in the museums industry, to find out who it was best to speak to about a potential installation. I explained who I was, and said I was simply looking for an email address where I could send my pitch. The man who answered the phone was rude and essentially did his best to make me feel like a worm who'd just crawled out of a compost heap. "As you're a cold caller" he said proudly, "I'm not allowed to give you a name." I asked if I could maybe email him and get him to pass the email on to someone more appropriate. "Your only option is to send a letter or a fax." He said. A fax?! A flipping fax?!! I sighed, resigned, "okay, who should I be addressing this letter to?" "As I've said," he said, "I'm not permitted to give you a name." "Can I ask what YOUR name is?" I asked "I don't have to provide you with that information..." And that was that. "Thank you for being so unhelpful," I said. And hung up.
I felt incensed and then ashamed and then incredibly depressed. It's difficult enough to cut a living in the arts without bastards like that doing their best to make you feel like third class citizens. I have a pathological hatred of making phone calls at the best of times so always appreciate it when people have the decency to make me feel like my phone call actually matters. Surely the best way to deal with answering telephones is to assume that everyone who rings in is a human being, who hasn't deliberately called to make your life a misery! As Ru Paul says, "stop! And ask yourself a question: do I want to be right... Or happy?"
I tweeted my disgust at the museum and then contacted their press office for a quote for this blog, which wasn't forthcoming, but they did get straight back to me, and diverted my complaint to the man who deals with such matters, who, I have to say, has been incredibly efficient and sympathetic: "We do not have a ‘no names’ policy and nor could/should we as a public service! I shall ascertain what has happened..."
I feel slightly vindicated, although I still find myself hating the fact that, to get anything fun off the ground, you have to deal with heaps and heaps of this sort of nonsense.
I now have a little curly moustache which I'm training with the aid of a bit of special wax. I think having weird facial hair is a bit like driving a Morris Minor. You end up locking eyes with the other men you pass who are equally sartorial in the moustache department. I get the impression that it's a bit of a club, but that those with longer, curlier moustaches look down on those like me with shorter ones. That's my perception anyway. I'm wondering if I look a bit ludicrous, but am hoping that the key to not looking too much like a fuddy-duddy Dali is maintaining stubble over the rest of my face. I may, of course, be entirely wrong.
We went to an event this evening hosted by the Arts Department of Channel 4, who, of course, commissioned our wedding. Grayson Perry (who beat us in most of the awards we were nominated for) was launching his new show about masculinity, and it looks absolutely fabulous. He's such a talented man.
We walked across Trafalgar Square in the lengthening shadows of the early evening sunlight. It was a genuine treat to be out and about. What lovely weather we're having this week!
I felt incensed and then ashamed and then incredibly depressed. It's difficult enough to cut a living in the arts without bastards like that doing their best to make you feel like third class citizens. I have a pathological hatred of making phone calls at the best of times so always appreciate it when people have the decency to make me feel like my phone call actually matters. Surely the best way to deal with answering telephones is to assume that everyone who rings in is a human being, who hasn't deliberately called to make your life a misery! As Ru Paul says, "stop! And ask yourself a question: do I want to be right... Or happy?"
I tweeted my disgust at the museum and then contacted their press office for a quote for this blog, which wasn't forthcoming, but they did get straight back to me, and diverted my complaint to the man who deals with such matters, who, I have to say, has been incredibly efficient and sympathetic: "We do not have a ‘no names’ policy and nor could/should we as a public service! I shall ascertain what has happened..."
I feel slightly vindicated, although I still find myself hating the fact that, to get anything fun off the ground, you have to deal with heaps and heaps of this sort of nonsense.
I now have a little curly moustache which I'm training with the aid of a bit of special wax. I think having weird facial hair is a bit like driving a Morris Minor. You end up locking eyes with the other men you pass who are equally sartorial in the moustache department. I get the impression that it's a bit of a club, but that those with longer, curlier moustaches look down on those like me with shorter ones. That's my perception anyway. I'm wondering if I look a bit ludicrous, but am hoping that the key to not looking too much like a fuddy-duddy Dali is maintaining stubble over the rest of my face. I may, of course, be entirely wrong.
We went to an event this evening hosted by the Arts Department of Channel 4, who, of course, commissioned our wedding. Grayson Perry (who beat us in most of the awards we were nominated for) was launching his new show about masculinity, and it looks absolutely fabulous. He's such a talented man.
We walked across Trafalgar Square in the lengthening shadows of the early evening sunlight. It was a genuine treat to be out and about. What lovely weather we're having this week!
St Bride's
I woke up this morning to the news that Leicester City had won the Premiership. It made me think a few things. Firstly, that my Dad, a life-long Leicester City fan, will be over the moon, and secondly, that footballers are paid far too much money. I assume that the Leicester City players are some of the least expensive in the Premiership, and that their success can be put down to the fact that they simply played well as a team. Football is, after all, a team game. It's always stuck me that these preening, prancing, goal-hanging, ludicrously expensive "top flight" players, are often in it for their own self-glory. The England side are routinely thrashed in the World Cup by teams which, on paper, oughtn't to be able to hold a candle to us. I have long thought that our pitiful record on a national level was due to "star" players lazily resting on their puffed-up laurels. Create an English team out of second division players, make them train together three times a week and I bet the strategies they'd develop would thrash our "A" team in seconds.
But, I'm no football pundit. I used to run in the opposite direction when the sweaters were thrown down on the school field - unless, of course, they were being used as rounders posts. I was always accused of toe-punting (whatever that means) and stupidly amused by the kids shouting "handball" because I thought they were referencing Hamble, the ugly doll off of Play School! The girls had way more fun at playtime. Their games were far more imaginative. They plaited hair and span in circles to see how far their dresses billowed out...
This afternoon I visited two churches where I'm hoping to create a little installation in September. I'm not going to say too much about the idea at this point for fear of jinxing it, but it involves television screens and a crypt!
The highlight of my day was undoubtedly a tour around St Bride's Church, which has to be one of the most fascinating churches I've ever visited. I was greeted by the vicar and an administrator, both absolutely charming women, the latter of whom had been in the choruses of the Raymond Gubbay operas I worked on at the Albert Hall in the late 90s. We had a good laugh exchanging stories. The Aïda was a particularly bizarre production, one which seemed to engender slightly odd behaviour from those who had the misfortune of being involved. On the last night of the show, for example, a fair number of the female chorus were thrown into the onstage pond as the lights went down. I still remember the piercing operatic screams echoing in the darkness!
Anyway, St Bride's is the church where Pepys was baptised. In fact, he was born in a building right next to the place. His brother was buried there, as were a number of his siblings who died in infancy. The church burned down in the Great Fire of London and was bombed out in the Blitz. There's a little museum in the crypt which has some charred wooden remains from 1666 alongside a little pile of warped and semi-melted pieces of stained glass.
St Bride's is on Fleet Street, and is known as the cathedral of the newspaper industry. Its famous, gleaming white, "tiered" spire was the inspiration for the first ever wedding cake. And that's a fact!
The crypt has a tiled Roman pavement running through it and all sorts of foundation walls from various periods. There's been some kind of church on the site since the 6th century. The original church was probably founded by nuns. We know this, apparently, because of its name.
I was taken through a locked door and introduced to the charnel house, which was incredibly eerie. I didn't actually know what a charnel house was, but it turns out it's essentially a storeroom for human remains which are removed from crypts when they become over-crowded. The coffins which take up most of the room in these scenarios (particularly when they're made of metal and lead to ward off body snatchers), are disposed of, and the larger human bones, mostly femurs and skulls, are neatly stacked in the charnel. The bones I was looking at today were medieval. It was an incredibly thought-provoking experience. All of those people had relatives and friends that grieved their passing, and yet we have no way of ever knowing who they were. Some 7000 bodies were buried on the site throughout history, a particularly obscene number of those during the cholera epidemic.
St Bride's is most unusual, however, in the fact that all 227 people who were buried under the nave, and whose bodies were disturbed when the church was bombed in the war, have been carefully catalogued and stored in boxes in the crypt for research purposes. You take a box from a shelf which, for example, might be labelled "skull," open a little book and find out that said skull belonged to a bloke called John something or other who lived at such and such address and drowned in the Thames at the age of 27. It's a remarkable resource. And what makes it even better is that the vicar understands the importance of her church, not just spiritually but socially and historically. She's a live wire who's so into historical research that she says she finds it a little odd to work in a church with no parish records to speak of. The two catastrophic fires destroyed anything of that nature. In her previous church she had great fun digging out records - particularly before weddings - so she could tell the happy couple about those who'd shared their wedding anniversary in the distant past. Christmas Day, I believe, was a very popular day on which to get married in those days. Pepys was thrilled on Christmas Day 1665 that a couple were getting married in his parish because it indicated that the long, dark days of the plague were well-and-truly over:
"To church in the morning, and there saw a wedding, which I have not seen many a day; and the young people so merry one with another, and strange to see what delight we married people have to see these poor fools decoyed into our condition, every man and woman gazing and smiling at them."
But, I'm no football pundit. I used to run in the opposite direction when the sweaters were thrown down on the school field - unless, of course, they were being used as rounders posts. I was always accused of toe-punting (whatever that means) and stupidly amused by the kids shouting "handball" because I thought they were referencing Hamble, the ugly doll off of Play School! The girls had way more fun at playtime. Their games were far more imaginative. They plaited hair and span in circles to see how far their dresses billowed out...
This afternoon I visited two churches where I'm hoping to create a little installation in September. I'm not going to say too much about the idea at this point for fear of jinxing it, but it involves television screens and a crypt!
The highlight of my day was undoubtedly a tour around St Bride's Church, which has to be one of the most fascinating churches I've ever visited. I was greeted by the vicar and an administrator, both absolutely charming women, the latter of whom had been in the choruses of the Raymond Gubbay operas I worked on at the Albert Hall in the late 90s. We had a good laugh exchanging stories. The Aïda was a particularly bizarre production, one which seemed to engender slightly odd behaviour from those who had the misfortune of being involved. On the last night of the show, for example, a fair number of the female chorus were thrown into the onstage pond as the lights went down. I still remember the piercing operatic screams echoing in the darkness!
Anyway, St Bride's is the church where Pepys was baptised. In fact, he was born in a building right next to the place. His brother was buried there, as were a number of his siblings who died in infancy. The church burned down in the Great Fire of London and was bombed out in the Blitz. There's a little museum in the crypt which has some charred wooden remains from 1666 alongside a little pile of warped and semi-melted pieces of stained glass.
St Bride's is on Fleet Street, and is known as the cathedral of the newspaper industry. Its famous, gleaming white, "tiered" spire was the inspiration for the first ever wedding cake. And that's a fact!
The crypt has a tiled Roman pavement running through it and all sorts of foundation walls from various periods. There's been some kind of church on the site since the 6th century. The original church was probably founded by nuns. We know this, apparently, because of its name.
I was taken through a locked door and introduced to the charnel house, which was incredibly eerie. I didn't actually know what a charnel house was, but it turns out it's essentially a storeroom for human remains which are removed from crypts when they become over-crowded. The coffins which take up most of the room in these scenarios (particularly when they're made of metal and lead to ward off body snatchers), are disposed of, and the larger human bones, mostly femurs and skulls, are neatly stacked in the charnel. The bones I was looking at today were medieval. It was an incredibly thought-provoking experience. All of those people had relatives and friends that grieved their passing, and yet we have no way of ever knowing who they were. Some 7000 bodies were buried on the site throughout history, a particularly obscene number of those during the cholera epidemic.
St Bride's is most unusual, however, in the fact that all 227 people who were buried under the nave, and whose bodies were disturbed when the church was bombed in the war, have been carefully catalogued and stored in boxes in the crypt for research purposes. You take a box from a shelf which, for example, might be labelled "skull," open a little book and find out that said skull belonged to a bloke called John something or other who lived at such and such address and drowned in the Thames at the age of 27. It's a remarkable resource. And what makes it even better is that the vicar understands the importance of her church, not just spiritually but socially and historically. She's a live wire who's so into historical research that she says she finds it a little odd to work in a church with no parish records to speak of. The two catastrophic fires destroyed anything of that nature. In her previous church she had great fun digging out records - particularly before weddings - so she could tell the happy couple about those who'd shared their wedding anniversary in the distant past. Christmas Day, I believe, was a very popular day on which to get married in those days. Pepys was thrilled on Christmas Day 1665 that a couple were getting married in his parish because it indicated that the long, dark days of the plague were well-and-truly over:
"To church in the morning, and there saw a wedding, which I have not seen many a day; and the young people so merry one with another, and strange to see what delight we married people have to see these poor fools decoyed into our condition, every man and woman gazing and smiling at them."
Monday, 2 May 2016
Brent Cross
I went to Brent Cross this afternoon and instantly regretted my decision. The place was rammed to the rafters and it took half an hour and much wriggling, wiggling and impatient beeping to find a parking space. When I got into the shopping centre itself, I immediately found myself swamped by people who, how should I put this, weren't my tribe. There was a lot of aggression. One man walked straight into me. Like a true Brit I heard myself mumbling an apology, but his friend wanted more: "that's right" he shouted at me aggressively, "don't apologise." Off he swaggered with his hand stuffed down the front of his track suit trousers, the brim of his ludicrous Pratt hat pointing jauntily towards the shopping centre roof!
I was looking for the holy grail: a suit that isn't made of wool and isn't designed for a nineteen year-old lad who's made of nothing but skin and bone. Wool makes me panic. It clings to my legs and makes me sweat and itch. I like to look at fabric and imagine how many chemicals have died to make it so soft!
There was a very silly woman whom I had to deal with as I left the car park. I'd parked next to her and her husband and their oh-so-swanky sports car which was so low to the ground I couldn't see it in my wing mirror. We arrived back to our cars at the same time, so I suggested they leave first because I was reversing out of the space and couldn't tell how close I was to them. "But I need to get into my car first and there's no room for me to open the passenger seat door" she said, "well perhaps the driver could pull out of the space and then you'll be able to get in more easily?" I said. "No. You'll have to pull out first so that I can get in." "But if I pull out I'll hit your expensive car, which I'm sure we'd all like to avoid..." She sighed and spent the next five minutes squeezing herself into the tiny little space between our cars and then, like a pathetic contortionist in a cheap magic act, squeezed herself into her passenger seat. She stared at me as though to say "look what you've made me do." Silly tit.
I learned something horrifying today, namely that the organisers of Eurovision have banned certain "politically sensitive" flags from being taken into the Eurovision stadium. The list of flags includes the Welsh flag, which I find very insulting, particularly as one of the British performers is actually Welsh, and the Islamic State flag is on the same list! Can someone please tell me what this is all about?
I was looking for the holy grail: a suit that isn't made of wool and isn't designed for a nineteen year-old lad who's made of nothing but skin and bone. Wool makes me panic. It clings to my legs and makes me sweat and itch. I like to look at fabric and imagine how many chemicals have died to make it so soft!
There was a very silly woman whom I had to deal with as I left the car park. I'd parked next to her and her husband and their oh-so-swanky sports car which was so low to the ground I couldn't see it in my wing mirror. We arrived back to our cars at the same time, so I suggested they leave first because I was reversing out of the space and couldn't tell how close I was to them. "But I need to get into my car first and there's no room for me to open the passenger seat door" she said, "well perhaps the driver could pull out of the space and then you'll be able to get in more easily?" I said. "No. You'll have to pull out first so that I can get in." "But if I pull out I'll hit your expensive car, which I'm sure we'd all like to avoid..." She sighed and spent the next five minutes squeezing herself into the tiny little space between our cars and then, like a pathetic contortionist in a cheap magic act, squeezed herself into her passenger seat. She stared at me as though to say "look what you've made me do." Silly tit.
I learned something horrifying today, namely that the organisers of Eurovision have banned certain "politically sensitive" flags from being taken into the Eurovision stadium. The list of flags includes the Welsh flag, which I find very insulting, particularly as one of the British performers is actually Welsh, and the Islamic State flag is on the same list! Can someone please tell me what this is all about?
Sunday, 1 May 2016
Hypercorrection
I learned a new word today. It's a word I love because it describes the thing I hate most in the world! Hypercorrection. It is defined thus:
"A speaker or writer who produces a hypercorrection generally believes that the form is correct through misunderstanding of these rules, often combined with a desire to appear formal or educated."
In my view hypercorrection is most ghastly when used in relation to pronouns. I noticed recently someone writing on Facebook about the death of their mother: "myself and my brother were there when she died..." Grief is no excuse for bad grammar. Another friend, a writer who should know better, writes, "this is a photo of my sister and I on holiday..." I don't actually mind old-fashioned honest bad grammar. "Me and my sister on holiday" wouldn't have bothered me in the slightest. It's simply the notion of someone trying to seem fancy whilst getting it wrong which makes me wince. It's like someone from Essex over-pronouncing their t's and s's when they answer the phone.
Speaking of Essex, we went to Thaxted with Brother Edward and Sascha this afternoon. It's been a glorious day. The sun hasn't stopped shining and the air was permanently warm. The parents' garden looks glorious, filled with red tulips and purple Jacob's Ladder. My mother is horrified because their little shed-cum-barn has recently been re-roofed with very shiny corrugated metal, which has taken on something of a solar panel vibe. Apparently they can't have it repainted or recoated for a year, so we enjoyed winding them up, telling them to remove all plastic objects from the widows of their house in case the sun caught the roof and melted everything in the near vicinity!
We had a very pleasant lunch in a pub out at Great Easton where the male staff were all incredibly tall and stupidly handsome in a "you're-young-enough-to-be-my-son/grandson" way. My Dad made us all laugh by not being able to explain how he'd managed to inadvertently tip the waiting staff whilst paying for the food. It was only when Nathan and Sascha started to do some digging that we realised he'd tipped the same amount as his PIN number! Thank God his PIN doesn't start with the number 9, else he could have tipped over ninety quid!
We went for a walk across the fields behind Thaxted after lunch. The rape crops have started glowing that rather sickly yellow colour, which, against the lime green, Spring-like grass, and bright blue sky is all a bit vibrant for my taste!
As we walked along, my brother told us about a very unfortunate occurrence at a recent public speaking event he'd attended where one poor, somewhat foolish bloke had managed to smash a glass on his forehead. Blood apparently went everywhere. Just as he was telling the story, my Dad managed to walk into a rogue tree branch and cut his ear open! He was fine, but my brother, who is very squeamish when it comes to blood, ended up with it all over his fingers.
My mother made us all chortle when she revealed that two of her neighbours are called Sue Parker. They live two doors apart. How often do you think the mail goes to the wrong one? How would they know? Imagine being the person who lives in the middle?
We went back to Till Towers and sat in the garden until the heat left the sun, when we retired to watch the Antiques Roadshow with a plate of what my Mum would probably call an "improvised cold collation" on our laps. Something came up in conversation which triggered her to fetch a file filled with the order of services from the shed load of funerals she's attended in the last five or so years. It must be so so hideous to reach the point where death starts to become so horribly commonplace. When is that point? Am I close to it?
"A speaker or writer who produces a hypercorrection generally believes that the form is correct through misunderstanding of these rules, often combined with a desire to appear formal or educated."
In my view hypercorrection is most ghastly when used in relation to pronouns. I noticed recently someone writing on Facebook about the death of their mother: "myself and my brother were there when she died..." Grief is no excuse for bad grammar. Another friend, a writer who should know better, writes, "this is a photo of my sister and I on holiday..." I don't actually mind old-fashioned honest bad grammar. "Me and my sister on holiday" wouldn't have bothered me in the slightest. It's simply the notion of someone trying to seem fancy whilst getting it wrong which makes me wince. It's like someone from Essex over-pronouncing their t's and s's when they answer the phone.
Speaking of Essex, we went to Thaxted with Brother Edward and Sascha this afternoon. It's been a glorious day. The sun hasn't stopped shining and the air was permanently warm. The parents' garden looks glorious, filled with red tulips and purple Jacob's Ladder. My mother is horrified because their little shed-cum-barn has recently been re-roofed with very shiny corrugated metal, which has taken on something of a solar panel vibe. Apparently they can't have it repainted or recoated for a year, so we enjoyed winding them up, telling them to remove all plastic objects from the widows of their house in case the sun caught the roof and melted everything in the near vicinity!
We had a very pleasant lunch in a pub out at Great Easton where the male staff were all incredibly tall and stupidly handsome in a "you're-young-enough-to-be-my-son/grandson" way. My Dad made us all laugh by not being able to explain how he'd managed to inadvertently tip the waiting staff whilst paying for the food. It was only when Nathan and Sascha started to do some digging that we realised he'd tipped the same amount as his PIN number! Thank God his PIN doesn't start with the number 9, else he could have tipped over ninety quid!
We went for a walk across the fields behind Thaxted after lunch. The rape crops have started glowing that rather sickly yellow colour, which, against the lime green, Spring-like grass, and bright blue sky is all a bit vibrant for my taste!
As we walked along, my brother told us about a very unfortunate occurrence at a recent public speaking event he'd attended where one poor, somewhat foolish bloke had managed to smash a glass on his forehead. Blood apparently went everywhere. Just as he was telling the story, my Dad managed to walk into a rogue tree branch and cut his ear open! He was fine, but my brother, who is very squeamish when it comes to blood, ended up with it all over his fingers.
My mother made us all chortle when she revealed that two of her neighbours are called Sue Parker. They live two doors apart. How often do you think the mail goes to the wrong one? How would they know? Imagine being the person who lives in the middle?
We went back to Till Towers and sat in the garden until the heat left the sun, when we retired to watch the Antiques Roadshow with a plate of what my Mum would probably call an "improvised cold collation" on our laps. Something came up in conversation which triggered her to fetch a file filled with the order of services from the shed load of funerals she's attended in the last five or so years. It must be so so hideous to reach the point where death starts to become so horribly commonplace. When is that point? Am I close to it?
It's oh so quiet
A quiet Saturday. The weather was quiet. I was quiet. Nathan was at work.
I did a bit of admin. A bit of composing. Then, when Nathan got home, we drove a mile up the A1 to order some pizzas. I did a quick shop in Sainsbury's in Muswell Hill and bumped into young Sario, one of the NYMT actors who is in Spring Awakening this year. "Have you been having fun today?" I asked. "I've been playing football" he said. "Did you win?" I asked. "No" he said, "we got relegated!" Oops! His hair looked cool. Mine, I realised, looked like a Hebredian sheep.
We watched Britain's Got Talent and enjoyed the all-male, all-black opera-singing man band. They weren't the most amazing singers I've ever heard, but I predict they'll do very well for themselves. They sang Nimrod set to uninspiring lyrics and the audience went wild. Of course they did. Nimrod goes straight to the heart of every British person. I wish TV programme makers would sometimes acknowledge that audiences often applaud music rather than performances.
How many adverts must I watch with adults lip-syncing to the sounds of children speaking? There's a hideous set of adverts for Haribo sweeties and one for Harry Potter World where a series of Rep actors make themselves look like compete tits. To make matters worse, the voice-overs are very unlikely to be done by actual children and far more likely to be done by adults pretending to be children. So, actually what we're viewing in these adverts is adult actors pretending to be adult actors pretending to be children. Layer upon layer of ghastliness.
So we've traumatised ourselves by watching Steve Backshall roaming around a tropical jungle man-handling tarantulas. I literally watched the show with my teeth permanently clenched and my fingers in every contortion under the sun. Why would anyone want to live in a country where there are electric eels?
I did a bit of admin. A bit of composing. Then, when Nathan got home, we drove a mile up the A1 to order some pizzas. I did a quick shop in Sainsbury's in Muswell Hill and bumped into young Sario, one of the NYMT actors who is in Spring Awakening this year. "Have you been having fun today?" I asked. "I've been playing football" he said. "Did you win?" I asked. "No" he said, "we got relegated!" Oops! His hair looked cool. Mine, I realised, looked like a Hebredian sheep.
We watched Britain's Got Talent and enjoyed the all-male, all-black opera-singing man band. They weren't the most amazing singers I've ever heard, but I predict they'll do very well for themselves. They sang Nimrod set to uninspiring lyrics and the audience went wild. Of course they did. Nimrod goes straight to the heart of every British person. I wish TV programme makers would sometimes acknowledge that audiences often applaud music rather than performances.
How many adverts must I watch with adults lip-syncing to the sounds of children speaking? There's a hideous set of adverts for Haribo sweeties and one for Harry Potter World where a series of Rep actors make themselves look like compete tits. To make matters worse, the voice-overs are very unlikely to be done by actual children and far more likely to be done by adults pretending to be children. So, actually what we're viewing in these adverts is adult actors pretending to be adult actors pretending to be children. Layer upon layer of ghastliness.
So we've traumatised ourselves by watching Steve Backshall roaming around a tropical jungle man-handling tarantulas. I literally watched the show with my teeth permanently clenched and my fingers in every contortion under the sun. Why would anyone want to live in a country where there are electric eels?
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
