It’s quite an illuminating experience, because it reminds
you of who you were back then. It’s like looking back over an old journal,
complete with words, pictures, and pressed flowers. (Erm… Forget the pressed
flowers. Let’s go for beer stains instead.) And some of the posts are really
quite good – far better in many instances than most of the rubbish I write
these days.
What’s especially nice, though, is to read some of the
comments made by people I’d come to regard as friends, but who have now exited
my cyber life a-shriekin’ and a-howlin’. Or maybe they just got on with the
business of getting a real life.
There was one post I made about discovering YouTube. Carmen
from Sydney
said ‘CONGRATULATIONS!’ and I replied ‘You didn’t snigger?’ and she came back
with ‘Nah, I just smiled.’ There is, of course, nothing remarkable about the
statement; but when you hear it said in the Aussie accent of a 17-year-old
girl, it carries a certain charm. I like the Aussie accent; it has an
idiosyncratic expressiveness that sets it apart from most others. Life doesn’t
have much that’s charming about it these days.
* * *
Talking of the Aussie accent, I once saw a documentary which
explained how the root of the American accent is West Country English. Well, by
the same token, I’m convinced that the root of the Aussie accent is East
Anglian English, and the two have been at loggerheads for quite some time. The
West Country is one of the places in which the Celtic Britons sought refuge
when East Anglia
was being rampaged over by the Angle and Saxon barbarians. And during the
English Civil War, East
Anglia was very much a Roundhead stronghold,
while the West Country remained staunchly Royalist.
And do you know how Sellers and Yeatman described the
difference between the two sides in 1066
And All That? They said:
‘The Roundheads were Right but Repulsive, whereas the
Royalists were Wrong but Wromantic.’
Neat.
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