Monday 26 March 2012

Hip Hop Don't Start

The non-mysogynist Monty Don.
One hears of West Coast rappers and East Coast rappers, but is the rap world a little too geographically exclusive? There could, for instance, be some very decent ‘spitters’ of lyrics living in the hinterland, not considered ‘seaboard’ enough. The problem for those with a smaller deposit (the ‘less bling’ in hip hop financial terms) is that it’s quite difficult securing a mortgage on a property on prime coastal real estate. Though estate agents can offer some help. They’re very good at the dressing up language:
‘How about this, I’ve got a five bedroom villa slightly more your budget, set back a little bit from the sea front. How do you feel about that?’
‘Ain’t exactly West Coast. I dunno man. How’s that goin’ down in my rhymes?’
‘Yes, I thought you could do, erm, instead of “I’m from the West Coast”, something like “I’m from the hinterland, Boasting stunning sea views, Just a five minute walk from the beach”…’ (CLICK ON 'Read more' LINK, BELOW)

Sunday 18 March 2012

The Hardest Word to Say is ‘Stutter’

Verbal stammerers are easy enough to interpret. For instance, when a stammering school headmaster says, ‘You’re going to get the cocaine,’ we anticipate a dose of corporal punishment more than we do a drugs push. But what about people who develop a stammer communicating with sign language? In signing, the word ‘coat’ is got over with the action of hefting a coat over the shoulders (although how you then finesse that to say ‘jacket’ or ‘jerkin’ is of interest, or yet to be pioneered). The signing stammerer will however put on many coats. The message is ambiguous. His audience will be left wondering: ‘Am I communicating with a stammerer or somebody with a circulatory problem?’



Broadening out slightly from this observation, we ask ourselves should we need to rewrite history? And why? Revisit footage of Adolf Hitler delivering his haunting speeches and we see why. In Hitler, we recognise a stammering signer. We realise that the hand signals he makes, he repeats several times over (see clip). Revisionists will say that the hard-of-hearing attending his rallies would have been quite sympathetic towards the Nazi leader, commonly remarking: ‘I haven’t a clue what he’s saying, but that Fuhrer’s got himself a terrible stammer’. (CLICK ON 'Read more' LINK, BELOW)

Sunday 11 March 2012

Squealing About Deliverance

'Is it 5 to 1 already?' a phrase much heard by delivery men. 

When we have something delivered to our home, we are promised its delivery between 8 and 1 on the basis that we take the time off work and wait in for it. Then it arrives at 5 to 1. The cynical will say why don’t we go about our work and just make sure we’re in to receive in that five minute window between 5 to 1, and 1 o’clock, because that’s when delivery men turn up in reality? But the fact is, the delivery companies don’t because they hate to feel that they have wasted your time. By delivering at the far end of the spectrum, they can say it really was worth staying in that last five minutes of the five hour possibility, because if you’d waited and gone out at 5 to 1, they would have come, you would be out and you would have waited in all that time for nothing. (CLICK ON 'Read more' LINK, BELOW)

Sunday 4 March 2012

Bonus-Bonkers Bankers

'Oi! 'ope you washed yer 'ands,' a Cockney will ask of a Merchant Banker offering to shake hands.

Bankers are terribly misunderstood. It’s not surprising that they misbehave when we consider that they are confined to gated communities. This is what people do if they are put behind bars. They become institutionalised. They live cheek-by-jowl with other bankers, learning from each other how to do things like claim tax credits when they haven’t paid tax in the first place, how to restructure debt and refuse to lend to other people. So that when they get out and into the office, they fall into learnt patterns of behaviour.
We can just imagine how they’re brought up. ‘Did you tidy your room?’ asks a parent.
‘No. If anything it’s messier,’ answers the latent banker.
‘Not good, Stephen. There’s only one thing for it. I’m going to have to raise your pocket money.’ (CLICK ON 'Read more' LINK, BELOW)