Yesterday I was oop North...in the Newcastle area. Every time anyone says anything to me in a thick Geordie accent (I don't know why they're called Geordies) I either have to say "Pardon" or I just nod and smile and hope the meaning of their strangely inflected words will sink in before I have to make a cogent reply. I once nodded and smiled when a Geordie fishmonger suggested a most intimate encounter - for all I knew he'd been merely asking for directions. When I finally figured out that he wished me to use an approach more suited to a Washington intern, all I could do was flutter a polite "no thanks."
I call this impenetrable version of the accent "Monkey in the Sea". As in "He was all monkey-in-the-sea." This is based on a sketch from a show called I'm Alan Partridge. In the sketch the Southern English guy (Alan) has a dawning horror as he realises that the Geordie character threw his pet monkey in the sea because it ate 200 of his duty free cigarettes. And the folks of this area have form when it comes to monkeys. According to legend - the citizens of a nearish town hanged a shipwrecked monkey beached on their shores on the charge of being an invading Frenchman.
Among the wreckage [of a Napoleonic French vessle] lay one wet and sorrowful looking survivor, the ship's pet monkey dressed to amuse in a military style uniform. The fishermen apparently questioned the monkey and held a beach-based trial. Unfamiliar with what a Frenchman looked like they came to the conclusion that this monkey was a French spy and should be sentenced to death. The unfortunate creature was to die by hanging, with the mast of a fishing boat (a coble) providing a convenient gallows.
Anyway, so I'm in a taxi yesterday from my hotel to my work gig and my cabbie was all monkey-in-the-sea. I'm all "what..." until finally I figure out he's talking about a tool for a timing belt. But the folks up there are really nice, so I engage in the whole timing belt discussion. I pay him and then he gets my bag out of the trunk. But he's taking a long time and I hear a strange brushing commotion coming from that area.
A little background...when I go away I always take my black roller-bag - the one with the orange Power T on it and when I come back Other Cat - the white cat - always lies down on it, shedding copiously. I prefer to believe it's because she missed me. Her fur is particularly difficult to get off - vacuuming won't do it - and I'm lazy and slovenly, so I drag the bag around with enough cat hair on it to make a whole 'nother cat. Seriously, it looks like some kind of weird angora roller bag.
I go round the back and the cabbie is vigorously sweeping the bag with his hand and he's all monkey-in-the-sea about a dog-in-the-boot and I can't figure out what the heck he's saying. But finally, finally I realise that he'd been transporting his dog in the boot - and though he'd put a blanket down he thought his dog hair had gotten all over my bag. He was MOR-T-FIED and mumbling apologies and, bless him, he'd actually managed to get all the cat hair off with his hand, before I just burst out laughing.
"Aww Sugar," I said "That's my cat's hair." And I tipped extra.
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