Speech Impediment Wednesday
Speech Impediment Wednesday
A marathon of meetings in Reading
10 March 1999:
Speech Impediment Wednesday
I
woke up at the ungodly hour of 7 am. I never even do that at home. If the New
York office only knew.
I didn't realize
it earlier, but Reading, and particularly the Holiday Inn, overlooks the Thames.
The hotel sits on a wee cove. Jane counted more than 100 swans on the banks of
the river. She's the mother of two, works like a fiend, and still has time to
count the swans. She's Britain's answer to Yvonne Goolagong. How does she do it?
"Isn't easy."
Danny arrived in time for
breakfast. He stopped me just in time from mixing marmite with marmelade. I wish
he stopped me from mixing marmite with toast. Marmite is brown yeast extract.
It's god-awful. What is it extracted from? You must try it at least once, just
to know how awful it is. Danny's British born and loves
marmite.
Today was editors' day and we
met with seven different companies. In terms of language Britain is interesting
on two levels. Accents change every 50 miles, and in the modern age, no three
people in a room ever seem to sound alike. I also realized on this visit that a
lot of British people have speech impediments. Danny later agreed. He thinks
it's unusually common, but not too pronounced. I definitely noticed lisps and
shisps and Rs that became Ws.
Danny and
both nearly passed out from the heat in the room, as the afternoon sun beat in
through the windows, and at one point we glazed over a bit and noticed the
accents and speech impediments more than anything else. Danny says I have a New
York accent. I suppose I have a slight one. Danny has a rather cockney
accent.
By 6 pm Speech Impediment
Wednesday was over and Danny and I took the train back to Paddington. Just 20
minutes nonstop. We talked politics the entire way back. Danny is very left-wing
and rages about homophobia, which is interesting since he's married to Susie.
It's good to have friends in Britain, and it's good to have friends who are
simpatico.
Posted: Wed - March 10, 1999 at 02:01 AM