Love them or hate them, accents are incredibly powerful things.
I can remember the first time I went to visit Ruf, I warned him that I would probably have to bring the Universal Translator as sometimes he speaks so fast that I just cannot decipher the words. It’s as if my brain shouts ‘can’t compute, can’t compute’ and threatens to spontaneously combust. He has bouts of hysterics at some of my own pronounciations and the things he’s thought he’s heard as opposed to what I’ve actually said.
But my worst sin, apparently, is my refusal to accept that words like path and bath do not have an ‘r’ in them. The perennial symptom of the North/South divide, I believe… although, of course, Ruf would insist that he comes from neither.
One of the things we do agree on when it comes to speaking in tongues is how incredibly sexy it is when Cerys Matthews sings ‘Rrrroad rrrage’ in that lilting Welsh style.
The Scottish accent does it for me big time too. Sean Connery saying ‘The name’s Bond, James Bond’
Of course, my formative years were spent submerged in films, particularly musicals and a great favourite was Gigi, with the soft, seductive tones of the French – Louis Jourdan and Maurice Chevalier. And then there were the Saturday night programmes featuring Sacha Distel… Not forgetting Serge Gainsbourg in ‘Je t’aime’ and Charles Aznavour’s ‘She’.
However, I’ve always been a sucker for the dialects of my native country too. The rough, earthy tones of Sean Bean as Richard Sharpe just do it for me big time. So you can imagine my excitement at Erotica when the man with the vibrating finger ring began touching the back of my hand and talking about the process in an accent so reminiscent of that Yorkshireman that I would quite willingly have allowed him to take me off somewhere and explain in greater detail, preferably with practical demonstrations. Fortunately, I had three very sensible chaperones to drag me off to the next stall to examine the Lelo collection.
But let’s not forget the cheeky twang of the Geordies and even the nasal whine of the Black Country has a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ when it comes to my nether regions.
Ruf and I disagree violently over the Liverpudlian tones with that soft kkkkkk in so many words. I think it’s one of the reasons I used to love Brookside and, in particular, Barry Grant.
Whatever your accent, I will appreciate your linguistic charms.
You see, I got lumbered with Estuary.
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