A Document Regarding Frivolous Patois

"Don't people in Roath have the same right to a decent night's sleep as everybody else?"

This is the only line from a news article that I have discovered today that I found noteworthy. I reproduce it here, out of context, in the hope that the vagaries surrounding the quotation will add to its oddness.

I am unsure what to write about today, so I will allow myself what I originally believed this blog would not become, and write an entry specifically about myself. Oh dear me indeed.

I have been surrounded by children recently, due to the nature of my job, and I have discovered that the youth of today has adopted a number of odd colloquialisms that I find jarring. This is hardly surprising, and indeed is one of the things to be expected from generation to generation, but as I am only 21, I am slightly flummoxed to note the difference in language use already present in people 7-8 years my junior. I appreciate that I may not be a legitimate bastion of current slang, as evidenced by my use of terms such as “flummoxed”, “legitimate” and “bastion”. However, some of the language used without even the thinnest veneer of irony or self-awareness is flabbergasting.

I am no stranger to the concept of “ownage”, though it is feasible to assume that I would not use it straight-faced even in its original definition. What is most surprising to me is the new usage that has cropped up where kids, referring to their armour on an online game, inquire hubristically: “Do I look ownage?” Despite being employed as a glorified child-behaviour paladin, my degree in, and passion about, the English language lead me to view this use of language with an air of haughty distaste.

Another example of ludicrous patois is the decision of the children to actually declare, out loud, with their voices, out of their own mouths, into the air, where you are HEAR it: “OMG!”. Actually spelling out the letters instead of saying the words these letters have come to represent. I have come to the point where I allot myself 15 lashes if I ever use the actual phrase “oh my god”, and to hear little human whelps using the bowdlerised phrase with no sense of how idiotic they sound leaves me chilled. I think it all comes down to the fact that I hate children, and in this sense I am both not suited and perfectly suited to being in charge of them. They also say “noob”. I am agèd beyond my days.

In a jarring change of topic, I will now stop talking about something that frustrates me and begin discussing things I enjoy. I was let loose into a radio studio recently, along with my future co-presenter, to “get a feel of the room”. What we achieved in the hour or so we were allowed in there was, though it is swell-headed of me to say so, beautiful. We quickly came to grips with the technology and the software by ourselves, since we are such tech-savvy clever Richards, we then proceeded to ‘practice’ and prepare an off the cuff non-recorded pilot of what we think our show should be. It essentially comprised of songs we don’t like being seamlessly faded in and out of each other to an accompaniment of us cachinnating cacophonously. In the heightened oddness of the studio, which I am going to refer to as The Atelier, even the most spurious joke or funny story became hilarious, sending us into rapturous bellowing laughter. We gleaned far too much enjoyment from being ‘naughty’ and pronouncing Foo Fighters as though it was a naughty word (which of course we cannot do on air due to the Don’t Say The Naughty Words! Act 1914), and also from a frighteningly accurate impression of Sarah Millican, which no Rhondda-born man has any right to be able to do, and also a very poor John Lennon. We toyed with the idea of pretending to be from other community radio stations located around the country, welcoming imaginary listeners in a heavy faux-cockney accent to Pearly Kings FM, and topping this off with a gravitas laden “Have a banana”. It was all scuppered however as the manager of the station walked in on us raging through an angry dialogue pretending to be from a Liverpudlian station. I think we scared her quite a lot, and perhaps made her question her own judgement in terms of letting us in. Regardless, we had a swell time (I am very much on board in the attempt to re-popularise this term).

As well as our being-silly centric live shows which we will be broadcasting on the weekend when the radio gets started (if all goes well), we are also planning on doing a number of pre-records using a format I dreamt up last year, and that we have been meddling with in order to amuse ourselves. I am very excited to be planning and preparing for the Cultural Exchange Program, the premise of which is very simple indeed. We will be picking a genre (of Jean Reno as we will be attempt to rebrand them) each, amassing a selection of songs from the genre, playing them to each other and discussing them, in the hopes that The Exchange will make us better, more rounded individuals, and failing that, that some laughter will have been created. Despite having prepared fastidiously for the first show, I won’t put details here as it is still far enough away that I feel I must keep as much information to myself in order for it to remain fresh on the day.

Suffice to say, preparations for the show have been engrossing and enjoyable, even when certain songs cannot be chosen due to the often colourful language my preferred genres contain. I take these instances to be a challenge, and tracks that are unsuitable for broadcast have already forced me to seek out other tracks, which have often proved better. Hopefully we will be able to incorporate a “Tracks We Couldn’t Play” section, in order to explain the reasons they couldn’t be used, which I have already discovered often have quite amusing reasons.

To close up, here is a track that I most certainly couldn’t play, and is a chirpy, although somewhat abrasive, piece. See if you can spot why it’s inappropriate.

Answers on a postcard please.