I’d just like to reaffirm that I make no judgments. As sentence with similar usage as MPs saying ‘let me make this perfectly clear’ telling you they’re going to avoid answering in as many ways as possible. And in this particular instance, I’m making no judgments about accents. Regional accents. The reason for which I can assume a position of impartiality is that I growed up in East Luundun, dinn’I? And some say I still have the lingering vestiges of that horrendous sub-Estuary Mockney. To which I reply: FAARK ORFFF YA NOB-END OR I’LL CHIN YA!!!!

So if I even notice accents, it’s from a completely neutral standpoint. It’s not about implied superiority for those with BBC, ‘received pronunciation’ type speech. You really don’t have to sound like a cross between a 1937 radio broadcaster and a Wing Commander from RAF Dambusters to get along in the world.

But here, in Tenerife, we have a whole range of accents to pick on. Sorry, to choose from. Obviously there’s a Spanish one. Don’t mind that. At least they’re making an effort. Unlike the Northern Irish. Who sound like they’re not making any kind of effort to be understood by anyone from outside the Province. And we do have a rather large contingent of those from Belfast here. No idea why, maybe there’s some kind of pact going on, maybe Spain’s the only country which will admit those from NI? I could understand a blanket ban.

But the ‘cream of the crop’, accent-wise. Or perhaps the ‘bottom-of-the-barrel’ more appropriately, is the Liverpudlians. With accents so thick that they can’t even be understood by other Liverpudlians. It’s not English. as we know it. It’s not anything, as anyone knows it. I don’t extrapolate this complete lack of communication ability with some kind of delayed evolution. (Communication being a virtual apex of evolutionary progress). But the scientific evidence does lean strongly to such a conclusion. If these people weren’t wearing Liverpool football shirts you’d think they came from some pre-lingual outpost of a lesser known planet on the edges of the Milky Way. Also, having a Liver-bird tattooed on their faces is a bit of a giveaway.

It’s raining here today. Not in an English, grey, drizzly kind’a way, but in a more sub-Saharan African kind’a way, where you know its raining because it hasn’t stopped since they dragged me and Lila out of the pool (because we were getting wet???) and there’s six inches of water across everything. Proper rain. Though unfortunately it’s not really much less wet that the type we get at home.

I expect no sympathy.

Happy New Year everybody; let’s hope it’s a good one. Ok, a better one.

A xxxx