Bad Accents

An interesting quirk of evolution, alongside the unexplainable fact that, as men grow older, they need more hair up their nose, is that the ability wanes to impersonate accents. At various (drunken) times in my past I’ve successfully masqueraded as Welsh, Scottish, American and both northern and southern Irish. These days I struggle with my native Brummie.

When I wrote The Miraumont Photographic Society, I had no thought of ever reading it aloud. I had no qualms about writing it from the viewpoint of a native of Mississippi. It didn’t even worry me when the story called for him to report the speech of a Londoner. The accents would all happen in the mind of the reader.

Then I had the idea of making a YouTube video and, guess what, chose part one of the one story I almost certainly couldn’t deliver. I deployed a brilliant (my opinion) cop-out at the start in a transparent attempt to cover my tracks, and the rest is travesty.

But, such as it is, it’s a good yarn (my opinion again). One day, I might even record the second part.

You’ll find the video here.