One of the first things I learned to say in Czech was "Stop getting on and off; The doors are about to close." I could recite it perfectly before I knew what it meant because I heard it every day on the Prague metro. The rhotic accent was sexy and the words all the more beautiful for their meaninglessness to me.
These days, the old soviet-built carriages have been replaced by shiny, whining German ones, the announcer is as often as not a man, and, in a nod to market forces, they have added the word "Please". You can listen here, but the quality is rather poor.
Nowadays, my incantation of choice is the shipping forecast, which incites me to dream of the grey seas undulating in the darkness: Rockall, Malin, Dogger, Finisterre.
Radio four was an unknown quantity when I was a child. Being working class and Scottish, I got my hypnosis from the football results: Cowdenbeath three, Heart of Midlothian two; Raith Rovers one, Queen of the South one.
3 comments:
As an infant, I was left in front of the television set watching the football results while my mother prepared my tea. I learned to love the names of Scottish clubs. I also learned to recognised numbers.
Queen of the South scored a goal - wow!
Alas, as I got older, I began to hate football and found the club names more scary than pleasant.
Post a Comment