Nostalgia

You know what they say.  Even nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.  But when does nostalgia start?

It’s been a week where The Times has been including tokens to collect DVDs of children’s television.  Mr Benn.  The Flumps.  Even the Wombles.  But what have they called it? Nostalgia children’s TV.

Is this a sign that I am getting older, or that nostalgia is getting younger?  Not so long ago, programmes like these had their own special place on Cult TV, a separate section of the main BBC site.

Call them cult, call them classic, even call it retro.  But nostalgia to me suggests a bit more of a pipe and slippers approach.  And while I have regaled you with the joys of cardigans, I don’t feel that children’s TV of the 70s, which in many cases is still being replayed every so often, is in the nostalgia department.

Nostalgia is the underpinning of novelty radios in inserts for the weekend papers.  It’s adverts for products that weren’t that attractive in 1940, and are now more amusing for what they suggest about the period.

I wouldn’t want to suggest that all 70s TV (or indeed 80s, as “Willo the Wisp” is part of the collection) is tremendous.  You may also note they are not selling us Bagpuss, or the Clangers, the ‘big guns’ of that era – spin offs and linked products for that time are clearly already well looked after in the marketing department.

Myself, I’m hoping for some ‘Ivor the Engine‘.  I think it’s time to reacquaint the viewing public with a dragon that slept on the coals of the train.  You could even call it part of the ongoing Welsh renaissance. I’m sure Russell T. Davis will come up with something.

Nice cardi

A bit of a breakthrough.  Having tried to track down a plain black cardigan for what seems a long period of time, I finally found one today.

Now I know this is not exciting reading.  Cardigans.  Socks a couple of days ago.  It’s just a good job we don’t have thermal vests as well.

Jasper Carrot once talked about signs of aging.  Interest in lawnmowers was one.  Going past a shop window and going back to comment “Nice cardi!”  appeared to be the nail in the coffin.

A couple of years back, as a course we ran for the students we work with, one of them was worried about whether she had to go out and buy a suit in order to do her placement abroad.  I suggested no, and that a top and a pair of trousers that she could move about in comfortably would do the trick.

The problem was the next line when I said “Something like this”, and pointed to what I was wearing, which fitted the description.  The look I got back from the twenty year old suggested I was firmly in the nice cardi brigade.

It’s all very confusing, when tank tops and parkas that were no-nos in my generation become cool again.  And puffball skirts (only had one friend who could actually manage to look good in one).

Even the fashion writers concede that much of current fashion is really suited for very thin (and possibly only teenage) girls. It also seems to help if you like loud prints, judging by the clothes rails today.

So maybe a plain black cardi is a rebellious statement in this day and age.  It’s a good job we don’t have to select which lawnmower to wear to work as well.

When is a wynd not a ginnel?

When it’s a snicket? More viewing the Urban Dictionary slang website last night.

My normal test for these dialect search things is to put in the word ‘ginnel’, which is what I grew up with as a way to describe a small path or alleyway. It worked! It also offered ‘snicket’, and I in turn offer back ‘wynd’, which is the one you tend to see quite a bit in Edinburgh, particularly for the narrow streets off the Royal Mile.

A further option is a twittering, which was one my Latin teacher at school used. However, let’s just say the Urban Slang site doesn’t deal very well with that one. But it does offer ‘flutester’, which is evidently a small ginnel. It’s good to be prepared for every eventuality.

I’m sure there are other regional variations – so if you can think of any, add a comment.

I had thought about titling this post ‘citrus ginnel’, as an alternative to ‘lemony snicket‘. But then I might have looked a bit of a daft wazzock. You might have felt like a numpty if you hadn’t known. And muppets everywhere would be none the wiser.

Heid on ma hauns

I had great hopes of introducing a few of my gentle readers (and even some less gentle ones) to a little Scots this evening.  But a spot of searching of online dictionaries led me to suspect that I had got the word I wanted wrong.

Yesterday saw a scene of great domesticity: a bit of Star Trek on repeat by way of background, a mound of socks before me.  It was the day of the Sock Amnesty, when errant socks meet their partners again, and some sense of order is restored in the sock drawers of Him and Her.  (On occasion, the event is upgraded to a Sock Cull…you can guess the rest.  My mending skills are not always what they could be.)

A friend of mine is particularly swift at matching socks with their pair, and even has a small (I think home made) certificate to prove it.  I was positive that what she was doing was ‘flyting’ socks, but when I looked it up, ‘flyte’ mainly seems to mean scold.  I guess you could stand over the mound of socks and harrangue them, but it hasn’t worked for me before.

I was then going to put another word as a title to show that I felt a bit stuck at getting the wrong word.  So I looked up that one, and it didn’t mean what I wanted either… [Editorial note: the word I was after was flype.]

It’s all very well having had 25 years as a MacKenzie, Scottish relatives, around half my life living in Scotland…but I don’t really come across as a native when I speak.  English mother, mostly brought up in England, and I sound it.

The more you stay around here in Scotland, though, the more extra words creep in that don’t get much use down south.  (Though ‘minging’ seems to be doing quite well for itself now in the rest of the UK, I see.)

Ever the linguistic magpie, I enjoy adding them to occasional, or even everyday, use. Only difficulty is when I overextend myself, thinking I’ve got it right, authentic even, and it’s not. Though I just tried a different search, and the term ‘scunnered’ (or ‘scunnert’) turns up as I thought it did, meaning frustrated.

Ahm a wee bit scunnert but ahv no goat ma heid on ma hauns yet.  In my next search, I found scunnert as fed up, but I also in turn came across www.urbandictionary.com  so I can track down a few more words, Scots and other.  Mair anon.

Passing the baton

Strange feeling, giving away work.  Delightful too.  I’d been anticipating for a little while being able to pass on a programme I’ve worked on – today I got to write that ‘introducing my new colleague’ email.

In some ways, you kind of feel you could have written it any time.  It’s a bit like the feeling when the day comes round to get on a particular plane to a long-booked destination.

You could have done it earlier, or any day, in some ways – but the point when it finally happens seems ever so ordinary.  (Maybe that’s just my experience with flights.  Every year I seem to take longer and longer to believe I’m finally on holiday.)

It’s been a nice programme to work on.  But as I’ve been running it on my own, from the Scotland side at any rate, it can be a bit of an anti-climax.  No one to commemorate it with you.  On the up side, the colleague taking it on also works with me on with students, so I’ll no doubt keep up with bits of what’s happening.

I’ve been aware for some time of how much my work relies on emails to make things happen.  With an email I…confirm someone can go abroad, make their day with the placement they longed for, or equally confirm that they can’t have their heart’s desire but they can still go somewhere worthwhile.  It’s simultaneously powerful and very ordinary.

Today I used an email to cut my workload.  It would be nice to try a different one tomorrow to give me a payrise…but there’s probably only so much power you can wield at a time.