A A Gill on James Nesbitt playing Dr Jekyll, in the Sunday Times

[devi]

"I suspect the Irish accent has a lot to do with the success of his characterisation. It is a Jekyll-and-Hyde voice. He's blarney and craic and Terry Wogan, but also the voice from behind the balaclava, the code-word warning and sectarian bile."

Wait, what?

Comments

[juggzy.livejournal.com]

Hey. It's all about fighting the good fight against the forces of imperial darkness.

Now, despite Rob wotsisname, the Welsh accent is still seen as a signifier of slightly naff, singing far too often, etc, and although "taffy was a Welshman" would be frowned upon these days, the idea that the Welsh are small, dark, and larcenous still prevails. It's a bit like a Brit in Hollywood.

Oh yes. My lot is far more picked upon than your lot.

At least we can both look down on the Scots.

Thank God for Charlotte Church, say I.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, and there are all those lazy cheap shots about dubious relationships with sheep. I'd still be surprised to see that in a supposedly serious Sunday paper, though, with the larcenous bit especially emphasised.

And OK, it's AA Gill, he has a reputation for being poisonous, but I thought he was usually poisonous at individuals rather than whole countries...

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

And OK, it's AA Gill, he has a reputation for being poisonous, but I thought he was usually poisonous at individuals rather than whole countries.

I have a suspicion that many of these writers who pretend to be unpleasant actually are unpleasant. Writing just gives them a socially accepted outlet for it.

[khalinche.livejournal.com]

Oi!

I thought we were all supposed to unite in hating the English, id only in the hugging-and-cups-of-tea way outlined below.

[barnacle.livejournal.com]

Actually, bluedevi, you've always petrified me. You and Graham Norton.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Begorrah, you've spotted my plastic explosive collection.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

A A Gill is a w@nker pure and simple.

And James Nesbitt's accent is no more like Terry Wogan's than mine is like [random well-known person from some unrelated part of England]. But I suppose to people like Gill "they" all sound alike.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

To be fair to him, I used to think there was such a thing as an "English accent". But a) that was when I'd barely been to England and didn't know many English people, and b) I don't really want to be fair to him.

[millionreasons.livejournal.com]

I suspect that AA Gill also bemoans the "regional" accents on the BBC and longs for a return to RP and dinner jackets.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Indeed. No one talks properly these days, do they?

Mind you, the people back home who say "the English spoken in Dublin is the best English" are almost as bad. Best by whose standards? Their arbitrary ones? One of them was a linguistics lecturer, for goodness' sake.

[cpio.livejournal.com]

Story bud, Dublin English is bleedin rapid, wha!

As for Sir Terry Wogan, he's Irish now is he? Who'da thunk it.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_kent/]

It's almost as if he thinks he's reached some intellectual tipping point beyond which casual, thoughtless prejudice becomes so appalling that he couldn't possibly have meant it that way, and so it becomes a detached intellectual commentary on casual, thoughtless prejudice. I think he kids himself.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

I think he does too. All the same, I was entertaining myself by substituting in different nationalities and ethnic groups and wondering if he'd get away with it then.

"Chiwetel Ejiofor's accent is perfect. On the one hand it's good old friendly Uncle Tom with his great sense of rhythm; on the other it's Zulu headshrinkers throwing spears at my pith helmet."

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I suspect A A Gill's accent is on the one hand hearty Presbyterian housemaster administering a good thrashing to ward away filthiness of mind, and on the other hand smug chinless laird spurning starving crofters with his boot.

[boxcat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, every time I've heard you speak, sectarian bile has always been the first thing I've thought of. :)

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Yes, I hate the English. I just happen to express it by grinning a lot, hugging you and sharing cups of tea with you. I'm a bit weird like that. :)

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

Yep. I *hate* it when people assume that all Irish people are brimming with "blarney and craic and Terry Wogan" too.

Mmm, brimming with Terry Wogan, now there's an image.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

I would like to state for the record that I have never been brimming with Terry Wogan.

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

Ooh yeah, and I've been making lifesized 3D Tarot cards and sticking them up by the sides of roads in Edmonton. Photographic evidence is a bit hit-and-miss, but I thought it was the sort of thing you'd probably approve of anyway:

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

That is extremely cool. Hopefully no one will think it's some sort of terrorist device, like those little Adult Swim LED creatures by the Boston roadside a few months ago. Then again, you're in Canada...