#maybe it's because I've got a more american accent than a southern one

[wouldnt-it-be-hilarious-if-i]

Currently listening to: strawberry wine by deana carter

Today, around 6 pm, I took off my laying around the house clothes and got dressed in a flowery and ruffled dress that I got at Walmart on Wednesday. I was super sad and dazed when I got it. I just threw $72 worth of clothing into the cart and bought it all. Bad financial investment, yes. Pretty dress, worth it.

Anyway, I put it on and a pair of combat boots and admired the ruffles on the hem for a while before heading out to the car. My mom got a new truck recently, and it's huge. Pickup trucks have been my favorite since forever. I always loved my mom's old car but trucks are where my heart is.

I never feel more southern than when I stand on the edge of a trucks door frame and just stare out onto the distance. I feel so tall. It was nice because mom came out to the truck and we both got in, and while I was wearing my flowery dress that reminds me of spring, we listened to mom's favorite songs.

She loves old country music and so do I. I can't remember the song so I'm listening to strawberry wine by deana carter right now. Anyway, we drove in our big truck and I listened to the music and I got the overwhelming feeling that despite my sadness, it really was nice to come home again. I forgot that my romantic daydreamy mindset comes from the country music I grew up with and the way being southern makes me feel.

It's nice to drive along dirt roads and to hear the sounds of crickets and cicadas singing at the top of their lungs. It's nice to look out at the tall grass in the yard and see fields of green and gold with dandelions and purple and blue wildflowers all around. It's nice to see the fairy lights on people's porches and drive past old men drinking Budweiser and laughing on the curb. It's nice to see the bikers on their motorcycles in leather jackets and long beards look over at another group bikers listening to rap music and get excited and sway as they wait for the green light. It's nice to see the world covered the dusky blue light of the nascent night.

I realized that when all my problems seem very big and scary, it's nice to feel small in a good way again. To go back to what is warm and familiar. Like a good pair of boots and strawberry wine and dirt roads and big trucks.

We went and got barbecue and I grinned because my mom let me get chess pie (one of my favorites!). The barbeque was so good. And the chess pie was even better. I missed both. It's been months since I've been home again, as much as I hate my town sometimes.

I forget that I love America often. I get so caught up in my rapidly declining rights (as I should) and personal problems that I forget the slow, comforting parts of Georgia.

I forget the fields. The cows. The old houses. The dirt roads. The country music. The good pairs of boots. The barbeque. The slow, sweet accents. I forget how goddamn much I love being so painfully American.

I forget how nice it is to come home and see my room with all it's glow in the dark stars and butterflies and flowers and moons.

Today, I did several tarot readings and I ate a salad and watched the secret world of polly flint and decided to plan my summer.

I want to add fairy lights to our swing outside and make a fairy garden and twizzle in the grass and go hiking at the little grand canyon. I want to get more boba with my best friend, and take my mother out to watch a movie and eat a fancy dinner. I'm gonna rewatch the Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer movie and maybe Ramona and Beezus because I want to remind myself of when I was happier. I'm going to watch footloose and fried green tomatoes too. I'm going to do ballet private lessons and work on my leaps because they are horrible, and learn polish and Spanish and plan for my senior year of college.

And I'm going to try my hardest to trust that the world is better than I see it right now, and that spring always follows the harshest winter.

Favorite songs rn:

Crystal by Stevie Nicks

Die a happy man by Thomas Rhett

Neon Moon by Brooks and Dunn

Landslide by Fleetwood Mac

Wanted by Hunter Hayes

Strawberry Wine by Deana Carter

Tennessee Whiskey by Chris Stapleton

[neil-neil-orange-peel]

Just out of curiosity, does anybody know what kind of accents the lads have? I'm Aussie, not English, so apart from each of them sounding English and speaking a bit differently to each other I have no idea.

Hi, anon!

Sorry it's taken me a while to respond; I've got quite a bit going on in my life at the moment and I wanted to answer this properly™ because accents and voices are something I find interesting. So, what can I tell you about the lads' voices?

Well, they're all southern bastards, apart from Balowski. Alexei Sayle does a bunch of different accents for the various Balowskis (including different northern and southern ones as well as Russian) but when he's doing his stand up bits, that's just his natural accent - Scouse, as he's from Liverpool (which is in the north west). I'd say the Balowski with the strongest Scouse accent is probably Tommy Balowski (from Interesting).

As for the four Scumbag students. Hehehehe...

Like I said, they're all southern bastards. How do we know this? One of the biggest indicators of whether an English person is from the north or south (as a generalisation) is how they pronounce the "a" sound in words like "grass", "laugh" and - most importantly - "bastard". A northerner (like me) would say "laff" whilst a southerner would say "larf". Hopefully, when you read those two examples, the sound difference makes sense. 😂 This applies to "bastard" in the same way - northerners start it with "ba" whilst southerners start it with "bar". Rick, Vyvyan, Neil and Mike all pronounce it the southern way.

We also have the midlands in England, which I will get on to at some point because it's relevant. However, to my knowledge (which isn't perfect or complete), people from different parts of the midlands pronounce these words the northern and southern ways. That said, the lads are still all definitely from the south east-ish area of England.

Scumbag College is supposed to be in north London, which is of course in the south east of England. Whilst it's true that people don't just attend their local university (Rik, Ade and Ben all went to the University of Manchester and none of them are Mancs), it's also true today that smaller universities are likely to have a higher proportion of local students than their more successful same-city counterparts. I can't really say that for definite about 1980s Britain because far less people went to uni then and most of them were at least middle class, but Scumbag College is obviously not a great university and I'd wager a significant proportion of its students do indeed come from north London.

But, anyway, let's back that up with their accents. I'll start with Neil because canon does actually provide us with his home town: Twickenham. Twickenham is in south west London. Nigel Planer (according to Wikipedia) was born in Westminster, which is the political hotseat in central London. Therefore, both he and Neil and southerners and Londoners. They both also come from middle class families so that influences their accents too, but Neil's accent is pretty straightforward. You'll hear lots of similar English accents to his in British shows (although maybe not in the same moaning hippie tones 😂).

Then we have Mike. Christopher Ryan was born in Bayswater, which is nearish to Westminster, in London (according to Wikipedia). I'd say Mike is a Londoner like Chris too, though Mike sounds more working class than Neil. Mike's accent is an interesting one because it has an almost... American lilt to it. It's not that he doesn't sound English but he has the sort of voice that I think could lean into American if he wanted. Maybe that's deliberate? Maybe he wants to sound cool? I don't hear the same lilt in Dave Hedgehog's voice so I assume it's a Mike thing rather than a Chris thing. I'm sure any American scumbags here will not agree with this at all because I'm sure Mike sounds distinctly English to them 😂 but... I swear I've had a conversation with someone about this phenomenon before.

Something interesting to note about Chris is that his father was Greek. I have no idea if this influenced his accent at all (I don't know how strong a Greek accent his father had, for starters) but he did play a Greek character in an episode of The New Statesman, which I assume was perhaps because of this.

And now for Rick and Vyvyan, where we'll finally move out of London... Sort of.

Vyvyan's accent is maybe the hardest of all of them to place because it's so scratchy and shouty - if you've seen Ade in other stuff, when his character gets angry and shouts his voice does tend to resemble Vyvyan's a bit.

Vyv does have an accent that's distinct from Ade's because Vyvyan is a southerner and Ade is a northerner. Wikipedia says Ade was born in Bradford in Yorkshire and - although he wasn't always there during his childhood because his father was a teacher in the armed forces so the family travelled - he attended secondary school and sixth form in Yorkshire. A lot of us tend to think Ade is very softly spoken when not in character (which is probably because he's so ARGHHH when in character) and he obviously sounds posher™ than Vyvyan because he's middle class. I'm not honestly sure how strong Ade's Yorkshire accent is? He's lived in the south for a while so maybe it's weaker now? I don't know.

That all said, there are a couple of instances in TYO that spring to mind where Ade's... Yorkshireness comes out. Firstly, in Nasty when they're all talking about Alexei behind his back, Ade speaks with a strong Yorkshire accent (an exaggerated one and not technically even as Vyvyan but still). When the boys are on the streets heading to the pub in Boring, it definitely comes through when Vyvyan says: "Donna Kebab? I've already eaten!"

There are also various points in Bottom where it's evident too. Eddie's also a southerner (he's from Hammersmith, in west London) but the northernness does sometimes creep through. Which I enjoy.

I reckon Vyvyan is supposed to be from somewhere in London too, like Mike and Neil. His mother sounds like a cockney... I think. Any southern scumbags feel free to correct me if this is wrong - I'm better with differentiating northern accents than I am southern ones.

I kinda wonder if Vyvyan being southern was partly so that, when Rik and Ade yell "BASTARD!" simultaneously as they're prone to doing in more than just TYO, they could both pronounce the word the same way for maximum effect. I can't currently recall an out of character Ade saying "bastard" and for all I know he could pronounce it like a southerner, but if he doesn't then he deliberately chose to for Vyvyan and other characters and I just wonder if syncing with Rik was part of the reason why.

I need to think about other things. 😂

And finally: the People's pRick. Rick is undoubtedly the poshest of the boys, which is just so, so accurate to type because he's desperate to be the voice of the working class. The fact that he calls his parents mummy and daddy attests to this (I know Neil does too but Rick is just... Another level). He's got rhotacism and can't pronounce his Rs - apparently Rik had this very mildly and just exaggerated it for Rick - but it's also a speech impediment a notable number of posher English people seem to have.

I assume Rick is also meant to be from a more affluent area of London but I'm going to throw out the possibility that he's possibly from any of the posher bits of east Anglia or the south east. Maybe he does indeed have an identifiable type of southern accent that I'm just too northern to grasp the nuances of but then... His voice is also pretty blummin' bloody ruddy cartoonish as heck sometimes, isn't it?

Whilst we have Rick being pompous and thinking that "teacup" is an insult when the correct term is "mug"... The Rik Mayall was actually from the west midlands (told you it would be relevant, hehe). According to Wikipedia, he was born in Harlow in Essex (which is a part of east Anglia) but his family moved to Droitwich in Worcestershire when he was 3. Kevin Turvey is from the west midlands because that's where Rik grew up.

To me, Rik sounds pretty southern, which is maybe because he was also middle class? He pronounced "bastard" the southern way, though Kevin with his more Brummie-like accent says "bastard" the northern way. I'm sure southerners and people from Worcester alike would be better equipped to point out the west midlands influences in Rik's voice but I'm guessing his accent wasn't super strong?

So... what is the conclusion from this? All accents are fun and cool and if you start talking to me about them I won't shut up. 😂 And that The Young Ones are most likely from London or the Greater London area.

Thank you for the ask! Hope this helped a bit?

#the young ones #tyo #asks #anon #me rambling #i'm so sorry 😂 #i kinda just went off on one about accents #from my very north western perspective

[kazlifeadventures]

Cruising to the end!

This cruise was a last last minute decision, encouraged by my friend Jas in Trini (and some of my friends back home). I'd cruised before, but never solo. Let alone solo in a foreign country! The over night ferry cruises to get to Germany last month don't count..

Any way turns out cruising Americans love that Aussie accent to.. somehow I met this amazing couple from Maryland on the first night. We clicked and ended up spending at least part of each evening together. Great minds think alike (and have the same drink/bar tastes)...

This cruise was a 7 night Eastern Carribean adventure taking in 3 ports out of Fort Lauderdale.

Sint Maartens / St Martins island was amazing. It blows my mind that such a tiny place is literally split in two. France owns the 53km sq northern side of the island where it's known Saint Martin with its capital Marigot. This area is wholly part of France, and as such they are part of the European Union. The currency is euro (although mist places will also accepr US dollars) and the people speak French as well as English.

St Maartens, on the Southern Dutch side with its capital of Phillipsburg is the smaller portion of the island at 34km sq. Where it's small in stature is made up by controlling the largest port and being able to accommodate the large cruise ships. This section is technically one of four constituemt countries that form part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Here they currently accept the Netherlands Antillean guilder (this is changing soon!) as well as US dollars.

The island itself was discovered in 1493 by Christopher Colombus, and at one stage was major producer of salt via a multitude of salt ponds some of which are still visible (but no longer used) today. The division between the 2 countries dates back to 1648, where the Dutch and the French finally agreed to split the territory via signing the treaty of Concordia. As you go from one side to the other it's clear how much emphasis on looking after the country has been placed by their respective governing bodies. Fun fact - as small as it is, it is still an international call to call from one side to the other! Oh, and the main airport on the French side is the one where they fly over you on the beach and you have to hang on to the fence to stop blowing away...

I did a bus tour to both sides of the island taking in the crazy iguanas in trees... seriously those things were huge and everywhere! I then spent the remainder of my day in Phillipsburg exploring it's gorgeous little streets and architecture, hanging on the fabulous beach, drinking beer and eating jerk chicken...I like to call that 'full immersion '😁

Then we were off to overnight to our next stop. San Juan, Puerto Rico. This one was an oddly short stop, which I found out later may have been due to some very high port costs (apparently US port areas charge steep fees based on time in port making it less cost effective to stay longer). Anyway we technically had about 6 hrs in port. After a leisurely start that saw me trying to convince myself to get off the boat, I wandered ashore with half a plan and ended up walking around the old town and city area for a good 2.5 hrs. Puerto Rico is classed as a US territory, so rather than being governed wholly by the US and it's constitution, it's kind of like the US over sees what goes on but the country govern themselves and follow parts of the US constitution. It's really complicated to explain fully, so go look it up and it'll make more sense! Anyway the city of San Juan was founded by Spanish colonists in 1521. The city lays claim to some of the most extensive preserved examples of Spanish coastal fortifications, as well as some amazing historical buildings. You all know how much I love a good fort, and here they were dotted along the cliffs of the city. Fort San Felipe Del Moro, Fort San Cristobal and La Fortaleza. No, I did not climb all over them... I wandered to each of them and marvelled at he ingenuity, but refrained from needing to climb to the top (I'm blaming time constraints ...🤣) anyway the gorgeous Santa María Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery, a colonial era cemetery dating from 1863 is located just outside the walls of Fort San Felipe Del Moro and together the two form a breathtaking break in the skyline to the shore. Luckily for me a tourist from one if the tours warned me to get off the wall overlooking the ceremony as apparently you get a 500 USD fine for standing on it! No signs telling you that, so hey, dodged a bullet there! Later back on the ship, I overheard some fellow passengers stating they thought San Juan was a poor and dirty city. I guess all this travel has allowed me to see past that without realising. I thought it had a charm about it, (some of its residents thought they had charm too - queue guy trying to chat me up as he drove next to me in his car...🤣). It wasn't any dirtier than any other city I've visited (in fact there have been a hack of alot of places that were way worse, as were parts of LA - which I was yet to see) It's well known the country is struggling immensely with corruption and the vast divide in income for its citizens. The people I encountered were well versed in Touristing (again, like every where!) I really liked my time here, and would have liked longer in order to have been able to venture out of the city to see some of the natural wonders this country possesses.

Off overnight again, this time to the port of Labadee, a resort port on the island of Haiti that is owned by the cruise ship company. What a perfect Carribean stop, beaches, bbq, cocktails, sun and the glorious water of the Caribbean. I had only intended a multi beach swim /lunch/ then back on the ship stop, but ended up meeting a lovely young couple of newlyweds from Florida who wanted to spend the day 'chatting with the Aussie cause your accent is amazing'. 😂 hey I learned alot more about America and the music in Nashville (the husband was originally from there), and found out what 'dip ' is so it was a win-win. Btw 'dip' is like a tobacco but you don't chew it you stick it inside your bottom lip and then spit every now and then... kinda gross, but hey whatever floats ya boat!

Haiti outside of the resort area is a mess. A real mess. It's a country in financial crisis, with an unstable government and a collapsing infrastructure struggling to cope with the lawlessness of some of its inhabitants. I didn't do any of the tours as they didn't leave the safety of the resort bubble, so you weren't seeing the 'real' Haiti. I did end up buying a bracelet from a local artist and somehow being given 2 necklaces by another two artists...don't ask me what happened but to my relief, having them on seemed to deter other hardy salesmen. The people of Haiti still gain an income from having the ships come in, so for that I was grateful. It's not enough to fix their problems though....

All too soon we were back on board and off for our last night at sea, and for me, off to LA. Rather than doing the 6hr or so worth of flights followed by the big one back to Aus, I'd opted to fly to LA and spend one night there, leaving late the next evening. Synchronicity saw me receive the email for my free night of accomodation that I'd earnt earlier at one of the chain hotels in the US. This meant my last night was a freebie, go me! I got in late the night before, so literally had a day in LA. Jumped a tour that took me out to Marina Del Ray, Little Venice, Venice Beach, Santa Monica pier, Hollywood, the walk of fame, Mann's theatre... all the biggies! As much as I'd have liked to do the studio tours, no time. I will say I was underwhelmed by most of what so saw. Maybe I have been awed by too many things, but I thought LA was not worth the hype. The Hollywood walk of fame needed a bloody good clean, Venice Beach was just a beach with a whole lot of over priced tourist traps... I dunno. I'm hoping this isn't all of the West Coast because I was intending to go back and make it happen... (once I can convince someone to join me and share driving cause this one needs a co - pilot!)😁

I finally have to go back to Australia and make a decision about my job, where I'm going to live...pretty much have to go back and adult again (gosh darn it!).

How much has this adventure changed me? Immeasurably. I am so grateful I had the opportunity to do this. I am so proud of who I am and what I've achieved. Am I glad I did it - hell yeah! Would I change anything? Hell no! Everything that has happened, happened for a reason, changing it would change where I am now. I have learnt some amazing things about travelling, hints and tricks for booking places, how transport works in different countries, whether it's cheaper to buy tickets early/last minute. Logistical lessons most definitely. What I've learnt about me, could fill a book....

If I could encourage one person to take the step and travel solo and feel this joy and strength...even the smallest step, the shortest of time..just do it.

The people I have met have added something to each stage of my journey. No matter how small our interaction. For that I want to say a massive "Thank you", to each and every one of you. You have given me so much more than you would ever know or understand.

This isn't the end. It's only the beginning. There's a whole lot more of the world out there that I'm itching to explore ... I'll have to do it in pieces though as I've yet to discover the magic formula to allow me to continue to finance myself to keep travelling...

Where to next? Not sure yet... choice is an amazing luxury! Some of my trips I'll need a co-pilot to make it easier so that in itself will take time. Not sure how many people could handle travelling with me!!😉