The Wipers Times.

I was coming out of the tube station the other day – you know something? - I might have been going in; in either case I saw a theatrical notice on the wall, as they paper the tube entrances with them, especially on the escalators, The Wipers Times.

Well I knew what that was about straight away; there was a TV film on the BBC a couple of years ago, I think Michael Palin was in it, and it was about some soldiers in the First World War who were sent to Ypres. Yes, that's right, that's how they pronounced Ypres – Wipers. And they formed a tiny newspaper called The Wipers Times.

Now that might sound strange to English people who don't pronounce the 'T' at the end of restaurant and Americans who seem to pronounce all foreign words as they are pronounced in the country of origin. 

I remember Ed Sullivan (yes a distant relation) when he introduced the Bee Gees actually pronounced Maurice Gibb as Morris Gibb, as the rest of the English speaking world do, and then said it as Maureece – the way the French do; oh and the Americans. 

Nothing wrong with that, in fact nothing wrong with anything. Anybody my age pronounces Nestles Milky Bar the way it is spelt – yes spelt, why not?

The Milky Bar Ad spelt it the way it looks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCbEHHsI3zQ – but if you look at some of the reruns on YouTube (not that one) the Swiss Company that now own the Milky Bar from Rowntree dubbed all those old commercials with Nestlay. I remember the big publicity campaign when some saw the accent ' - at the end of the word. The campaign sold a lot of chocolate bars but ruined the jingle.

So you know where we are – we are pointing out the difference between the UK and the USA – again? I hear you say but . . .

When I first moved to America I often wondered why they did the exact opposite from us. Over here we switch the room light on by pushing the switch down and over there it is pressed up. So it's not only which side of the road we all drive on there are other things too. If you are ever stuck when there for how you do something in America all you have to do is do it the opposite way from the UK.

But what about music? We say 'middle 8' and they say 'bridge' but bridge is not the middle 8. the bridge is for joining 2 parts of the composition together.

Songs are written, verse, chorus; verse chorus – two verses, and middle 8 and then another verse or even the middle 8 again but what about the bridge?

Here's an example:

In the UK's national anthem the bridge is here – God save our gracious queen, long live our noble queen, god save out queen THEN the bridge – da da da da da da – that's the bridge/the join - on to send her victorious etc.

The middle 8 in All I have to do is Dream is I can make you mine, taste your lips of wine etc – that's the middle 8, usually with an F chord, then a G then an F and then, maybe Am or Em – in fact that's the way to write a song.

But what drives all ex pats mad is the Democratic Party in the USA is BLUE and the Republicans are RED!!!!

Why is that?

 and . . . . hey it was Michael Palin!

Next Time!!!

hummus - how to say it and who said it first.