Dawn

Dawn

Friday, February 10, 2012

A Birmingham(UK) woman has emerged from a bad case of flu which involved seizures speaking with a French accent. It's a case of a rare condition called "foreign accent syndrome". Apparently she can no longer speak with a Brummie accent. While you or I might find this a big plus, she is said to regret it. Personally, I'd find a French accent a small price to pay for losing what's considered the UK's least attractive accent.

I'm not a tweeter and I don't follow anyone who does tweet. So I wasn't tempted to pronounce on the issue of Capello's going and Harry Redknapp's possible coming to the position of coach of the English football team. Allegedly, at its peak, this was generating 4,000 tweets a second. The Board of the Football Association say they want someone who speaks better English than Capello ever managed for 24 million pounds. Which is ironic, as Redknapp speaks footballese - a form of English which uses such phrases as 'they have came'. But at least the members of the team will be able to understand him. And vice versa.

Have you ever wondered why zebras have stripes? Apparently it's because they repel flies, who find the light reflections more off-putting than those from animals which are either all dark or al light. Who'd have thought it?

Thanks to its purchase of two banks stuffed with toxic assets, the Irish government is apparently the world's largest estate agent/realtor.

Finally . . . The British have a reputation for hard drinking. But the truth is they're only mid-table when it comes to quantity. What appears to give them their reputation is their tendency to drink excessively on particular occasions. Followed by bad behaviour. The interesting fact, though, is that this behaviour is culturally conditioned. So that Brits who've unknowingly drunk non-alcoholic stuff will still fall over and smash the lights. Or whatever. In other words, they do what's expected of them.

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