Yankee Doodle III Does Albert Hall

Wandaze, Marge 8, 2006

Yankee Doodle went to London

Cheers, mates!

No, please, everyone take their seats.
(Oh, this is embarrassing: Sit down, you lot! Jeepers!)

No, seriously, it's great to be here
at the Albert Hall. Nay, it's the dream of a lifetime, I assure
you. Only imagine: The original Yankee Doodle's great great grandson
at the Albert Hall!

If only my "mum" could see
me now!

Incidentally my mum WOULD be able to
see me now if this rather "rotund" gentleman in the
front row would sit down like everybody else! (Come on, sir,
please! Down, boy! Down! There: that's better.)

Sorry about that, mum, but you did ask
to be in the second row rather than the first.

I'll tell you what, if he pops up again,
give him a nice solid rap on the noddle with your umbrella --
er, I mean with your brolly. It will serve him right.

My mum, ladies and gentlemen: Esther
P. Doodle III. (Whoo-hoo!)

(All right, mum, you may sit down, too,
now. Look at her out there, shaking her clasped hands in the
air like she's just won the world featherweight championship.
Apparently, she doesn't reflect how mortifying such a spectacle
must necessarily be for her poor son up here on stage. Honestly,
mum, you told me you were going to behave yourself tonight --
for once, I might add.)


No, seriously, everyone asks me, "Yankee,"
they say... (they call me "Yankee")... "Yankee,
since when are you a stand-up comic? I mean, correct us if we're
wrong, but you come from a long line of musical Doodles, not
comic Doodles!"


Fair enough. Fair enough.


But, listen, when you're an American
in 2006 trying to establish a big important online Britishism
dictionary like I am, you need a sense of humo(u)r.


See, I don't know how many of you dudes
are webmasters out there (you, sir, in the green shirt? no?)
but the Internet is funny. The moment you try to do something
positive, there's always a tiny but vitriolic community of naysayers
who feel compelled (incidentally, we mustn't blame them: it's
certainly a psychological condition at bottom) -- a community
of naysayers who feel positively obliged to convince you (you,
the positive-thinking webmaster) that your online plans are pointless,
and that, in fact, you have nothing to offer anybody (thank you
very much), and that, when it comes to that, you wouldn't know
(in this case, for instance) a Britishism if it came up and bit
you on the nose!


Oops. There goes somebody's cell phone
-- I mean their mobile. You, sir, in the front left balcony:
Please, answer that. It could be important. The rest of us will
be quiet. (Shh, everybody! Somebody's got a potentially important
phone call to answer! Now, now: no giggling. He needs quiet to
talk!)


Oh, isn't that nice? The man refused
to take the call after all. Let's put some hands together for
the man in the front left balcony. That was a noble sacrifice,
sir.


Now, where was I?


Oh, yes. I was whining about how a few
no-doubt unrepresentative but very vocal British nationalist
types were getting all up in my face about, "What do you
know about Britishisms anyway? You presumptive little -- Do us
all a favor, homeboy, and put a sock in it, you, you... you AMERICAN,
you!"


And I'm like, "Dude! I'm soliciting
British input hand over foot in order to make my dictionary increasingly
authoritative -- nay, I have an online subscription to the second
edition of the bloody OED whither I'm constantly 'repairing'
for linguistic reality checks." But they don't want to hear
it. They're like: "Doodle, my remit is nothing less than
to break your spirit, and so help me, that's what I'm a-gonna
do!"


Mind you, I'm sure that most Brits on
the whole are the very "pineapple" of civility, as
old lady Malaprop used to say, but there are sour apples in any
sociopolitical bunch. Especially in this case, unfortunately,
thanks to the ongoing anti-American zeitgeist. Do you know,
I bought a brand-new atlas the other day and it says that America-bashing
has just surpassed soccer as Europe's favorite pastime.


But that's cool. In fact, strangely enough,
there's nothing more American than anti-Americanism.


Case in point: A year or so after 9-11,
the stateside leftists (after a year of apparently shock-induced
silence on their part) finally took umbrage at all the pro-American
commiseration that was going on about them. They were like,
give them a break, right? Their target in particular seems to
have been all those then-proliferating bumper stickers and t-shirts
reading "God Bless America."


So what do they do? They come out with
a line of t-shirts and bumper stickers reading, "God Bless
ALL Nations!"


Which is fine, right? God, indeed, bless
all nations: point taken. (A blessing for you, Argentina, and
you, Brazil, oh, and you, too, Colombia -- I don't want to miss
anyone!)


Still, I couldn't help thinking that
if I were "in hospital" with a broken leg, these same
"empathizers without frontiers" would send me a card
as follows:


"God bless EVERYBODY who has broken
their leg."


And I'd be like, um... Why, thank you.
(I think.)


It reminds me of the old saying, "Doctors
always make the worst patients."


What's that, mum? "Ix-nay on the
olitics-pay"? (My mum, ladies and gentlemen: Esther P Doodle
III.)


Oh, I see: She's afraid I'm going to
put folks "right off" my dictionary if I start making
political jokes, given my moderate (my critics would say conservative)
bona fides.


Not to worry, mum: judging by the stony
faces that I'm encountering at this particular moment, nobody
in this entire Hall considered my recent reflections to be "jokes."


Still, it doesn't half burn my britches:
The comedians (even the American ones) can crack wise at the
expense of Americans on "Jack Dee," and yet I mustn't
say a word in their defen(c)e because then I'd be "getting
political." Oh, yes, of course!


But mum has a point: I am like SO off-topic.
Besides, my new dictionary is really all-about transatlantic
cooperation, insomuch as I'm soliciting input from our cousins
from across the pond.


All I ask is that you get to know me
personally before hating me. Don't hate me on spec, for goodness'
sake. My lands, you don't even know what my politics are! No,
give this thing some time. You may be surprised: You may end
up hating me for entirely different reasons than you'd imagine.
I know some folks, for instance, that bridle at my aesthetic
sense, which they consider effete, merely because I prefer baseball
over American football, wine coolers over beer, and (this is
perhaps the greatest aesthetic sin of all for any non-Italian
in our American democracy) I actually like opera. Can you imagine?
(See? Some of you are starting to hate me already! I told you!)


But seriously, once and for all -- and
this is the real point --


Enjoy my Dandy Dictionary of British
slang, yeah? And contribute to it, too -- NICELY, yeah? -- with
your clarifications and stories about the Britishisms it contains.
Yeah? Yeah!


Now, get outta here, you knuckleheads!
(Whoo-hoo!)


Psst! Mum, come up here on stage with
me. We'll get the rotund gentleman to take our joint photograph
here in Albert Hall. (Only do calm down. You are NOT the next
contestant on "The Price is Right," okay? I just want
to get a little photograph taken! Sheesh!)

Yankee Doodle's Dandy Dictionary of British Slang

c. Brian B. Quass 2008

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