Claire Brooks: She’s Only Gone and Got Herself a Column

Guys. It’s happened. It’s actually happened. Your Local Link’s Events Writer and Tech Guru has actually been given her own opinion column in print. That’s right – I’ve been trusted with talking about absolutely nothing in particular, purely for your entertainment.

Now I know what you’re thinking: “But Claire, if you’re going to rant on for a good 700 words in the place where Krystal normally rants for 700 words, then what’s happened to Krystal?!”

Well, do not worry you lovely Linkers. You may spot, as you flick through this month’s issue, that we’ve switched our usual introduction at the front for a new Editor’s Letter. And can you guess who wrote it? That’s right – our girl K! She’s taken the Your Local Link helm, so her monthly musings have shifted to the front.

But you’ve got me now! And while I can’t promise to be as off-the-cuff and humorous as Krystal’s Gems, I can promise to try.

I’ve already tried too hard.

When thinking about what to call my new column, I thought it would be absolutely bloody hilarious to go with ‘Claire’s Column’. My name’s Claire, it’s a column, and it’s got every writer’s favourite tool: alliteration. Needless to say, my fellow office buddies Krystal, Nick and Scott were completely silenced by this suggestion, until Krystal eventually said: “you are absolutely not doing that”. I took that as a no.

So it’s that kind of humour and editorial gold that you can expect from these pages on a monthly basis. You lucky, lucky people.

TROUBLE AND STRIFE

This month, I’ve decided to talk to you about being a Southerner in Yorkshire. Now, before you all spit your Yorkshire Tea out on my face and rip the page out to use as a makeshift darts board, I want to reassure you: yes, I was born in Croydon, South London. But I moved to York when I was two years old. I’m now 29.

Despite only spending 6.8% of my life away from York (apart from a brief time in Oxford), I’ve still got that cockney twang. I blame my parents for their South London accents. As much as I’ve tried to lose it, I still say ‘bar-th’ instead of ‘bath’. I say ‘dar-nce’ instead of ‘dance’. And even though I only have a tiny hint of the Essex dialect in my accent, I struggle to have a conversation with anyone from God’s own county without having my native tongue absolutely ripped to pieces.

“Alwight! Moy nayme’s Claire ‘n’ I’m a roight cockney geezer, innit!”

I mean, I don’t even speak like that. But if had a pound for every time someone took the mic out of my accent with a sentence similar to the above, then I might be able to afford an actual London pint. Probably just a Carling though, couldn’t afford a Birra Moretti ‘dahn saaf’ without taking out a small loan. Haha, I’m kidding, obviously. You’d need a medium loan at least for one of those blighters.

KNOW WHAT I MEAN?

So okay, I get picked on regularly for my ‘mispronunciation’ of words such as bath and dance. I can deal with that. But as a Southerner in Yorkshire, I’ve basically had to learn a whole new language. In my vocabulary, ‘tea’, for example, is a drink (with jam and bread if you’re a Sound of Music fan) – not an evening meal. ‘Dinner’ on the other hand IS an evening meal – not lunch. ‘Treat’ is a present tense verb or noun – never a past tense verb (pronounced by Northerners as ‘trett’). That would be treated.

And don’t get me started on Yorkshire phrases. The other day, someone said: “Weather’s close today”. I mean, I just looked at them for about 30 seconds like they’d sprouted wings and taken off. I then nodded tentatively, as agreeing seemed the right thing to do in the situation, before subtly googling the term. Humid.

“Yes, it’s very humid today,” I eventually replied. Now, I’ve since been assured that ‘close weather’ is actually a widespread term and I’d just been living under a rock, therefore I can’t pin this one completely on you lovely Northerners. But rest assured, it definitely seems more popular ‘oop north’.

And to be fair, we’re just as confusing. I’ve been known to use the odd bit of cockney rhyming slang, and have been on the receiving end of many a raised eyebrow after saying things like “you’re having a giraffe”, or “do me a lemon”. But hey, it takes all sorts to make the world go round. And I think Northerners are a bloody good bunch.

CLAIRE’S TECH TALK

Did you know I’m also a huge geek? If you haven’t already, check out my monthly tech column online for all the hottest gadget gossip. This month I’m talking about some of the most innovative and creative websites on the net (remember when people called it ‘the net’?). Check it out here.