Morgies and Bounce

Earlier this week I was asked how I felt. Like a stewed morgie, I said. The surprised puzzlement induced by this reply was bordering on the incredulous.

This morning an uncle of mine phoned. Owarreeeenbuy?

Like a stewed morgie, I said and the conversation continued naturally on its way.

In a corner of this country there’s a place where a few will completely understand how I feel. There are those of the diaspora who will get it, too. Somehow it encompasses perfectly how my week has been and if you understand the term you’ll know how I’m feeling. If you don’t it’s to do with dogs.

Not the smelly things that stain our pavements and drag their selfish owners around cycle paths on the end of bits of string long enough to completely go across the entire path. Not like the yappy thing a few houses down from ours that gets let out every morning between 0630 and 0730 and yaps incessantly leaving me lying awake wondering what time high tide is and thinking of a sack, a brick and a cable tie.

Dogfish. There are two types, morgies and bounce. Bounce get quite excited when taken out of the net or off the hook, they twist, turn and generally show wriggly signs of agitation. Morgies, on the other hand are far more docile and lethargic. Thus to feel like a stewed morgie is to be decidedly sluggish, slow, reluctant to expend any effort or as my carer described me, sludgy and dopey.  That, however, doesn’t begin to do it justice. It doesn’t conjour up a picture which language should. It needs embellishment, which language shouldn’t, it just isn’t fitty.

It’s another example of the absence of shared experience impacting negatively on this wonderful English language of ours. When communities existed for generations in stable proximity local experience flavoured the language enriching its use by evolving such descriptors to say a vast amount with great economy of words. More importantly, it was universally, in a local context, understood accurately and required no elucidation or explanation. Nor did it elicit a deluge of questions as invariably is now the case.

 Furthermore it could be passed on to any other local enquirer and they, too, would have a full and precise understanding of the situation in the time it took to pass one another in the street.  No room for exaggeration in the exchange of information, no massaging or embellishment of the message, no minimising it’s import if any.

It seems that answering even the simplest of questions in the plainest of language is insufficient to satiate some questioners. Invariably it merely leads to the exasperation of being unable to explain yourself in a manner that is found acceptable. Every nuance has to be further explored, every inevitable implied uncertainty must be turned over and sifted until the meaning is understood to the satisfaction of the listener.

Unfortunately this leads to the desire for accuracy to be subsumed under the need for peace and quiet. Thus subsequent questions become increasingly valueless as the answers given are in response to the desire for an end to the process not a desire to be accurately understood.

Thus, today, I have realised why the sum total of the English language for purposes of question and answer sessions can effectively be rendered as good as it needs to be by the use of just three words. Yup, nope, alright.

In my view the dire state of the English language can be laid fairly at the door of Facebook and twittering. I don't do either but I notice with risible anger that much, if not most news on the web now comes from the authors of such facile outpourings, if a tweet can constitute an outpouring. I'm sure that a picture of a cake, meal, drink can certainly not offer anything of more than milliseconds of interest which no doubt explains it's popularity in the sorely tried mind of the Facebook users attention span. I just find it slightly concerning that it stays forever in the 0 and 1 vaults of the virtual garage never to be cleared out.

I don't engage with social media, apart from this blog and am increasingly disparaging of those whose lives are constrained by 144,000 characters or whatever Facebook allows. Despairing, too of those whose passage through life is head down permanently observing the screen below their nose oblivious to all about, even to the ones for whom they have responsibility. I'm not the best user of an iPhone, I haven't taken to contracts although I have embraced streaming tunes. Rather well, actually.

What I value most has been found in friends, not virtual ones but ones like my advisor who turned up this week with a bag of cherries. I'd forgotten how much I liked them so from the vantage point of a garden seat I now expect to see cherry trees rise up in random places before me. And those like an aunt of mine who took the time and effort to write a wonderfully expressive card this week. Sadly, but predictably, she is unworthy of her nephew who has yet to respond. Maybe tomorrow after the blood tests. Sooner than dreckly, though.

However, one feels that one's comfortable stance from outside the wall of virtualised reality is somewhat under attack. Not that I'm likely to add to a Facebook page or twitt any time soon but, but, but.

Late yesterday afternoon my carers iPhone6 Super Deluxe whistled as it suffered an attack of Facebook incoming. In this case it was incoming via video from the seafront, 10 minutes away. Sent by a friend who I think I'd last seen on August bank holiday 1984. We'd shared halls at college and he turned up here in a Daimler Double-Six Van den Plas. It was a memorable day, doubly so, in fact as it was also the day that our daughter came home from hospital and England lost to Ceylon, or was it Sri Lanka?

We hastily arranged collection but too hastily to convey his family in the time scale so we look forward to meeting them another time. Isn't it amazing, 32 years pass and its like you were yarning yesterday. Social Media engineered that. It also engineered a communication from afar expressing delight over our visit, very nice but only my carer was privy because I don't do Social Media.

Late this afternoon another incoming Facebook missive from a friend with whom we shared the same halls in the 70's. This one and his wife we have seen since, about twice in over three decades. They're passing by on Friday. Courtesy of Social Media a visit has been arranged and is being looked forward to.

Finally, thus far today, a phone call, a landline phone call. How wonderful is that? I answered and was met by the familiar voice of one with whom I was at school and at college. He and his wife will visit tomorrow. How great is that? No Social Media involvement in evidence. My comfort zone has been partially restored but seeing Social Media bridge the virtual and real has caused a degree of unease.

So, a week during which I have been like a stewed morgie has also been characterised by having had a bellyfull. In English that is not a full belly, but a bellyfull, a proper bellyfull. In this case I've had a bellyfull of my belly which has at no time been full but which at times has felt like it's having a life of its own and which seems intent on divorcing itself from me. It's not painful but it is uncomfortable. I can't explain it any better so do not even think of supplementary questions and consider it fortunate that I don't do Social Media otherwise I may have had photos of it in its wide angle scarred glory all over my Facebook page. It's far too big for a twit.

It may have made Instagram, but I don't do that, either.