The North Country Boy

What a disappointing week this has been for me on NXT.  After the success of last week, I was feeling enthused about my progression alongside my mentor, Chris Jericho (that’s why I was wearing the orange rose in case you missed it).  After strategizing and developing a game plan, I dominated for 90% of last night’s match only to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory with a slip up at the end.  I missed out on the winner’s cheque and that stings more than anything.  Lessons have been learned and you can rest assured that I will be making amends in week 4 of NXT.

That’s enough of that though.  Right now, I want to address something that seems to be a recurring subject on this site as well as my Twitter account:  my voice.  Many people seem to be under the impression that I am somehow putting my accent on for the sake of the show.  Now I realize that to some this may be difficult to grasp, but please bear with me and I will make this as simple as I can…

I come from England and that causes my voice to sound different to yours. Sometimes, I may even say words that you are not used to, like ’mate’ or ‘bloke‘.  It’s called a regional dialect and it really is nothing for anyone to be wary of.  If you ever take a trip outside of your own bedroom, you may discover that there is a whole world of people out there who ‘talk funny’.  I dread to think what will happen if you encounter people speaking foreign languages.  Your world may literally implode.

A couple of people have even gone as far as to suggest that they have difficulty understanding me when I talk.  One American NXT viewer informed me that “It’s like you Brits have your own language out there!”  Well, she was right.  We call it English.  The Queen’s English to you.  If you can’t understand me, then maybe you need to get yourself a real education and not one of those diplomas that you have to send off for online.

In some ways I do understand the problem though.  America is a very insular country.  This isn’t an anti-American blog.  I choose to live and work in the USA and for the most part, I enjoy it.  The country isn’t perfect, but where is?  However, the thing that has annoyed me most about the subject of my voice is that several English people have questioned the legitimacy of my accent as well.  Apparently, I don’t sound like Liam Gallagher and, therefore, I must not be from the north of England.  Well here is the short and long of it:  I was born in Preston.  I have lived in a number of other regions across the British Isles during my life, including Liverpool, Cardiff, London and North Wales.  I even spent a wretched year living on the Isle of Mann.  This has resulted in me acquiring a unique blend of accents that make me sound, at the very least, slightly different to anybody else you will have ever met.  Come on, it isn’t rocket science.

Unfortunately, this issue has just illustrated to me that even a once proud nation like England has its own fair share of mental dwarves.  It’s no wonder we lost the empire, Admiral Nelson would be spinning in his tomb if he could see what some segments of British society have regressed to.
Hopefully that puts a stop to this unnecessary linguistic speculation.  I was in a bad mood when I started writing this and now it’s got even worse.  Thanks to those who have sent worthwhile questions to me, I do my best to answer as many as I can.

Well that is this week’s rant over.  I’m off to devise some money making schemes to make up for the coin that I missed on this week‘s show.

Saturday, May 1, 2010, 07:13 PM EST  

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