John Baker’s Blog

From a series called ‘Unrelated Incidents’ -
from Intimate Voices - 1984
(3)
this is thi
six a clock
news thi
man said n
thi reason
a talk wia
BBC accent
iz coz yi
widny wahnt
mi ti talk
aboot thi
trooth wia
voice lik
wanna yoo
scruff. if
a toktaboot
thi trooth
lik wanna yoo
scruff yi
widny thingk
it wuz troo.
jist wanna yoo
scruff tokn.
thirza right
way ti spell
ana right way
to tok it. this
is me tokn yir
right way [...]

Early in his career Henrik Ibsen prophesied: One of these days, the younger generation will come knocking at my door. And they certainly did. They wanted to see and hear the man who had revolutionised drama during the second half of the nineteenth century.
The Nobel committee, however, didn’t come knocking at all. Instead, they gave [...]

Just before dawn here. I got out of bed about an hour ago and did some preparation with the turkey. It’s still too early to put it in the oven. I’ve lined out the roasting tin with foil, got the stuffing ready, and a couple of hours from now I’ll put it all together. I [...]

How did I learn to read? I really don’t know how to answer that. It’s a mystery! Suddenly, there I was, reading. I started going [...]