Jamie Oliver gets his head around salads

I hated every second of this video. 

I can't take it anymore. I just can't. I'm done. Cooked. 

See, here's the thing. I was fine until those first 200 YouTube videos on Egyptian history.

That ruined it for me.

My older brother and I used to have a lot of fun imitating our father's parents. My friends and I used to have a lot of fun imitating British speakers. We charmed each other with harmless humor.

But now I'm done. I can't take it anymore. Not one more word anymore. 

For some reason Americans are not nearly as interested in the subject of Egyptian history as British are. So ALL of the videos are British. Yes, there are American videos, but the ratio to British videos is like 1:10. Maybe even 1:100. Certain sorely mispronounced words appear with inordinate frequency and it drives me nuts. British colloquialism are actually quite limited.

The best English I've seen is British, but that is in writing, not vocalized. When they read what they wrote it destroys the whole thing.   

But here's the real thing behind the thing. Eventually you have to break free of "The Nile is the hot of the country" and the gods, the pyramids, the temples, the social strata, the boats, the food, the wars, the art, the treasures, the gold, the jewelry, the pharaohs, the bread, the beer, the Greek and Roman influence, and move along into the language. Eventually, to go any further such as reading the Book of the Dead, you must learn the language. And who's going to teach you that language, a British person who's been mispronouncing every other English word all along? Are they going to displace their rhotic phonemes in Egyptian too? Are they going to substitute glottal stops for key consonants in Egyptian too? How can they be trusted with teaching an ancient language when they purposefully abuse their own?

Every single video gets shut off just seconds into it. 

Just shut up. Shut up. Shutupshutupshutupshutup. Shut. Up. 

I really really really need a British to American-English dubbing services so I can shut this guy up. 

To imitate Jamie Oliver, hold the tip of your tongue at the base of the bottom of your front teeth and hold it there as you speak so that your tongue spreads out thickly and the middle of your tongue is pushed forward through your lips as if swollen by being stung by a hundred bees, and eliminate half the R sounds and insert one fourth of them back randomly where they don't belong, and change key consonants necessary for comprehension for jabbing little nonsense unvoiced air-noises, ensure crucial consonants are totally jacked, and stress all the purposeful errors so that they stick out good and hard, spray it, don't say it, to sound obnoxiously retarded as possible, as Jamie does below.

Please, no sibilant sounds over the salad. Or you'll have to spin the whole thing all over again to get rid of the added water. 

Then say ordinary things like how to clean lettuce and go for variety in color and texture and taste. 

Throw toasted pecans, sliced apples, and feta cheese into your salad, boom, you're a salad genius.

All righ' guys I wan' to show you a li''le bi' about salads. 

Fuck you. You didn't show me anything. Especially how to speak. 

I must now erase all of that crap from my mind and switch to something pleasant so my pure seraphim nature can reemerge and step forefront. 

James' boys called me to today to thank me for sending them gifts out of the blue. No birthday or holiday or anything. Surprise! Boxes to open. With their names on them.

And they're really cool too. Things they wouldn't think of.

James came on and told me how excited they got. He might put up a video of what the kids did. Maybe I'll show that later. 

At any rate, when the oldest boy who's in the 2nd grade, I think, was speaking over the phone, I was struck by how clearly he speaks. It's like hearing crystal. His sentence structure, his pronunciation, and cadence are all excellent. His voice is clear and pure. He is the clearest speaker in his family, although what he says are still boy things. I told him that. 

He asked, "What?"

James explained. 

Then the boy said, "Daddy, I answered his question. I answered the question he asked." 

And he did. 

My own mother never did that. Whatever question you might ask my mother, she would purposely answer a different question. And when by a series of questions you corralled her to answer your one incredibly specific question, she'd give the most obvious answer that's even more basic than the basis used to form the question. As if she is acting retarded on purpose to see how long she can go without ever answering anything. She enjoyed frustrating me. 

I'll give you an example.

Her father lost his leg in an explosion. He had a scary-ass wooden leg that was sometimes propped up against the bedroom wall. 

When he got into his car to drive, he would enter through the passenger door because that was easier for him.

Now I have similar difficulty getting in and out of cars. 

But that whole passenger-entry method is not any good. It really is a lot worse. 

So I asked my mom why her father did that. She knew that I was looking a specific answer. What was it about that manner of situating himself in the drivers seat that made it easier for him. 

"Your grandfather had a prosthetic leg."

     "I KNOW THAT!"

I repeated the question. 

"Because it was easier for him to get in that way."

     "I KNOW THAT!" 

"The regular way was harder."

     "I KNOW THAT!"

"It was his left leg that was artificial."

     "Goddamnit. I. Know that. You know what I want to know. Why are you playing this cat and mouse with me?"

"I don't know what made it easier for him. It just was." 

Most of the time you get nowhere asking my mom any question. 

Try it sometime. Pretend your left leg is wooden and try dragging it over the hump in the center. Those days it was standard shift. He had to use his hands to lift his wooden leg over the standard shift as he scooted his butt across the bench seating. He was a large man. It took a long time. I tried this in my truck and it's a major pain in the butt. 20 X harder than entering through the driver's side. 

At any rate, the boy's speech is clear as a bell. He knows what you're asking and he answers directly with no pussyfooting around. Clear enunciation, clear communication. Just beautiful. And a marked change from the last time I heard him. A million times more clear than Jamie Oliver.