Our Head of English, back in High School, didn't know how to pronounce Don Quixote.
At the time, it was occasionally remarked that Mr. Slade looked like a member of ZZ Top. In retrospect, that makes him sound far too cool. He actually looked more like a member of the Doobie Brothers (but not Michael McDonald). No, even that's wrong. He looked like a member of a 70s folk band, and not a famous 70s folk band like Fairport Convention or Steeleye Span. He looked like he should have been in the Driffield Cobblers. Tinderbox Bartholomew. Or the Bolton Leech Collectors.
He had a beard, OK? And not a cool beard. One that could well be scratched, in thinking pose, chinny reck-on style. He also had a droning voice.
We never studied Don Quixote by Cervantes, but we were all familiar with how to pronounce the name thanks to Nik Kershaw...
Rather a pretentious video that, it takes almost two minutes to get to the point and start the actual song. I can't help but feel Mr. Slade would approve: getting to the point was not something he overly concerned himself with. He would often go off on tangents, tilting at windmills, to stretch that particular idiom to breaking point... and one day in an A Level English lesson, he got onto the subject of Cervantes and his greatest creation... Don Kwix-oat.
Much tittering ensued from the Nik Kershaw fans in the class. Perhaps Mr. Slade was thinking of the pronunciation more commonly associated with the word "quixotic". Nobody dared ask him.
Funny how these things stay with you...
Listening to yesterday's tracks. Barbershop quartet singing is the worst of all possible genres, I'd rather listen to the irsh band or springsteen.
ReplyDeleteAlmost finished , #18 now on, a tedious track. My vote goes to #12
DeleteYou know that you can still leave comments on older posts, don't you? I think you have up to a week before they need my approval.
DeleteIt is funny how these things stay with you... for Don Quixote, for me, always brings to mind The Laughter Show, from the early 80s, with "funnymen" Les Dennis and Dustin Gee. They had a serial sketch in that called The Quest for the Key, which always began with a voiceover: "Sir Robin and his squire, and their donkey "Hotey" have been dispatched upon a quest..." and so on. The titular quest was to find the key to Lady Sonely's chastity belt. Different times, eh?
ReplyDeleteBlimey. YouTube really does have everything: https://youtu.be/bXCOx1b1Tqw?feature=shared&t=114
DeleteBlimey, that was painful.
DeleteAmazing what used to pass for mainstream entertainment in the days of three channels.
Delete