Three nights after I arrived in the U.K. I still hadn’t caught up on my sleep, so I was quite loopy, causing Joan to remark to Donna in her best imitation of a Cumbrian brogue that I wasn’t “the full shillin’” every time I did something goofy (like mistaking the giant squirrel topiary in St. Lawrence’s churchyard at the entrance to Morland for a rabbit). By now we were all having fun with the Cumbrian accent: summat for “something,” init for “isn’t it”—the latter is now a standard of mine. And then there’s Joan’s name which had become Jooawn, drawn out with a long awww in the middle. This became uproarious on our night out at the pub (pronounced poob) that Joan and her ex used to own in Great Strickland, a small village a few miles away.
It all started when the three of us walked into the small eighteenth century establishment to find a couple of young guys at the bar who recognized Joan from when she’d managed the place: beers all around and it was Jooawn this and Jooawn that. They got a kick out of three Zambian women imitating their accents; it was foony. Come to find out it was “Quiz Night,” which had already begun. A young guy in a checked shirt and glasses strolled up and down the narrow aisles between booths and tables posing questions from a list he carried. The four or so couples scattered around the small room quietly wrote down their answers. That is until I started playing, with the guys at the bar feeding me the answers through Joan, until I finally got one on my own—Ricky Gervais, don’t remember what the question was—and gave a whoop. And then I got another—the American TV show “Friends.” Another whoop. Couldn’t help it. Everyone knew what was happening and were grinning. I didn’t bother tallying up my score at the end, but the winner insisted we share in the prize, a jug of cider which was passed around. At some point one of the guys remarked that this was the most foon quiz night they’d ever had.
Hey we did goooooood! Some really good laughs along the way!
It was sooo foon!
Way, way too much foon!
Init? translatation, “isn’t it?”