Future past present tense

How is everybody? Have we recovered from Christmas and new year festivities?

Yes, we are in the middle of the first month of the year already, so a new year greeting might already be “sooo last week” for some people.

I wonder if new year’s resolutions have also suffered from “sooo last week” phenomenon. Let’s face it, some probably only lasted a few days. 

Yes, I did make a new year’s resolution, sort of! Not only would I like to continue this column, I would like to keep the theme and not stray too far from it! 

I must admit I’ve been wracking my brain for inspiration. You would be pleased to know that Prof Affabeck Lauder’s light has shone brightly in my head. All I have to do now is work on it.

So who is this Prof Afferbeck Lauder? Any self-respecting “new Australia” would know of him, or at least have heard of him or seen his books.

In fact, in my opinion at least one of his books should be of interest to everybody as it looks into who we are (yes the Ellawie). It observes the way we are – from the outside – at least the way we speak. 

Let me explain. The book is title “Let’s Talk Strine”. It that title does not make any sense, get someone to read it out loud quickly, over and over.

You’ll soon find it is really a word play or a syncope for “Let’s Talk Strayan”.

You shouldn’t twigged when you saw the professor’s name, which is really rather unusual. It is a pseudonym. It is also a word play or syncope for “Alphabetical order”. 

Do we speak like that? You betcha! 

You would recall WYSIWYG – what you see is what you get. Remember that I say it is not, you see what you want to see, hear what you want to hear.

What we perceive, unless we think clearly, is not always what is. This is really the basis of our relaxation class, that is to see (with our mind’s eye) what is, not just what we think we see.

Anyway, I’ve strayed. Let’s scope back to our Afferbeck Lauder.

There are 26 letters in the alphabet. What I’ll try is using each letter in the alphabet as the first letter of the fortnightly topic.

I won’t be strictly one new letter every fortnight. One may last for a few columns or a few letters may only last one topic.

Only one thing I can assure you, things will be done in an afferbeck lauder fashion. 

Let’s start with the letter A. In fact I might incorporate B, C an dD as well. 

Some of us would recognise when I mention the following names: Ann Blyth, Brigitte Bardot, Clark Gable, Deanna Durbin. And I’ll throw in Lauren Bacall for good measure.

Oh yeah, I could almost hear the cogs turning to a squeaky start, some of you would start creating a picture in your heads. 

Yet for some readers the reaction could be,” Who the hell are they?” If I showed the following to these readers: Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Claudia Schiffer, George Clooney and Cameron Diaz, the reaction might be, “ahh yes, now I know who you are talking about”.

Now if instead of the above, I show you Amber Rose, Justin Bieber, Chris Brown, Royee Da, unless you are reading this on your smartphone or tablet, you would not have a clue who I am talking about. Yet to some readers, these names are just as familiar as Brigitte Bardot or George Clooney are to others. 

So if you think about it, the same set of names can create different reactions in different observers. 

Those of you who great up in the 1960s would recall how your dad would order you to turn the TV when the Beatles came on.

“Bloody long-haired louts with noisy music!” he would say.

If you showed the video of same to young people today, they might fall asleep because the music is too slow.

So has the music (or the performers) on the video changed from the original? The answer is no, only the observers are different. 

So back to WYSIWYG – the same thing can be perceived differently by different observers.

Different people have different opinions on the very same thing, even what is written in today’s column.

When we recognise this, we can accept that different opinions do exist. When we can accept this, then we can respect other’s opinions and agree to disagree.