Accents

As soon as I entered the title I realized that it could be understood in several different ways, even if only relating to language. Without checking any dictionaries, I would posit that accent can mean one of the following:

1. Stress on a syllable.

2. A way of pronouncing a language, indicating (a) a regional variant or (b) the influence of a foreign language.

3. A diacritic mark on a vowel, which may indicate

(a) Syllabic stress, as in (i) Greek (in all words), (ii) Italian (on final syllable only), (iii) Spanish (only in words that don’t follow the default stress rule, (iv) Swedish (mainly in surnames)

(b) Vowel length, as in Czech and Slovak

(c) Vowel height (openness or closeness), as in French

(d) A combination of (a)(iii) and (c), as in Catalan and Portuguese

(e) Tone (as in Mandarin pinyin)

Here I mean to write only about 2(a), specifically with reference to the BBC series Line of Duty.

British writers of detective fiction often use fictitious locations, but when this happens they are usually within well-defined regions, such as Peter Robinson’s Eastvale (in Yorkshire), Ruth Rendell’s Kingsmarkham (in Sussex), or Caroline Graham’s Causton (in fictitious Midsomer, but within commuting distance of London). And in the television adaptations of these novels the characters – if they are local – speak with the appropriate regional accents, just as they do in series where the locations are real. It’s different, of course, when the location is London, because one expects to find people from all over the UK ending up there; practically every London-based show has its token Scot.

Line of Duty is anomalous. It takes place in a nameless big city that is clearly not London: no London landmarks are ever shown, and one of the characters is a Deputy Chief Constable, a rank that doesn’t exist in the Met. The first series (“season” in US parlance) was filmed in Birmingham, and though the subsequent ones were filmed in Belfast, there are some hints that the city is something like Birmingham (though no actual Birmingham locations are ever shown). For one thing, according to Wikipedia, “maps of Birmingham appear on walls, and telephone numbers use an 0121 area code.” For another, there are references to “East Midlands Police” as being a neighboring police area (in reality the East Midlands cover six counties with six police areas, though not exactly one per county), while Birmingham is in the West Midlands.

However, no one speaks with anything like a Birmingham accent (such as can be heard, for example, on WPC 56). Instead, it seems as if every actor speaks with their native accent: Adrian Dunbar (Hastings) — Northern Irish, Mark Bonnar (Dryden) and Allison McKenzie (Akers) —  Scottish, Vicky McClure (Fleming) — Nottinghamshire (which sounds quite a bit like Northern to a non-expert like me), Lennie James (Gates) – London, and so on. Most of the others speak with what to me sounds like a kind of neutral RP-like accents, including, strangely enough, Martin Compston (Arnott), who is a Scot and has spoken like one in other television appearances (for example in an episode of Death in Paradise). I don’t know why.

I have never been in Birmingham, so I don’t know if such a variety of accents is heard there in reality, but I have my doubts. It ain’t London.

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Lowe’s clothes

As I’ve already written before, I am a soccer fan, and specifically a fan of the English Premier League. And since I watch their matches in the United States, I have also become a fan of the charming and knowledgeable English television host, Rebecca Lowe. She is usually accompanied by two retired English footballers, Robbie Earle and Robbie Mustoe — I think that “Rebecca and the Robbies” would be a great name for a pop-music group — though sometimes one of them is replaced by an American, Kyle Martino.

But, aside from enjoying the pleasant banter and commentary about soccer, I enjoy comparing the clothes that Rebecca Lowe wears with what she has worn on other occasions. She wears a variety of colors and styles that are invariably flattering, and I don’t recall ever seeing her wear the same outfit more than once. And I wonder: does she actually own all these dresses and/or  tops? (In this show only Rebecca’s upper body is shown.)

Anyway, here is a small sampling of Rebecca Lowe’s clothes.

More I squared

This a continuation of my musings about insurance incompetence, which I call I². In the first post on the subject I discussed Social Security. This issue has by now been resolved; the undue (post-mortem) payments to my mother’s bank account have been deducted by the Treasury.

Now I come to my experiences with private insurers occasioned by my mother’s recent death. First, the health plan.

I phoned the healthcare-insurance carrier to inform them of her passing four days after it happened, and after a wait on hold for a reasonable length of time I reached a representative, who took my information and assured me that it would be taken care of. When I saw, a couple of days later, that her bank account was billed for a premium payment, I assumed that this was to cover the previous month, and gave the matter no further thought.

A month later, though, there was another premium deduction. By now it was January, and when I called again the wait on hold was an hour. When I finally reached someone to talk to, she seemed to know nothing of the cancellation, and said that she would put me on a brief hold to discuss the matter with someone. After twenty additional minutes I gave up.

I used my mother’s data to set up online access to her insurance account, and found that it was still active.

I phoned again a few days later — again, with a long wait — and this time reached someone who did see a record of my original call. This time I was told that a cancellation takes 30 business days to take effect. That, I calculated, would be some time in late January. When that date came around, I checked again, and again found “active.”

Another phone call, another long wait. This time I got apologies for an overly busy staff, and was asked to wait another couple of weeks.

I checked again today, and the account is still active. However, this is the time of the month when deductions have been taken, and so far there has not been one. Maybe there is hope for a refund at some point..

Note, also, a big difference: while the government giveth but is slow to take away, the private sector taketh away but is slow to give back.

Kanté / Conte

I don’t remember which soccer commentator it was who said, some time last summer — after Leicester City surprisingly won the Premier League championship while Chelsea, the previous year’s winner, finished in 10th place — that Leicester’s most valuable player was not the high-scoring Jamie Vardy (24 goals) or Riyad Mahrez (17 goals), but the newly signed N’Golo Kanté, with only one goal scored.  It was his tackles and interceptions that impressed observers.

And look what’s happening this season: Kanté is now playing for Chelsea, in first place by a large (perhaps insurmountable) margin, with Leicester currently wallowing in 16th. Speaks for itself, doesn’t it?

Except that the addition of Kanté isn’t the only big change for Chelsea. There is also his near-namesake (in English pronunciation) Antonio Conte, replacing as coach the controversial José Mourinho, about whom I wrote here and here, and who is now managing Manchester United with less-than-brilliant results.

 

 

 

I squared

A couple of years ago I published a post titled I, meaning not the subjective first-person singular pronoun but an abbreviation of “incompetence.” I focused on the California Department of Transportation, and mentioned in passing the CIA and FBI, where I interpreted the I in the abbreviations as just that.

My discussion in that post was based on observation, not personal experience. But since my mother died, two months ago, I have had the opportunity of experiencing institutional incompetence first-hand, and specifically with respect to institutions dealing with insurance of one kind or another. I’m therefore calling this post I², for Insurance Incompetence.

There were three institutions that gave me this opportunity, one governmental and two private. The governmental one is, of course, the Social Security Administration (SSA), and this is the one I will discuss today.

On January 28 I received this letter, addressed to my mother:

Now, my mother died last December 3, and, since I was told by both her social worker and the funeral director that the mortuary would inform SSA of her death, I didn’t think that I needed to bother doing so, until, some time in early January, I noticed that a Social Security payment had been credited to her account. I immediately called SSA, and when I finally reached a representative, I was told that they had not been notified of her death, but that it would be registered right away. So, imagine my surprise at receiving the letter, sent about three weeks after that.

Since the letter gave me the direct line of Mrs. X, I called it as soon as I could. Of course I got her voicemail, and left a message to call me back (which the outgoing message promised to do “as soon as possible”). There was no callback, so I called again the next day, and this time I got her. When I identified myself there was no acknowledgment of my message, and, once again, I was told that there was no record of her death. Would I please fax a copy of her death certificate? After I did that I was assured that there would be no more payments, and that the surplus payment would be deducted by the Treasury.

Guess what? Today another payment appeared in my mother’s account.

Next time: private insurers.