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OK, all right. Um, have I ever told you about that speech my mum held at my wedding? Um, actually isn’t it supposed to be the father of the bride who’s supposed to hold the speech? Well, whatever, anyway. I mean the thing is my mum’s really famous for her speeches or, rather, her speeches are infamous because — I don’t know how to explain this — but you know she’s really, she’s… she’s … sentimental. I mean no, no, no, no, no, that’s the wrong word. She’s actually emotional. Emotional is the word. And she’s so emotional that she’s generally got everyone in tears within minutes, you know? I mean, I start crying the moment I read one, one of her birthday cards, but… Anyway, this, this wedding. She said she was going to do the speech and I’m like, well, actually, well, maybe, maybe not? And she agreed. She just said, “Oh, OK, then if you don’t want me to, fine.” And I thought, “OK, well, that was easy! Surprising!” And then, anyway, we’re at the wedding, you know, um, second course I think is being served. All of a sudden, guess what happens? Of course, you know, she stands up, she looks at me with this big smile and she starts talking. And I’m like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You can’t do that, and she’s like, “Oh, when our little Butzele was small,” you know, and she started off like that, and she went on for God knows what. I mean, basically, she recounted my whole life. And by the end of it, the whole wedding party — I mean can you imagine it? — she’s, like, she’s going on and on and on, and by the end of it, the whole wedding party is just sitting there in tears. You know this was supposed to be really funny and, instead, you know, everybody’s sobbing, people are getting their hankies out, other people are starving because it went on for so long and, um, well, yeah, I mean I just, I just couldn’t believe she did that to me. You know what I mean? I mean, you rely on someone not to do something, and then they’ll just, they’ll just do it anyway. Anyway, I hope, well, I’m not gonna [get] married again, so no danger of that.

OK. So, I think I’ve actually never really held a speech in like the narrow sense and, actually, I also never had a time when I really couldn’t find the words, but I remember … err… one, one moment where I was really shocked …um … when I was around 19, I won a competition, a … err … short story competition that was done by a radio station, by … an … radio station from Vienna … um … and as a winner, they asked me to come to Vienna and they asked me to visit them in the radio studio, but what they didn’t tell me was that I should be on radio. So, I came there and I thought, “OK, I’m going to say ‘Hi’ to everyone” and then they said, “OK, we’re going to start recording in five minutes. Could you please take a seat here?” So, yeah, I was really, really nervous and, actually, it felt like I felt a lot of times later when I was in a job interview because they were two people and they had sheets of papers with stuff written on it and I was so jealous because I thought I really also want a piece of paper. I wanna know what I’m supposed to be saying and then they, well, just started asking questions. And usually, the funny thing with me, if you put me under pressure to speak — there’s a lot of people who don’t really know what to say or they get really nervous and — I have the feeling that I can get really calm and then I start talking and, at some point, I kind of feel that I leave my body, and I think, “Wow, that sounds really smart. You sound like a really smart person. Where do you take that from?” And it actually worked out really nice and I was also very happy because they did something to my voice that made it sound really nice, ’cause usually, if you feel listen to your own voice, you don’t like it at all. So, yeah, actually, overall, I was rather happy with the experience.

So the thing was that at university, I had no idea what I wanted to do. So, I’m in the careers service there and … err… I said to the guy, “maybe teaching,” and he says, “well... err.” I remember what he said exactly. He said, “If you want to dip your toes into the waters of teaching,” and I thought this was, like, really poetic: “the waters of teaching”. He said, “Well, if you do, err…,” he says, “you…,” he says, “Go and teach in a private school.” And I really didn’t like this because I just don’t agree with private education, but I said to him, “Why would I want to do that?” So, he says … “Err… well, you don’t need any qualifications.” And I just thought that was hilarious. You don’t need any qualifications to teach in a private school, and all these parents are paying huge sums of money to be taught by unqualified me. And this … and this, this really appealed to me, this idea, but obviously, I’m … so I’m, like, petrified because I’ve got no qualifications. I don’t know, really I’ve got no idea what I’m doing. I mean, I wouldn’t have the nerve to do that now, what I was doing back then. … um … So, after a couple of weeks, the head teacher wants to come and look at one of my classes, so, I’m like, “God, what am I going to do?” Anyway, I was really nervous, but I did this lesson, and we talked about trade unions and I don’t know … err … works council in British industry. I didn’t really know much about it, but we talked about it and this teacher … head teacher, sits at the back and, anyway, somehow the lesson’s over and, you know, I was so glad when the head teacher left and … err … sort of, like, breathed out and said to the kids … I said, “Oh, thank you very much. You behaved really, really well during that,” … um … I said … “Err… was that OK?” and one of the kids said, “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, yeah, it was fine, but I’ve just got one question.” I said, “What’s that?” He says … um … “Why did we repeat exactly the same lesson you did with us last week?” I don’t know whether I did that deliberately, but obviously, I had. I just repeated, so maybe that’s why it went well.

OK, yeah, so, pretty much from the first time I went to school … err … I realized that, actually, you have to be pretty careful what you say and how you say it. Um, and it’s a funny thing ’cause it’s not just accent, it’s also … um … what you talk about and even the words and expressions you use. It’s really like it … it’s not … I guess it’s not the same everywhere. I don’t know if it’s the same for you, but … um … certainly from where I come from, you have to be careful. And I think speech is, like, so deeply tied to class and where you’re from and just generally your, you know, your general background. It’s really … it’s quite … um … it’s quite tribal. And so basically, like if I’m … if I’m in a pub in the north side of Dublin — and it’s a bit, it’s a bit rougher, it’s more working class on the north side — you know, I’m not going to go on about, like, opera and ballet in my nice posh accent, you know. That’s, you know … that’s definitely not going to go down well and you won’t get good attention, er, for that. But I’ll, you know, I’ll probably talk about football and I’ll use more down-to-earth, kind of salt-of-the-earth phrases, and, um, I’ll definitely use an accent that fits in with the … you know … the local populace. I’ll modulate my accent to fit in. And that’s the same if I’m in a village in the countryside or maybe somewhere, I don’t know, more, like, upmarket … wherever. Um, and that’s just a basic survival strategy. It’s kind of like you have vocal camouflage and, I don’t know, you know, if I’m proud of that or not. It’s like… it’s like being a bit like a … chameleon, um, but … err … it’s … yeah … it’s basic survival strategy. It’s, it’s a way of getting by ’cause language creates bonds, em, but it can also create barriers, and if you inadvertently create a barrier, you might … it might not be good for you.

So, where was I? Oh, yeah. OK. It’s the story about … err… when I applied to be the speaker for Munich’s public transport system — the English speaker. Anyway, so, as I was saying earlier on, I got this interview — actually, I think about 300 people applied to be the English voice of Munich’s public transport system, and there were two of us at the end, and … um … it was just a really long process but kind of — to cut a long story short — I ended up in this room. There were, like, 22 people, and I had to read stop information like, “The next stop is Munich Central Station, blah, blah, blah,” and there were two guys from the BBC there as well who were listening to me. And it was just … I don’t know … it was sort of humiliating at the end because I thought, “OK, well, there’s only two of us” and I was quite kind of confident, and then one of the guys from the BBC asked me to repeat something and — I may have told this to someone before — but he kind of stopped me and he said, “I can hear a bit of Essex in your voice,” and I was furious. I don’t think I sound as if I come from Essex … apparently, I do ... um, so, yeah … I didn’t get the job, but you know what we did? We … I went back to the office and I told my colleagues, and we made a paper version of the man who did get the job — he’s from Oxford. Actually, he’s a really nice guy, but I didn’t know that back then — and we made this, like, voodoo doll and we stuck lots of pins into him. It’s just such a mean thing to do, but it did feel good.