Tom Leonard

Glasgow, Scotland

  • Increase font size
  • Default font size
  • Decrease font size

The 6 O'Clock News


 

'Unrelated Incidents' - No.3


this is thi
six a clock
news thi
man said n
thi reason
a talk wia
BBC accent
iz coz yi
widny wahnt
mi ti talk
aboot thi
trooth wia
voice lik
wanna yoo
scruff. if
a toktaboot
thi trooth
lik wanna yoo
scruff yi
widny thingk
it wuz troo.
jist wanna yoo
scruff tokn.
thirza right
way ti spell
ana right way
to tok it. this
is me tokn yir
right way a
spellin. this
is ma trooth.
yooz doant no
thi trooth
yirsellz cawz
yi canny talk
right. this is
the six a clock
nyooz. belt up.


Note by TL for GCSE students: The poem's take on accents has nothing to do with the writer "being Scottish" as a BBC "GCSE bitesize" model answer on the poem suggests, it is instead about social class. The six o'clock news is as unlikely to be read by a working-class Liverpudlian, London, Birmingham, Swansea, Belfast, Portsmouth, Aberdeen etc etc voice as by a Glaswegian. This has nothing to do with any difficulty in understanding, as audiences have no difficulty understanding lower class accents in phone-ins, gameshows, "Eastenders" etc.  

Why can't someone with for example a strong East London accent read the six o'clock news? The speaker of the poem suggests the answer lies in an attitude about who and what is considered to be "authoritative", and this attitude is the hidden "news" inside the six o'clock news itself. "Scruff" means "scum" or the muck gathered at the top of dirty water, and is used as a term of social disdain. "belt up" means "shut up!" 

Short excerpts from some other relevant TL work and an audio recording of the poem itself can be found here:- //www.tomleonard.co.uk/main-publications/intimate-voices/notes-on-the-six-oclock-news.html