Alfisms

We must all admit to our guilty little pleasures sooner or later and one of mine happens to be watching the Aussie soap Home & Away when i get home from work every evening; perhaps because there is always a reasonable selection of eye-candy to choose from, perhaps because of the gripping Summer Bay storylines and perhaps because it just happens to be what's on tv when i'm patiently awaiting my dinner.

Until recently, one of my main reasons for viewing was the brilliant young actress Jessica Tovey who played the delightful Belle Taylor, the plots and dramas were always heightened and more intense whenever they involved her (in the same way that Eastenders attains its finest moments whenever Lacey Turner is on screen) but poor Belle tragically passed away so i can no longer use her as my excuse for watching the show.

Which brings me to the real reason for my desperate partiality to the show: Alfisms.

A true and solid old school Aussie, Alf Stewart liberally sprinkles his conversation with an array of Alfisms which lend a touch of colour to everything he utters with such gems as: Strike me handsome...She's had a rough trot...Yer flamin' gallah...That flamin' mongrel... Stone the flamin' crows...Yer flamin' drongo...

There are probably many more that i could name but we can safely assume that the word Flamin' continues to play a major part in proceedings and we are all the better for it because i fear that such wonderful turns of Antipodean phrase may be slowly dying out Down Under and are perhaps neglected by the younger Aussie generation

© Sean Barrett - April 2010