Ask Audrey: The tuition in the Churchfield School of Proper English do be for nathin’, girl

Sorting out Cork people for ages...

Q: Guten Tag. I am living in Cork for two years and do be learning the lingo like. (The tuition in the Churchfield School of Proper English do be for nathin’, girl.)

There is one problem. It is Nowla. As in, “Look at that, ‘Nowla’,” where Nowla is not in fact my name, like!!

The people do be saying it to me all the time and I do be, “what the f**k”, like the guy Ralf, on Gogglebox, that do have the blondie-wan daughter. Why are they calling me Nowla?

– Jurgen, St. Lukes and Berlin.

A: I looked up the Churchfield School of Proper English there — I could swear I heard the internet laughing at me.

Your friends are saying ‘now lah’, as in, ‘now like’. It’s a phrase people use to signal that they are down to earth — or ‘poor’, as we prefer to call it in Ballinlough.

Q: My son, Zach, is in one of the top primary schools on the southside. (The fees are called voluntary donations; you couldn’t afford them on your salary.) I just got a WhatsApp there, saying they need volunteers for some bag-packing fund-raiser thingy in a very prominent shopping centre.

They’re not allowing me to just give them the money, which is basically a violation of my human rights. I mean, like, it would only take one doctored Instagram photo to make it look like I actually work in this supermarket (lolz) and I’d be socially untouchable in Cork 4. (That’s what we call Douglas now.) Can I send the au pair?

– Monica, Douglas, Cork 4

A: I asked my posh cousin’s au pair about this, just now. She said it’s an outrage the way some people exploit the girls looking after their kids.

I said ‘thanks for that Maria, I won’t distract you any further from your work’. It’s no joke trying to paint a shed in this wind. #Considerate #AndYetHilaire

Q: How’re oo’ going on? Herself is after falling in with a bunch of alien life fanatics inside in Schull.

I’ve been giving her bit of slagging over it, to be honest, because she’s made my life a misery over the course of the past 40 years, with all her daft hobbies and ‘did you put out the cat?’ Anyway, after all the talk of UFOs around Cork this week, didn’t I come across a small green man in the back field, with mad eyes and fingernails down his knees.

I gave him a packet of Custard Creams, because we’re sound out that way in West Cork, but I’m afraid to say a word to herself, because of the ‘I told you so’ factor. How should I proceed?

– Dan Paddy Andy, Ballydehob.

A: My cousin is a UFO expert (aka, single for life.) I said, ‘how would you approach a green man with mad eyes and dirty fingernails’?

He said, ‘ask him if he’s from Dundalk?’ Isn’t he good crack, for a nerd?

Q: Hello, old stock. Myself and Hoggy flew to Paris yesterday, because he’s half-stalking an air hostess in Aer Lingus. (Hoggy calls it flirting.)

What a nightmare. There was a time when the Paris flight was like Little Island Golf Club in the sky, but now it’s three generations of common types, who take their kids out of school to go and see Mickey Mouse. (Half the younger chaps were called Evan; the whole thing was rougher than a chip shop on dole day.)

I know there is an Air France flight to Paris now, so can you arrange for the Norries to go on that, and the officer class of Cork society can stick with Aer Lingus?

– Reggie, Blackrock, they were all in Disney costumes.

A: Your day must have been Donald Ducked. I asked my posh cousin if we could get the Norries on to Air France. She said ‘no’. I said ‘why’? She said you’re chances of getting a Norry to fly with a non-Irish airline are up there with finding a Latin speaker in Athlone.

Q:We don’t bother with health insurance in our house, because it’s such a wasteful way to advertise your wealth, compared to a nose job. The downside is I had a little turn last week and now I’m stuck in a public ward in CUH. Talk about a nightmare.

I can’t understand a word the woman opposite is trying to say — it’s not like she had a stroke or anything, it’s just that she’s from Kanturk. (As far as I can tell.) How I could start a GoFundMe campaign to get a move to the Bons?

– Clodagh, Monkstown, I’m hardly getting any visitors.

A: I’m not surprised. And not just because you seem like a bit of a wagon. (No offence.)

Posh Cork types are very reluctant to be going into CUH. You never know what you’d catch — all the handwash in the world isn’t enough to stop you getting the Norry Flu. I asked my consultant friend what are the symptoms. He said ‘shouting dowcha across a crowded room and bringing your Mam on holidays’.

I said ‘is it contagious’? He said ‘it do be’. #LatestVictim