The jab and the gab

THE WAY THINGS ARE

Colette NiReamonn Ioannidou

If you are unfamiliar with Irishisms, ‘gab’ is equal to chat. We Gaels are supposed to have ‘the gift of the gab’. If you work on radio alone you need the ability to talk-entertain. It’s not easy if the presenter doesn’t have the gift of the gab, it sounds forced or contrived. Ireland has had her top notch (now gone) presenters such as Terry Wogan and Gay Byrne. The gab they gave out was sharp, funny and accomplished, polished over years of practise and knowing what they were talking about. Graham Norton is happily still with us, waspish and whiplash witty.

Some radio presenters I’ve heard on various stations of late seem to think WOW! can cover a multitude of responses in place of anything more intelligent. A man I could listen to all night is American raconteur David Sedaris, who cannibalises his personal life, his long-term loving relationship with his partner Hugh, and his family for his comedic base. He can make a simple thing like collecting litter in his neighbourhood hilarious.

The quality of voice is important; advertisers usually seek attractive voices as well as faces to sell their goods. The gifted politician can draw crowds with a compelling voice and a well written speech. Martin Luther King being a prime example of memorable speech moments. Stand-up comedians also have to be on top form as they were, pre Covid, within spitting distance of their audience. They are now under the tight rein of political correctness which makes producing source material not as easy as it once was.

It needs courage to be straight-talking, even in a jocular vein, in small countries like Ireland and Cyprus where the chances are you will run into the people or politicians you have lambasted in a public forum. Louis Patsalides does it here, lampooning silly segments of TV programmes or having a go at the shenanigans of our politicians. People should be able to laugh at their own shortcomings and those of others as long as harmless fun and not racist insult is the intention behind the joke.

Writers too are entertainers, they feed our minds with words that form pictures and transport us to places each reader can envision in their own way. Playwrights and screen writers offer us actual pictures as well as voices to tell stories. Movie buffs will recall that scene from Singin’ in the Rain where Debbie Reynolds is shown to be voicing Jean Hagen whose squeaky chimes don’t match her sultry blonde, silent on-screen image.

Women like Oprah Winfrey and Maya Angelou transcended traumatic youth to become supreme influencers for good by channelling their past experiences to communicate with and inspire women by example of what strength of the feminine spirit can achieve when combined with talent. Poets through centuries have given us words to store in our minds and extract when we require solace or laughter.

Much of the gab within my circle is to do with the jab, to have or not to have, that is the question. We hear relatives of those who have died of Covid-19 before the jab was made available, hating the fact that their loved ones are now among a group of statistics, doing their best to make the life of the deceased real and the individual loss a presence lost, a void that will remain. Lockdowns have left some people severely isolated and lonely and this is where the non-present gab companions come in: social media, telephones, radio and TV.

But a lot of the time, instead of distracting entertainment or some time passing escape from fear or loneliness, these elements are often stuffed to saturation point with Covid-19 gab. Thus, the lonely or depressed are bombarded with a constant flow of depressing epidemic spin-offs. Then, add to the mix the arguments as to whether squillionaires like Bill Gates (it’s always Bill!) are cashing in on our health apprehensions, and the conspiracy theories of big, bad pharmaceutical companies that started it all out of greed. Or a cohort of scheming governments deciding it was a good control instrument to make us little doggies obey instantly every command thrown at us.

Then there’s the New Order line, where the top layer of richies want to eliminate the poories, the disabled, the aged (no pensions to dole out) and make a squeaky-clean world of which Hitler would be proud that they control by false information and fear mongering. I can’t help but wonder if the kin of those who died of the virus had had the chance to see loved ones given the controversial vaccine, would they have declined because of the range of opinions on it now circulating?

I think they’d opt for hope. There has been a higher and lower order for homo sapiens since the strong realised they could herd the weak. We elect our elite, work for them, help them make millions. Still, some folk have the guts to keep asking awkward questions when doubt arises. Keep asking.