EDDIE IZZARD - LANGUAGES

Now, I just want to talk quickly about language, then we can all go. Yeah, they say Britain and America are two countries separated by the Atlantic Ocean. And it's true. No, they say two countries separated by a common language. That's the line. It's an Oscar Wilde line, I think. And we do pronounce things differently. Like you say caterpillar and we say caterpillar. And, er... You say a-LU-minum. We say alu-MlN-ium. You say cen-TRl-fugal. We say centri-FU-gal. You say leisure. We say "lizuriay". You say bay-sil. We say bah-sil. You say 'erbs and we say herbs because there's a fucking H in it. But you spell through T-H-R-U, and I'm with you on that cos we spell it "thruff". And that's trying to cheat at Scrabble. "How can we get that 'ou' sound?" "A U will work." "An O as well?" "We don't need it." "No, I think an O in." "OK." "And a G as well." "What?" "Yes, a G would be good. We need a silent G in the background in case of any accidents or something." "All right." "And an H as well." "Fucking hell. Hang on." "An H in case some herbs come along." "All right." "And a Q and a P and a Z. "Look, it's a word in Scrabble that's 480 points." So, yes. And, er... We do have slight differences in that arena. But in Europe, we have 200 languages. 200 languages. Just count them. I know you won't. And future generations of Europeans I'm sorry - but we're gonna have to be bilingual. English speakers hate this. "Two languages in one head? No one can live at that speed. Good Lord, man! You're asking the impossible." "But the Dutch speak four languages and smoke marijuana." "Yes, but they're cheating. "Everyone knows marijuana's a drug enhancement that can help you on track and field to come last in a team of eight million...eight million other runners who are all dead." I don't know how the Dutch do it. We're gonna have to learn and reason one is for being groovy and doing it. But the second, we lose a lot of business in Europe 'cos German people phone up, "Wir haben fnf Millionen Deutschmark..." "Just fuck off, will you, mate? "He was speaking German. I told him to go away. Fuck off. I dunno, something about fnf million in Deutschmarks. I told him to get knotted. We don't want his deustchy markys. We do? We do want that? I'm terribly sorry. Oh, fuck. Redial. Yeah, so, er... So I'm into this idea. It's a positive thing, man. I took my last show, Glorious, to Paris and I did it in French. And the French people stared at me with that look in their eyes of, "Quoi?" Because there's no stand-up in France and they're not used to English people speaking French but I did it because we could be the biggest melting pot in the world. 500 million people. All we have to do is melt a bit. Fucking move it around. It was partly that and partly just to go, "Yeah, wherrr." I learnt French at school up to the age of 16. Then I kept talking it endlessly after that. At school, the first page I learnt in French was full of things that are difficult to get into conversation. "The mouse is under the table." La souris est en dessous de la table. Just slip that in when you're buying a ticket to Paris. "Le train Paris, oui? "C'est ici? C'est maintenant? "La souris est en dessous de la table?" The other line was, "The cat is on the chair." Le chat est sur la chaise, slightly more easy to fit in. And, "The monkey is on the branch", le singe est sur la branche. Very difficult to get into a conversation. Not a lot of jungle in France. Monkeys thin on the ground. Thin in the air. Just generally pretty trim.

And, yeah. So it just wasn't working. We go to bars and cafs. That's where we go. We sit there and we have chats in the cafs. "J'aime beaucoup le caf, le caf noir et trs fort, trs chaud.Avec une cuillre dedans. Ahhh. Ah, le virage de la cuillre, le virage des poitrines. Je mets la cuillre dans la bouche...Je suis le Prsident de Burundi. Ah, oui! Burundi! Je le connais bien! Tout prs de Mozambique. Non, Tanzanie, Tanzanie! Ha-ha-haaa! Oui, je les ai appris quand j'ai les pox de poulet. Je dois partir maintenant parce que ma grandmre est flambe." If you don't speak French, that was fucking funny, all right? We go and get hotel rooms - "Vous avez une chambre, monsieur?" "Oui, nous avons les chambres, nous sommes un htel!" "OK, je voudrais une chambre avec un grand lit, a large bed, avec une vue de la mer, avec une douche. With a spider." "Oui, monsieur. Er...c'est chambre 42, monsieur." "42, merci beaucoup. Mais - la souris est en dessous de la table, le chat est sur la chaise et le singe est sur la branche." "Quoi?" "Il y a un singe sur la branche? "Le chat? La souris? "O est le singe?" "Le singe est sur la branche." "Est-ce que le singe est dans la chambre?" "Non. "Le singe n'est pas dans la chambre. "Michelle est dans la chambre avec le Prsident de Burundi." The only way I could get that into a conversation was to go to France with a cat, a mouse, a monkey, a table and a chair and wander round heavily wooded areas. "Come on, come on. Someone's coming. Quick, positions. Les positions, maintenant!" "Boulot! Boulot! Tout de suite! Vas-y, vas-y. Bonjour! Eh, bonjour. "Qu'est-ce qui se passe?" "Bonjour, je suis Anglais, je suis ici en vacances. C'est trs belle ici, les couleurs, les bras, trs belle.", "Ouais, ouais. (lnhaling) "Ouais, ouais. Tu es un travesti?" "Ouais, je suis un travesti, mais pas un travesti typical. Je suis un travesti executif. Un travesti d'action." "Trs bien." "Mais la souris est en dessous de la table, le chat est sur la chaise et le singe est est... le singe est disparu." Cos the monkey would fuck off. He'd do his own thing. He was a bloody monkey. He was a cheeky monkey. He knew my French wasn't good, so he'd go and do things. "Ah, regarde - il est sur une bicyclette. ll joue au banjo. Et il fume une pipe. Maintenant il arrte, il lit un journal, il a un journal. Et maintenant il est dans l'autobus! ll conduit l'autobus. Et Sandra Bullock est dans l'autobus! ll y a une bombe dans l'autobus! ll faut conduire l'autobus plus de 50 kilomtres par l'heure. Et Keanu Reeves! L! ll arrive dans la voiture! ll a pas de cheveux et Jeff Daniels est dj mort. Regarde, il se jette dans l'autobus. Et Dennis Hopper, ooh, Dennis Hopper, quel mchant! That was the film Speed in French. Which in France was called La Vitesse. Or it should have been. But in fact, it was called Speed. Yeah. So in conclusion, ladies and jelly spoons...Erm...