Small Trumpet

Woken this morning by what sounded like a small, irritating child tooting a small, irritating trumpet, I went into the garden to discover it was, in fact, a small, irritating cockerel tooting a small, irritating trumpet. 

'Is that entirely necessary?' said I, as Magnus Cockerel strutted his stuff up and down the chicken run whilst Millie, Mollie and May Hens sensibly mooched to the breakfast bar for a quaff and a munch. 

'I is being a cockerel tho', innit bruv?' said Magnus.

'You mean, you are being a cockerel,' said I, the English teacher who champions the common use of Standard English as being a perfectly good means of communication so why change it? 

'Innit tho, fam?' said Magnus. 

(Aside: the children at school find it hilarious when I use the word 'fam' to greet them in the morning. As in 'How are you, fam?' Apparently, I say it 'too posh' and it should be 'Awright, fam?' I always point out the grammatical incorrectness of this to them and they go off hooting and sometimes rolling their eyes. Still, makes them laugh...)

Magnus continued. 'Gotta keep da laydeez in order, innit tho?' he said. 'Ya know, innit fam?' He then offers his wing to me, scrunched up at the ends so I can wing bump him. 'Safe, bruv,' he says. 

I sigh. The last thing I need, aside from a cockerel, is a cockerel who insists on conversing in dodgy patois. I mean, I am aware of pidgin English as a cultural form of communication, but cockerel English? Or should that be 'cockril'? Heck, let's go the whole hoglet and spell it 'Kokril.' 

'Right,' I say. 'I appreciate that you ARE a cockerel and a very fine specimen at that, and as a cockerel part of your...er....nature...is to crow. However, I do have some standards and they include speaking clearly in the Queen's English and not pretending you come from some mid-city ghettoland. You were born on a farm in the middle of the rolling hills of Shropshire. Just remember that, if you please.'

Magnus played a bit more trumpet. The cockerel who lives next door and is a bit bigger and older joined in with a spot of tuba. Or maybe sousaphone. Yes, let's have a sousaphone. Sounds more entertaining, more exotic than a tuba. Magnus stopped tooting and eyed me, head cocked to one side.

'Seriously, ma sista, you needs to pop a chill pill, yeah?' he said. 

'Go and eat your breakfast NOW!' I said, pointing at the breakfast bar, steel in my voice and the telephone number of an elocution teacher stampeding to the front of my brain. Magnus shrugged and slouched off to the far end of the run, his jeans half way down his backside, his baseball cap on back to front.