Today’s comic from the Dilbert archive surprised me, do our friends across the pond really find the British accent sexy or feel that it infers intelligence?

I just don’t get it, why is this so (if it’s really true for the majority)?

It’s funny, I listen to a lot of PodCasts, and one of my favourites is the MacCast. Quite often Adam will play audio comments from listeners, and occasionally there’ll be a British one, it sounds totally weird. I’ve got so used to listening to North American accents in PodCasts and Audio Books, both from all over the USA and Canada that when a British (or even Australian or New Zealand) accent is thrown in it feels out of place, really jars. And what’s really strange is that when I hear a continental European or Asian accented English speaker, I don’t have the same reaction, it doesn’t jar at all. Why is that?

Another of my favourite PodCasts is Steve Lacey’s A Brit Abroad, again, it’s strange to hear a English accent in a PodCast, but this time you’re prepared, as the title suggest you’re going to get a British accent. I wonder, do American women swoon at his feet when ever he talks?

One day I might throw out a PodCast, if I ever get the time and something relevant to say (maybe I should have done so for this post, too late now), I wonder what people would think of my accent. I’m born and bread south coast of England, a real “suvana”, but I’ve spent the last eight years in Scotland. Although my accent is still very much English, I do catch myself saying the odd word that is typically Scottish (aye instead of yes, wee instead of small etc), and sometimes accent things with the harder vowels of the area I now live. I wonder how much my accent has really changed.

My friend that I play squash with every week will probably say that I still very much have a English accent, he often takes the piss when I call the score, putting on his best Cockney accent when repeating, trying to put me off my game. But I’m pretty sure I don’t have a Cockney accent, just a middle of the road south east England one.

It’s amazing how many distinctive accents there are in Britain, I wonder which would be most “sexy” to North Americans?

Just had a great weekend, well, it was until about 3 hours ago.

Mandy and I went across to Glasgow for the weekend, for some shopping, pampering and a mooch around the Ideal Home & Garden exhibition.

We spent Saturday afternoon shopping for clothes etc, and I think I bought even more than Mandy, which is quite a turnaround, I’m usually very bad at buying clothes for myself. Mind you, Mandy did thrust a few things into my hands to try on that I would never have picked up, most of them turned out to be ok.

Then we went back to our hotel, the Radisson SAS, which was modern, clean and efficient, great location being right in the centre, just a few steps from the main shopping centres. We had dinner there, which was also very nice.

Today (Sunday) we got up fairly early for us, about 9am, had breakfast and then out for even more shopping. Once we’d finished we went back to the car and started on our way to the S.E.C.C to visit the Ideal Home & Garden expo, but didn’t get very far. We were stopped at the T-junction traffic lights after leaving the car park, the lights turned red for the cross traffic, I waited until we had a green and then slowly (and I do mean slowly) pulled out when a car came along the main road approaching the red light, and just kept going. Mandy even had time to say (or rather shout), “he’s not stopping”, I came to a complete halt, and he just skidded into my front wing. It was very sereal, we could not believe it was happening, but it did, in a kind of slow motion.

Aparently he “wasn’t concentrating” and “too busy talking”, yeah, great, thanks. At least he’s admitted full liability and given me all his insurance details etc, so hopefully I won’t lose out money wise, apart from having to take time off from work to get the car fixed up etc.

We’re both seem to be ok by the way, and the car was drivable to get us home. As you can see from the pictures the damage is limited to the front wing (thank heavens I was alert and stopped quickly otherwise it’d be my door that was hit) and bumper/lights.

So, the weekend didn’t end too well, but it was a nice weekend otherwise.

Just got back from seeing Jack Dee at the Edinburgh Play House, it was superb, a great night out.

I drove into Edinburgh directly from work and met up with Mandy at a Tapas restaurant that we’ve enjoyed eating at before. The meal actually wasn’t that great this time, but the company was fantastic (I have to say that, she’s my wife)! We then went for a drink in a nearby pub followed by a wander for a couple more metres down the road to the theatre for a thoroughly good laugh, Mandy was even in tears of laughter a number of times! Jack was much better than I expected, I kind of expected it to be a bit of a rip-off, barely an hour of observational humour and tired old jokes already seen on the TV. But no, it was two hours of very funny commentary on life, funny situations and the occasional groan of revulsion at something disgusting (but very funny), and lasted well over two hours (with an interval to catch your breath).

If Jack’s coming to a venue near you, go see him, you won’t be disapointed.

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Phew, quite a lot of years when you look at it that way!

Sorry, it’s been rather a long time since my last update, usual excuse that you see on all sites of this nature, “a bit busy with life”!

So, what’s been happening then? Well, we (that’s me and the misses) are in the process of buying a brand new house, so new it isn’t even built yet! At the time of witting it’s at “Foundations Stage”, which it’s been at for about a month and a half now. Supposedly we’ll be moving in August/September, the builders won’t narrow it down any further. I’m guessing that it’ll be September rather than August!

Buying a new house is of course only half of the problem, we have to sell our current flat too. So, we’ve got some decorators in at the moment to decorate the place, it needs a touch up in nearly all the rooms, just to bring it up to date. Should have done it a long time ago, might not be looking for a new place if we had, but we concentrated on the building side first (knocking two flats together) and never got around to properly decorating most of the flat after that.

Hopefully I won’t leave it so long until I update again, but I’m not promising anything!

It was my Nan’s 80th Birthday yesterday (3/3/2002), so the family went out for a very posh meal. We went to the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne, which as it name suggests is very grand indeed. We had a lovely meal, the surroundings very sumptuous and the service fantastic, I’d highly recommend a meal there.

The wife and I are thinking about a weekend there, I think it may be a very nice weekend.