Anyone see “Snatch?” Hell of some accents there especially on the “pikeys.” Almost unintelligible, although that was the main object, I think.
I got halfway into writing a description of council estates and realised this Wikipedia page does a much better job than I could.
In the US the proper response to that would be,
“No, I do not wish to have sex with your chicken.”
Ah ha!
Tha’s takkin fur thissen laddie. Tha’s oot fur thi hin, e’en in Amuricaa
What sort of accent did the late Anthony eden have? he was a calssy speaker. Tony Blair is a mystery -i can’t place his accent as British at all-I would have taken him for an Australian.
Tony Blair does have a slight Australian twang. He lived in Australia for a few years as a child.
Anthony Eden had a very posh RP accent, ISTR.
Tony Blair is indeed a mystery, I would have taken him for a twat
Reading this Thread is akin to hearing Henry Higgins lecture, I love it.
Or is that " 'earing 'enry 'iggins?"
'oo?
You aint 'eard of 'enry 'iggins?
Okay, this is driving me mad. I think the first sentence means “You are speaking for yourself, sonny”, but I can’t figure out the second for the life of me, except that it ends “even in America”.
(“You are out for your hen?” “You are hot for you, honey”? 
Help!!)
I’d place Tony Blair somewhere in the south east corner of England - south of London, east of Guildford, but it’s a bit of a mishmash and some of his mannerisms aren’t regional, they’re personal.
Saw it for the first time a month or so back. Pitt did a very good Irish Traveller accent.
Translation:
You got the first part right, we’ll make an Englishman of you yet. 
2nd part …You’re really keen for women, even in America.
I actually missed a ? in 2nd
In some ways RP/BBC/Oxford might be said to be prestigious, but in practice many people treat you like you’re “too posh”. That’s why a lot of Brits who would speak that way adopt what they think is more of a “street” accent, like Tony Blair. I think this inverted snobbery started in the sixties.
I personally like a well-spoken Scottish accent - very easy on the ear.
As an educated colonial, my British accent is “more British than the British” and I have been made fun of for sounding posh. FTR I lived in Oxford for nine years and once-upon-a-time even worked for the BBC…
>>points finger<<< Laughs at Martha for sounding posh.
*bloody colonials
Exactly. Many people wouldn’t consider an RP accent “prestigious” - personally, I find it rather grating, a horribly bland accent consuming local dialects and speech patterns.
I nominate Sascha Baron Cohen’s Ali G character’s accent as the zeitgeist and parallel of the Valley Girl accent. The fictional Ali G is from Staines, a london suburb.
What I wanna know is Ali G’s accent for real? Have any of the Londoners here come across anything like that in real life, or is it heavily embellished and made for TV like the portrayal of the Valley Girl accent in The film Valley Girl?
Ali G’s accent is widely perceived to be a caricature of white & middle class guys affecting an accent as part of a culture they want to belong to. Tim Westwood is the oft-cited real-world example. Ali G gets mentioned in the Wikipedia article, and ‘born in Lowestoft, Suffolk’ is the first hint that Westwood is knowingly walking the tightrope between persona and caricature himself.
Not without one of those operations, you won’t. 
Thanks! Huh. “You” as in “you American blokes”? So “tha” is second person plural as well as singular?