The NPR Voice

I think the success of a show like Moonshiners
 is in part down to the interesting
regional accents on display

Regional accents are the delight of the English language. You dont have to be Henry Higgins to spot a Scot or a Yorkshireman or a Cockney. And boy are those accents fun to listen to. I can identify (and imitate) about twenty different British and Irish accents and I love them all. Every accent has its own pleasures and as an accent connoisseur I can appreciate accents that some people aren't so keen on such as West Belfast, Brummie and the strange sounds that come from Geordieland. Those latter 3 accents used to be despised but they've all made something of a comeback in recent years, perhaps reflecting a rebirth of regional pride. Americans, I feel, dont appreciate their regional accents the way we do currently in the British Isles. Americans are going through the phase now that Britain went through from 1950 - 1980 when regionalism was discouraged on the radio and TV and a received pronunciation BBC English was the stultifying and rather boring norm. Back in the day in the UK newsreaders were only trusted if it sounded like they had gone to Eton and even comedians/satirists only got on the telly if they had been president of the Cambridge Footlights. But all that changed in the 80's when regional accents became seen as more authentic than the clipped and rather boring RP English. Nowadays on BBC's radio flagship Radio 4 and BBC TV's flagship's BBC 1 regional accents are everywhere. 
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National Public Radio is often presented to me as a beacon of progressive thought in an American media world dominated by vast corporations who have evil hidden agendas. It's a fair point. ABC, NBC, Fox and CBS are all part of massive corporations whose primary and only duty is to their shareholders. (When Diane Sawyer is reading the news you know that she'll never report anything bad about the Walt Disney Corporation.) And the American talk radio landscape is worse by far: a fetid sink of articulate paranoid, quasi fascist, God bothering hackery. So yes NPR is a lone voice of calm in a swirling tempest of shouting nutjobs...but and it's a big but (insert Kardashian joke here) NPR is actually kinda crap. NPR is the way Radio 4 used to be twenty five years ago. Its a network for older white college educated suburbanites and its oh so patronising and complacent and dreary. And the thing that really drives me up the wall is the voice. That awful NPR voice! Bland and slow and so deadly dull. All hint of emotion or regionalism or humanity has deliberately been removed from the presenters and announcers on NPR for fear of offending someone or being misunderstood, but this policy is completely misguided. American regional accents are fantastic and beautiful and need to be cherished and loved, not crushed under by the bland sameness being pumped out by national networks in DC or New York or LA. American regional accents are dying as people move around more or feel it necessary to hide their roots in order to move up the corporate ladder. NPR is in part responsible for this with the subconscious message of conformity they pump out every morning. I lived in accentless Denver for 8 years and now I live in accentless Seattle and I can see how much richer the culture is in Chicago, Boston, New Orleans, Memphis...places with a regional identity and a regional voice. 
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NPR needs to do what the BBC did in the 1980's and embrace regionalism, not suppress it and if it does I'll bet the quality of its programming rises too. The BBC is still dominated by a privately educated clique who look out for one another (hence the Jimmy Saville scandal) but it is changing - slowly - and NPR can change to. America is 3000 miles wide with dozens (maybe hundreds) of unique subcultures, let's hear some of them on National Public Radio and we'll all be better for it. 

Accents In Game Of Thrones Part 2

Rose Leslie as the stroppy Man City supporter, Ygritte

For the last few weeks as John Snow has headed north over the wall I've been thinking that we were finally going to hear some Scottish accents on Game of Thrones but we haven't. You'd think the people over the wall (a Westeros equivalent of Hadrian's wall between England and Scotland) would have a different accent than the ones south of it and when they cast Rose Leslie, who is Scottish to play Ygritte, I expected that finally we were going to hear some Highland vowel sounds. But instead of that they've asked Leslie to do a Manchester/Lancashire accent which she does brilliantly but even so its a little bit of a let down. There are at least half a dozen Scottish actors in Game of Thrones and four or five Irish actors but so far all the accents on the snow are English or quasi English (Yes I'm looking at you Peter Dinklage). There's a couple of very mild accidental Irish accents (Littlefinger and Catelyn Stark) but everyone else either speaks home counties or with a Lancashire/Yorkshire northern accent. Game of Thrones is filmed in Belfast and previously I've expressed some disappointment not to hear a single Belfast accent anywhere near the show. They've filmed in Magheramorne where my grandmother's from and at Red Hall in Ballycarry where I used to play when I was a kid. They've also filmed up in the Glens of Antrim and down in Strangford, areas I know really well and I can tell you that all those places have distinct, old fashioned very interesting accents. Maybe give an extra a line or two? 
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The week before last we did get a hint of Geordie which was nice but really the casting people should be less conservative and let the native Irish, Scottish and Welsh actors use their own voices. Americans could handle Welsh accents or Scottish ones or Ulster or even Brummie. And it beggars belief that in a continent 1000 miles from top to bottom you would only hear two different accents. 
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This guy can do six different Scottish accents (and he forgot 
Glasgow). His Belfast is ok but his Boston and Maine are beyond terrible. Incidentally on a good day I can do 7 different Northern Ireland accents: Derry, Larne, Carrick, Ballymena and 3 Belfast accents: South Belfast/Malone Road, Scary West Belfast & Camp Julian Simmons Style West Belfast.