I didn't know of him, and looked him up on the web.
He doesn't have a Newcastle accent - which I suppose is good luck, or simply sensitive parents who bundled him off to elocution classes.
I don't really think I have a hang-up about regional accents - okay, I do - but it comes down to fitness for purpose: language is about communication, right(?), and especially when spoken, there is much room for misinterpretation if irregular forms of grammar or speech are used. Throw on top the extreme case of a heavy brogue, and God alone knows how easily a fight can start, especially in a workman's bar when the second or third round comes along. You may quite reasonably advise against being in such a location in the first place, but look, you really do have to consider how far a pension goes today. Don't expect governmental fair play: I paid every contribution towards mine that the government demanded. You can imagine how delighted I was one day when, talking about pensions with a fellow recipient, I discovered that he received noticeably more than did I! I immediately wrote to the relevant authority back in England, and they told me that my generation had paid less into the system than had the following generation. Well of course money had lost value over the years, but that's a silly argument: it's not as if my generation can walk into the shops and reasonably expect to be charged at the same level of prices as were around during the time we were working! So yeah, the UK believes most firmly in enforcing second- or even third-class citizenship on its old folks. Preferably, we should just die off and stop making problems for the system. Heil fucking Hitler!
