Russel Brand's accent

Guest   Sat Sep 13, 2008 6:45 pm GMT
What kind of accent does he have? Isn't it fake?
Lazar   Sun Sep 14, 2008 1:24 am GMT
Did you see him on Craig Ferguson's show this week? :) No, he's from Essex so I think his acccent is real. I'd describe it as Estuary or Southeastern.
Ronald   Sun Sep 21, 2008 11:55 pm GMT
Yes it's Southeastern.
Damian in Edinburgh   Mon Sep 22, 2008 10:39 am GMT
Russell Brand's vocabulary when he appears on British TV is very colourful indeed - the watershed here in the UK is supposed to be 21hrs but there you go. He was asked (no - instructed) to very much tone down his language when he went over to America as Americans are apparently very sensitive to things like that appearing on their media, be it swear words or wandering tits. ;-) On the other hand when it comes to gratuitous violence that seems to be a different matter altogether......but as I said elsewhere, it's all a "cultural thing" is it not?
Damian in Edinburgh   Fri Sep 26, 2008 11:29 am GMT
Russell Brand really enjoyed being in America but he really had to tone down his usual ripe vocabulary when he was over there....his appearances on UK TV are usually peppered with crude language and swear words but the only people who object seem to be older people, as you would expect, I expect.

He appeared on TV completekly by accident the other morning.....on very earlyu morning GMTV (I have to be up with the lark every weekday morning).

GMTV were conducting an experiment among the general population of the UK to find out just how friendly or helpful passers by in the street are towards others they see who are in any kind of trouble. It was all done with the use of hidden cameras, as they always are in these programs. It didn't make for good viewing as they chose a suburban street in London somewhere, and featured this very attractive young lady who pretended to be in various kinds of a "distress" situation - she playing the part of the damsel, of course.

First she stood next to her car (parked quite legally) - with the bonnet (or the hood, for the benefit of Americans) open, while she stood alongside looking very "distressed and helpless not knowing what to do next to find out what had gone wrong with the vehicle". Naturally she was hoping for some gallant hero, some kind of knight in shining armour, to come to her aid, but although a whole lot of people walked by in both directions, many of them young, fit and male, looking as if they could fit the description she was hoping for - all of them walked by. They glanced at her but carried on walking by.

She gave up on that one, so she then stood on the pavement (that's sidewalk to the Americans) overloaded with shopping bags filled to the brim - and then pretended to slip and fall over, finally landing on her bottom (that's butt to the Americans) with all the contents of her bags scattered all around her on the pavement. Still people walked by totally unconcerned, many of them not even glancing at her. True, many of the males did glance at her but none came to her assistance.

Until one bloke trotted towards her from the other side of the street and then offered to help her as she was so obviously "in some kind of trouble". She immediately recognised the guy as it was Russell Brand.

It was a complete co-incidence that Russell Brand was walking along that street - GMTV categorically denied that it had all been "fixed" and Brand confirmed that as he was on his way to come kind of engagement nearby, apparently. In spite of his fairly lurid reputation over here he really did show himself to be the only gallant hero or knight in shining armour on the streets of North London that particular day.

But that kind of situation isn't all that unusual in London, or any large town or city. The trouble is, people have become increasingly sceptical of anything which appears to be out of the ordinary, and it's not unknown for attractive young women to be used as some kind of decoy by unscrupulous people with a criminal intent.

It was the same when, in a similar experiemnt, GMTV again got another woman to lie half on and half off a pavement, lying partly in the roadway itself, in London again, looking as if she had collapsed for whetever reason. Sounds highly dangerous as far as she was concerned but it did take place like that, and still people walked by totally unconerned, and vehicles actually swerved to avoid her lying there. Sad or what?

There was no sign of Russell Brand on that occasion, but it finally took the driver of a familiar red London bus to slam on his brakes, jump out and run to the aid of this woman. He must have been a Scot!

The topic in the UK right now (well, in England anyway) is the great difference in attitude between people in the South of England and those in the North of England when it comes to friendliness and helpfulness to others. Apparently Southerners are reputed to be more unfriendly and more indifferent, while Northerners are more friendly and approachable.

I could dispute that, as I have met some really friendly, open people in the South of England, even in london, but generally I really would say that taken as a whole, many Londoners simpoly don't seem to have the time, or the inclination, to be all that friendly anyway - all to do with the pressures of urban city life.

When I was with mates in Wokingham (Berkshire), Epsom (Surrey) and Winchester (Hampshire) - all well and truly in the South of England - everyone seemed really friendly and very approachable. That's my own experience anyway.

The rudest people working in shops I have ever met were in a place called Hebden Bridge (in West Yorkshire) not far from Leeds, where I was at uni at the time. That's well and truly in the North of England. One or two of them were so incredibly off-hand and dismissive and totally unfriendly....maybe it's something in the water around there! Or perhaps they didn't fancy my alluring and ever so dulcet Scottish accent - that just didn't induce any kind of generosity of spirit in these people one single bit. I experienced something similar in Alnwick (pronounced as "Annick") in Northumberland, so northerly in Northern England that it's almost in Scotland - the woman behind the counter of a shop there was a really rude old harridan who had obviously got out of bed the wrong side that day. Maybe the closer the English are to the Scottish border the ruder some (repeat some) of them become!

You really cannot generalise in matters such as this, though.
John Cowan   Wed Oct 01, 2008 3:41 am GMT
Damian, perhaps the folk who were rude to you had ancestors who were robbed and burned out by Border reivers, and have a hereditary resentment against the Scots.