bum vs bomb [US vowels]

Does ANYBODY still talk about Bam Margera? And I can't picture him being big in the UK.

Bam Margera? Who is/was he? I've never heard or seen the name before and I doubt whether many, if any, people here in the UK have either. He's neither big nor small in the UK for that very reason.

Bam Margera - it sounds like some kind of exotic toxic drink you'd ask for in the lounge bar of a mega posh hotel in Park Lane, London or even in Downtown* Edinburgh, one that would probably blow the top of your head off.

*Downtown - everybody in the UK knows what that means - the American term for a city centre and all its attractions but it's never, ever used over here as a single word - as in Downtown Edinburgh, although many people say they're "going down town tonight" or "going down town shopping".

Bum, of course, has a totally different meaning here in the UK.

He was a skater, I think, who had a reality show which was dedicated to playing interminable and mean-spirited pranks on his family, most of whom weighed 800 lbs and were either really good team players getting a fat check to go with their oversized behinds, or were painfully stupid and unable to learn from episode to episode that Bam in the room + cameras rolling = something humiliating about to happen.

You're not missing much, in other words.

"Bam" was a first word that came into my mind after reading this particular topic. I was thinking about the idea of confusing "^" vowel with ''a'' in modern British English. Not some old fashioned RP style accents where "æ" stil exists...

Have the same problem with American English, I mean I find difficult to distinguish pairs like:

cop/cup
poppet/puppet
hot/hut
log/lug

i cant imagine ^those^ being homophonic to eachother

Californian LONG sounds like RP LUNG
Long Beach sounds like Lung Beach