Could be worse though. I'm from South Staffs, and I rescued my wife from Birmingham. Thankfully her accent has softened alot and only comes back when she's excited or is talking to her family. The other blessing is that my 3 boys all have Staffs accents and not Brummie. I used to work for a company that dealt with the Police in Northern Ireland. When ever I had to talk to an officer from Belfast etc I was lost. I know they were speaking English but my ears couldn't pick out the individual words at all. Now the Dublin accent though is no problem.
"The Brits do have some funny phrases that really haven't become part of the American lexicon. E.g., blimey, bollix, chips (they're fries dammit), etc...." We could debate for days the fact that Chips is the correct term but since I know I'm right there's no point rubbing it in. ;) As to regional UK dialects, there is a fair chance that if Graham has a strong Glaswegian accent I would need a translator to understand him (unless I was drunk, at which point all languages make sense). When I was a student (some time around the middle ages) my friends and I would go out to the Yorkshire Dales/Moors hiking/camping. When we went into the local pubs I would have to order as the locals could just about understand my 'South Yorkshire' washed out accent; my friends from around the country didn't have a chance and one, from Lancashire, required fake papers to be allowed across the boarder.
