Fuck you, Chris

January 17, 2011 10:01 AM

UK accent-identification question: where is Chris from? He's the producer of the Bugle podcast with John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman.

I can't link to the middle of a podcast, but Chris says quite a bit in the latest episode, #140 (Divorce of a Nation), starting at 32:30. You can load the episode in iTunes here.

posted by Beardman to Media & Arts (7 answers total)

Response by poster: And my apologies if the title of this question is NSFW: it's such a running joke on the show that I could scarcely not use it.
posted by Beardman at 10:06 AM on January 17, 2011

That is sort-of addressed near the end of Episode 137. He says (via Andy) that he is from "real London, north of the Thames." That's in the context of a reader's suggestion that he is from South London.
posted by jedicus at 10:11 AM on January 17, 2011

I'd guess Essex. Here's a video for comparison.
posted by djgh at 10:12 AM on January 17, 2011

Seconding Essex.
posted by dougrayrankin at 11:31 AM on January 17, 2011

I'd call it a fairly solidly Estuary accent, which is hard to place more specifically than London and environs.

"Real London, north of the Thames" narrows it down, and probably excludes Essex proper (and Berkshire the other way) because Londoners have a definite sense of where London stops. So maybe Walthamstow, Chingford, Romford, Leytonstone -- the Essex-wards bits of Norf Lahndan?
posted by holgate at 11:45 AM on January 17, 2011

I'm from Essex and lived in London for five years - I'd say it could really be anywhere in London or the South East. People in that part of the world, especially young people, move around and in and out of London quite a bit so anyone from anywhere in the South East could sound like that. Though if pushed, I'd say that to me it doesn't really sound strong enough for someone from the Walthamstow/Leytonstone/Essex border - bit too posh (or at least too middle-of-the-road) for that. Mind you, I now live in Scotland and every time I go back home, what used to sound totally normal to me now sounds like a comedy Cock-ern-ee spoof accent, so what do I know?
posted by penguin pie at 1:02 PM on January 17, 2011

"The south".
posted by Artw at 4:04 PM on January 17, 2011 [1 favorite]