Good on ya

In a typically Leighton scenario, I am home in Canada while my family is away in Turkey. In their place are some 50- and 60-something Australian sailors who are renting the house. They are jovial people and keen to share advice on yacht purchases (Mallorca for value). Right now they're practicing flatter accents, because they're driving to Seattle to look at a couple of fifty-footers and the U.S. border people can't understand them. They said they could scarcely order a drink on the flight from LA, the "air hostess" was so confused by their speech.

My dad, a New Zealander by birth, has virtually no accent from the motherland. He says he went to Montana on a job and the Americans were so bewildered, especially over the phone, that he had no choice but to adopt something neutrally North American. When he called his mother back in New Zealand, she hung up: "You're not my son!"