I am still alive, and I'd just like to begin by thanking everyone for their patience and Ninja Lady Jae, I Am One With Mother Russia, Sakura Lisette, HoshiUta, Tazzilicious and JuniperGentle in particular for reviewing. Your feedback is always appreciated.

I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, so hopefully, you'll have a lot of fun reading it. It's upbeat and joke-y, and I appreciate it may not be what some of you were holding out for, but hopefully you'll enjoy it nonetheless. I will try as much as possible to do requests and to update faster, but I can't guarantee anything.

How Britain, the Republic of Ireland and other Nations may have responded to Britain's temporary affliction.

Words, phrases or foreign/dialectical words are followed by a * have notes at the end.

Brummie is beautiful

28th August 2003

"Wait! Hold the lift!"

It was one of Britain's aides, Susan Wheatley. Of course Britain was going to wait and hold the lift. Despite France's rumours, Britain only ever intentionally ignored such requests when they were coming from people shouting French. He understood, of course, he just didn't like the idea of helping France.

"Thanks, I'm already running a few minutes late!" rattled Susan, "I need to be upstairs in ten."

Britain nodded. Of course, there was the other meeting going on upstairs, wasn't there? How could he possibly have forgotten the barely significant meeting going on upstairs?

"You seem a bit quiet, Sir," remarked Susan, knowing Britain far too well for someone who'd only been working with him since Blair was re-elected in 2001, "Are you okay?"

Britain nodded again. He'd be damned before he spoke today, in his condition.

"Looks like your stop, Sir," noted Susan as the doors slid open with a ridiculously anti-climactic pinging sound, "Oh, before I forget, we had some clotted cream sent over - for the scones. Should be in your room by twelve."

"Brill!" smiled Britain, and before he could stop himself, his condition reveals itself, "Ta, bab*."

Britain's eyes widened, and his hands jumped up to his face to cover his mouth in horror, just as the expression on Susan's face is one of visible terror before the doors slid shut once more and the lift continued its upwards journey. Britain waited just thirty seconds for the shock to disappear and for him to regain some sense of dignity. Groaning dimly to himself, Britain remarked that today would be a terribly awful day, and that things were only liable to get worse from the all but wondrous day he'd been having so far.

Britain hadn't been having a particularly good morning, not that he regards any morning which involves waking up before six 'good' in any sense of the word. The reason that this morning in particular bothered him so much was because he and his siblings had made a disturbing discovery the night before, just a few hours before his flight to Poland. Why was Britain flying to Poland? Well, Poland was hosting the rather pretentiously named 'Sixth Meeting of the International Advisory Committee', which was part of UNESCO's 'Memory of the World' programme, and, as usual, Heads of State used it as an opportunity to shove a load of Nations in a room and get them to talk to each other, as though hoping that if they did this enough times, something constructive would eventually be achieved. Predictably, this would never be the case.

So, yes, Britain was in Gdansk in Poland to attend the Nations' World Meeting while the 'Sixth Meeting of the International Advisory Committee' was taking place several floors above. Several floors above, of course, because Nations' meetings would often become so noisy as to penetrate at least five floors, some of which were reportedly sound-proof. Not all the Nations of the World were present, of course, because it wasn't really a particularly important meeting, and a lot of Nations were under house arrest or needed elsewhere, or had nice leaders who didn't use every available opportunity to kick them out of the office for a few days. As Britain had Tony Blair, who was just waiting for an excuse to kick England out of the office so he couldn't moan about the Iraq War*, Britain was forced to attend the meeting. There were other reasons of course, such as the fact that certain other major Nations were there, but England and his brothers knew the real reason.

Not that his brothers had much sympathy for his situation. In fact, if anything, his siblings rather revelled in the fact that Britain was facing rather dire circumstances. Scotland and Wales found his predicament so amusing, that they asked Northern Ireland to pass on the message to the Republic of Ireland (affectionately known as ROI by Britain), who would be attending the meeting. This was so that ROI could take the piss out of Britain in place of the other UK Nations, who had been ordered to stay in the UK, despite the World Meeting, because Tony Blair rather liked the fact that they weren't in London as much, and so couldn't moan about the Iraq War. As such, Britain was aware that, should he so much as dare to open his mouth whilst the meeting was taking place, his circumstances would only take a more dramatic turn for the worst. He could hide the problem in a few short sentences, but a few words could be his undoing. Things weren't looking good for the Englishman.

"Ah! Salut!*" shouted a voice from down the corridor.

Oh, fuck-a-duck, thought Britain, It's France.

As France is a European Nation who knows all too well the British dislike of touching, he immediately skipped (though he'd shoot someone in the face before admitting it) over and hooked his arm around the Brit's shoulders and back, knowing all too well how much the action would annoy him. Much to France's confusion, Britain simply tutted in response, before shrugging off France's arm and walking away at a surprisingly vigorous and determined pace. Canada, who was watching the scene from afar (knowing all too well from experience that standing a meter behind such an incident is liable to result in France being catapulted into your face), was as bemused as France, and walking up to France, the two shared a very much confused look. This was not normal Britain behaviour. This could either be something very worrying, or something very, very interesting, and undoubtedly something worth teasing. The two Nations silently agreed that it would be an interesting meeting before France stalked and Canada walked toward the Meeting Room. As they entered, they were greeted by a rather intriguing scene.

"Oh! 'Eeloo dere, Britain!" greeted cheerfully/shouted annoyingly the Republic of Ireland, with a fiercely wolfish grin on his face that told the whole room that something was irrevocably up, "Owaya?"

"Good," warned Britain simply, with what appeared a small, wary glare, and a mumbling, deliberately quiet voice, "An' you?"

"Oi'm good, t'anks for askin'," replied Ireland, the grin still etched rather firmly on his face and a mischievous gleam in his eyes that Britain was quite sure would make leprechauns tremble in their boots, "Yer nu, yer seem quiet today."

Britain fired an intensely fierce glare towards his brother, and the entire room paused and stared in fascination at the exchange. It was rare these days that there was animosity between the two brothers, and when there was, Britain was normally completely oblivious towards it, and so any sort of interaction between them that wasn't surprisingly brotherly or drunken, was a sight to behold (particularly as World Meetings were so intensely boring). Even America, who normally glomped Britain the moment he stepped foot in the room, was watching the exchange with all the interest he could muster without munching his way through popcorn. It was almost as interesting as that one time when a roaringly drunk Scotland gate-crashed one of Britain/England's presentations on methods of controlling binge drinking in the UK.

Britain knew that with his condition the way it was, getting angry would simply inflame the condition's obviousness even more. So, Britain simply shrugged in response, before taking his seat between America and, much to Britain's delight, India. Britain had always liked India, though he was very much sure that this hadn't been reciprocated until very recently. Why India was attending the meeting was a complete mystery to him - being as unimportant meetings like this only tended to consist of annoying Nations i.e. America, or Nations with leaders who just wanted an excuse to kick them out of the country for a bit. There were, of course, Nations like Canada, who attended in the hope of being noticed, but their hopes usually fell flat on their faces, because they were never quite noisy enough to grab attention. They would certainly not succeed in grabbing attention at this meeting, with Britain's condition just itching to ruin his reputation.

"Namaskar*, Britain!" smiled India, speaking Punjabi, because she knew that Britain was fluent in it, if his English accent made the words sound a little strange.

Britain had always loved India. Her eyes these days seem to be gleaming with a friendly warmth that Britain adores, that Britain adores almost enough to ignore the slightly emaciated figure. He can't ignore it, no matter how hard he tries, and no matter how nice he is to her now, he can't help but ignore the slight twitch of his hands, the slight twitch that tries to remind him of all he did and didn't do. He adores her culture now: scoffs down her curries (and his bastardised versions of them) as much as he munches away on his fish and chips, speaks at least three of her languages near fluently and chats away as happy as anything with her emigrants, who he has taken as his own. However, it's not enough for him to adore her culture and cuisine and to speak some of her languages, it's not enough to send aid and help and business. Britain knows that he has a lot to answer for, and that it will take a long time for those scars she carries to become less prominent, but there's nothing else he can do, besides try. So he beams back, and replies, hoping that the foreign language will hide his condition.

"Thaṛī der tong tusī̃ naśar nahī̃ āe!*" replied Britain, watching with a smirk as America's mouth gapes open ever so slightly, as though surprised that Britain can speak Punjabi. Frankly, Britain is just grateful that speaking a foreign language is enough to cover up the condition.

"Ey, Britain!" shouted Ireland, apparently very, very keen to reveal Britain's condition to everyone present. As this World Meeting was dominated by a surprisingly large amount of important countries, Ireland's desire to reveal Britain's current problem was rather understandable. The bigger the countries that are there, the more likely Britain's two-day occasional two-day condition would become common knowledge. If it was common knowledge, this would embarrass Britain beyond reason and amuse his siblings beyond sanity.

"What?" hissed Britain, hissing in an attempt to cover up the problem, which Ireland seemed rather intent on unveiling, "ROI."

"Dat's Éire* ter yer," replied Ireland slightly sharply, though not actually irritated, because he knew Britain was only using the term to try and hide the condition, "An Oi wus jist wonderin' whaen yer were gonna start."

Britain frowns, and the entire room is bemused by his frown, because the rest of the room bothered to look at the agenda in advance, whereas Britain hadn't (as he had been too busy moping about the unfortunate appearance of his condition). The rest of the room were aware that Britain was leading the World Meeting, whereas, despite having his notes with him, Britain had forgotten thanks to his intensive stressing over the condition's possibility of ruining his reputation once and for all. He sees Ireland's infuriatingly gleeful gaze and looks down, at the agenda, and begins to remember why he is sitting at the focal point of the room, with a lectern immediately to his right. His face as he realises this is so horrified, that other present nations actually began to worry.

"Are you okay?" asked India, looking up, with concern present in her bright eyes, "Is everything okay?"

"Ze almighty Grande-Bretagne has not forgotten 'is notes," began France, loudly, tauntingly and altogether with too much of a happy smile on his face, "As he?"

Britain stared blankly for a few seconds. He had very few options. He could run out of the room, but he'd have to explain that later and America would probably chase after him for some bizarre security reasons if a secret service agent didn't tackle him to the ground first. He could pretend to have suffered some major disaster, though they'd all find out a few hours later that this was a load of bollocks and tease him endlessly. He could flat out refuse to do the introduction, but that would be a very bad decision, and would likely reflect badly on his country, beside intensifying curiosity and probably getting the dreaded condition revealed anyway. As far as he could tell, he was doomed no matter what he did at this point, much to the ridiculously exaggerated glee being expressed by Ireland - the arsehole. It was all Wales's fault.

Britain nodded slowly, cleared his voice, mumbled an incoherent apology and stood up. Never before had a roomful of people seemed quite so daunting, which was ridiculous. In his time, Britain had faced much, much worse than a roomful of nations waiting for any available opportunity to taunt him. It was just the condition and Ireland's smug expression, and the lectern didn't do anything to protect him from the pure, unadulterated, pressurising stress he felt bearing down upon him like a very hungry looking wolf. He shuffled his notes around on the lectern in front of him. They weren't in need of shuffling, because they were in perfect order, but he thought it'd kill more time which could only be a good thing given the terrible, terrible words that were about to betray his condition, which had at this point grown so strong, that he began to feel small stirrings of pride. Today, he reasoned, would only end badly.

"Hello everybody," began Britain, pausing with an expression of faint horror as he heard his condition slip past. He panicked briefly, but no one (except ROI) appeared to have noticed, so he continued, flinchingly, "Can everyone hir hir me?"

"Je peux pas!*" declared France, irritatingly enough (Britain swore that man's mission was to annoy him as much as possible), "I can't 'ear you over ze sound of Irlande's* sniggering!"

Britain fired an angry glare at Ireland, which silenced the Celtic Nation… briefly. Once Ireland had temporarily been silenced, Britain repeated his question (again flinching panickedly) and there were nods around the horseshoe formation of desks. Some nods were quite enthusiastic, such as... Canada's, whereas others were lazy half-nods, that indicated a half-interest that was probably only engaged in the first place because they sensed that something was up with their first speaker. Britain, who was beginning to develop a nervous cold sweat, couldn't help but wonder what evil genius had concocted an agenda where the meeting's hosting nation wasn't the nation doing the bloody introductions. Then again, Britain pondered quickly, it would have been Poland doing the introductions... maybe the evil genius wasn't quite so evil as sensible.

"Right, az we orl know," continued Britain, holding back a flinch, "The Sickth Meeting ov the International Advisory Committee ov UNESCO's Memory ov the World Programme iz being held upstairz."

Britain looked around nervously. He felt sorry for the lectern, frankly. It was a miracle the lectern hadn't splintered, given the intense amount of pressure he was applying to its sides. He was, though he'd never have admitted it to anyone ever, shitting himself. Anyone could hear the dreaded condition at any moment and then they'd be tearing into him like a pack of wild dogs. How they hadn't heard it already was a wonder in itself, particularly given the cues Ireland was giving them with his horrified and traumatised expression. Maybe they weren't noticing it? No. That was ridiculous. How could they not notice it? Maybe there was something wrong with the microphone that was hiding it...

"I've bin told that most ov ar speekers will be talking tuhday abowt their projects or the projects their country iz submitting," continued Britain, "Duz anyone have any questions?"

He was cutting out a massive chunk of his prepared notes in order to speak as little as possible. From what he could tell from the small self-deprecating, bizarre pride that was beginning to burn within him, it would only take one person to spot the condition for things to spiral out of control. It would only take one misplaced comment, one negative word, one case of mistaken identity for the condition to worsen and become more obvious and then Britain's life would officially be over and he'd have to start sending Scotland to meetings instead just to avoid the inevitable shame that would come with showing his face.

Britain scanned the room, counting to ten in his head and becoming more hopeful with every passing second that his mind acknowledged. Then, just as his mental clock was striving towards the wonderful, magical number of ten, he saw a hand slither lazily upwards from the one corner of the room that he had been hoping with all his heart would keep quiet. Why must the Republic of Ireland get involved? Why was he putting his hand up with the sort of maniacal grin that should only exist in cartoons? Why were his brothers such incorrigible bastards? Britain glared angrily at his brother, which only invoked further interest in whatever it was that was going on, and Ireland's continued maniacal evil smile did nothing to help dissipate the growing interest.

"Wot?" hissed Britain, visibly flinching as he hears himself, "Wot d'yuh want?"

"Ah nathin'," began Ireland with a smile indicating that it was very much not 'nothing' and that it was indeed a something that would be of colossal interest to everyone else in the room, "Oi wus jist wonderin' if Birmingham wus okay."

"Wot abowt it?" hissed Britain, having visibly reacted to the name of his second largest city, and even going so far as to entirely unconsciously place his hand over where his liver resided.

"Tis jist dat yer look like yer in pain," Ireland continued with a maniacal grin that was somehow growing more and more maniacal with each passing second, "An' we al' know how rank Birmingham can be."

The reaction was immediate and utterly unexpected by all but two people in the room. No sooner had Ireland finished speaking, than an unhealthily heavy glass paperweight was sailing through the air towards him. All the eyes but two pairs of eyes in the room followed the flight path of the paperweight until it narrowly avoided hitting the ducking Ireland's head and skittered off towards the wall, taking a layer of carpet with it as it did. Slowly, as though expecting that if they moved too quickly they would also be greeted by a glass paperweight, the eyes of the room fell onto Britain, who was in a condition no one really expected, or, more importantly, understood.

One hand was unconsciously hovering over his liver, and the other was clamped around another glass paperweight, ready to fire it off in any direction at any moment. What was unexpected, however, was that the Briton's eyes were burning with an intensely stubborn fury, that no one had really seen for a good number of years. His thick eyebrows were furrowed to such a degree that it was impossible to tell whether they were separate entities at all, and his face was flushed ever so slightly pink, which was a sure sign that he was becoming incredibly irritated, incredibly quickly. It was a bizarre unfolding of events to say the very least.

"Wot waz that, Ireland?" growled Britain, "I didn't quite catch that."

"Oi wus jist sayin' dat it looks like Birmingham's causin' yer sum pain," continued Ireland, entirely unaffected by the intense glare of death that was being projected towards him, "Waat wi' 'ow shite it is."

"Dude, what's going on?" whispered America to France during the exchange.

"I do not know," replied France shrugging in a quintessentially French way, "But it will be interesting."

"Sorry, wot?" grumbled Britain, rumbling away like a thunderstorm does as it slowly approaches your house, "Wot were yuh sayin'?"

"Yer nu, yer voice sounds aff an' all," replied Ireland, blatantly undeterred by the daggers being fired in his direction by a very furious, British glare, "Yer almost sound Northern."

Oh that was the very last straw of Britain's admittedly very short patience, and in retrospect, maybe Ireland shouldn't have brought up the Northern/Southern issue, as it did end up giving him a mild concussion, as a result of the force with which the second paperweight had been thrown. The force behind the second paperweight was in fact so strong that the blue glass fractured ever so slightly. It was all too easy to forget that Britain was all too capable of punching a great deal higher than his weight should reasonably allow. Aside from that factor, anger is known to increase accuracy, power and swearing in the British Isles nations, so getting Britain angry when there was a paperweight in reach was probably not one of Ireland's better ideas.

"Birmingham iz not in the North, you dozey backwater tosser!"

"Oh," began Ireland, almost giving off the air of sincere regret before a shit-eating smile graced his face and he added, "Is it in de South den?*"

Unfortunately, as there were no paperweights left, Ireland had clearly completely not thought about this plan in advance, as, faced with no other small things to throw at his sibling, Britain decided that the lectern looked increasingly appealing. Having already raised and lifted the lectern above his head, with some insane innate anger that would later earn him the nickname 'Hulk', Britain was only discouraged from throwing the damned object at Ireland because India gently squeezed his shoulder. India's presence, particularly given Britain's current condition meant that he calmed down almost immediately, if only because he imagined he would be rewarded with a curry or chocolate bar for doing so*.

"Duuude!" drolled America, apparently impressed by Britain's not entirely unusual display of violence, "What is wrong with you?"

"Oui, Grande-Bretagne," said France, joining in with America because he could, "You do not normally attack your brozer like zis."

"And, dude, what's happened to your voice?"

Britain froze and Ireland's smile widened to such a degree that comparing him to the Joker would feel largely like the understatement of the century. Well, this had turned the tables somewhat. Just when Britain thought he was going to get away without anyone else remarking on the Devil's Accent, America finally plucked up and ruined it. And now the Republic of Ireland was inexplicably retrieving a camcorder from under his seat. How could Britain's life get any worse? Except for maybe being stuck with the accent for the rest of his life, there wasn't really much worse in Britain's view than this meeting becoming what would symbolise the collapse of worldwide respect for the English accent.

"Wot d'yuh mean?"

"It's… uh… you! Canadia!"

"It's Canada."

"How would you describe Britain's weird-ass accent, my main man?"

Quite why America felt the need to push his brother into describing it was largely beyond the vast majority of the room, though Britain felt quite sure that it was just because America lacked the necessary vocabulary to actually formulate a coherent response. No offence to the American, of course, because he could occasionally create absolutely mind-blowing speeches with plenty of words that Britain was pretty sure fell out of British English centuries ago, but this was clearly not one of those moments. The one advantage of asking Canada for a description was that at least Canada's timid vocabulary was consistent.

"Uh… lilting."

Britain paused, as did Ireland, and they both wore an expression of utter shock. 'Lilting' was certainly not the sort of response they were expecting; droning, ugly, hideous, I-want-to-rip-my-ears-out bad maybe, but certainly not 'lilting'.

"Waat do yer mean?" pressed Ireland, barely believing his ears, "Canny yer 'ear 'im?"

"I agree with Canadiana!" declared Poland, who many people, despite being in Poland, had somehow forgotten was even in the room, "It's like listening to a bird!"

"But it'z ugly!" retorted Britain, utterly perplexed as to how on Earth they thought a Brummie accent was lilting and like listening to birdsong, "It'z inferior. It soundz stupid! It'z fucking Brummie!"

"Brummie? Dude, what's that? Like a drink or somethin'?"

"Brummie?" asked India softly, as though the word was conjuring up some sense of familiarity, "This is what Birmingham people speak, right?"

Defeated and resigned to humiliation, Britain nodded, sinking down into his chair so that he could bury his face in his shame. America's laughter, which was ringing out around the room with the same pervasiveness that a fire alarm might wail throughout a building, simply made things worse for the British man, who had begun to assume that his life was officially over. In fact, so sure was he of this fact, that he was beginning to think of amputating his liver, Birmingham, simply to make himself feel (very temporarily) a bit better.

"You say it funny!" announced America blindly, "It's Burr-ming-ham!*"

"Burr-ming-um," grumbled Britain miserably, "Stupid tossing barmpot*."

"Oh!" began India, sounding like a child on Christmas morning, even clapping her hands together enthusiastically, "Brummie is so melodious and flowing! Speak some more, Britain!"

"Oui!" butted in France, as though he would collapse and die if he didn't have the room's attention every other minute, "It sounds much better zan your usual stupid accent."

"Uh," Britain looked up nervously, and with a completely straight face asked, "India, France, have you gone completely barmy? No wait, France was already barmy, but India? India, Brummie iz the worst English accent there iz!"

"Actually, I think we all find Cockney much more threatening." declared Austria from some obscure corner of the room beside Monaco and Andorra that Britain hadn't actually even noticed was there.

"Well, obviously," conceded Britain, as it is foolish to try and deny that Cockney (and Glaswegian) don't somehow make even the most innocent of phrases sound like a threat, "But Brummie iz the worst by far! It'z worse than bloody Geordie*!"

Even though Ireland was nodding viciously in agreement with Britain, the rest of the room of nations, by this point, had entirely lost track. They knew what Cockney was, the only two English accents you hear in American movies are Cockney and 'Posh', so that was fairly obvious, and Brummie had been explained, but that just left this bizarre 'Geordie' thing. I mean, how on Earth were they supposed to have any idea what city Geordie could be referring to? Unless there was a city called George or Geordge somewhere, but how would they know that? It's not like anyone had a map of obscure English cities anywhere.

"It really is." seconded Ireland.

At this point, it was fairly evident that Britain was becoming quite distressed. From what the other nations could tell, he was having one of those nasty days where you take one of your city's accents and the rest of your body viciously revolts against it. It is an unpleasant feeling at best, because one, admittedly small, minority of you feels very proud of the accent, and the rest of you feels it is horrible and ugly and should be wiped from the face of the planet. Poor Britain had managed to stumble into a situation where, not only was the accent disliked by the rest of him, but it was, indeed, the most hated accent of them all*. Every nation had been in that situation before, and so sympathised with him, well, every nation that wasn't as oblivious as a door knob.

"We may as well start ze meeting," stated Austria, unknowingly bringing a small smile to Britain's face (Britain had always found the incapability of non-English speaking nations to pronounce 'th' incredibly amusing*), "Being as we will likely get nowhere wiz it anyway."

In response to the sensible request, Britain sat down, the first speaker went up to speak and the meeting went by without any further disruptions. Actually, that is somewhat of a lie, because the meeting went by with several disruptions, just none of them major enough to warrant someone fetching the first aid kit – not that nations usually needed bandaging or anything, lots of them just liked wearing bandages because they looked 'cool'. France had a very particular reason for wanting to wear bandages (mainly in that it gave you sympathy points when flirting), but even those who had no particular reason, just seemed to like wearing them.

The several disruptions consisted of the usual: America interrupting people to suggest breaks in which he could stuff his face full of food, France groping anything that had legs and moved, and Britain sceptically remarking on every positive that could be drawn from any of the presentations. The other nations were going about their usual business, such as India, who spent every passing moment she wasn't paying attention working out cricket strategies to trounce the England team in the next test matches*. In fact, it was a relatively productive meeting that had, despite both Britain and France being in the same room, gone without further acts of violence until the end.

"Ey," called out Ireland to the rapidly escaping form of Britain, "Ey, Britain!"

"Wot?" hissed Britain, blocking the exit as he turned around to glare waves of daggers at his brother, "Wot d'yuh want now?"

Everyone knew what was coming. They hadn't seen the two brothers fight, like ever, because they were generally very agreeable, but even Birmingham's massive Irish community couldn't stop Britain lashing out at the next comment, which was a culturally specific comment, which flew massively over the heads of everyone except Britain and Ireland. All the room of nations really cared about was getting back to their bosses so that they could moan to them about the fact they'd ever been sent to such a pointless meeting in the first place, particularly when it was only a fraction more productive than a UN meeting (which, when the productivity of the UN could be described as minus several million, doesn't say much).

"Ow am ya?*" stated Ireland, with an appalling imitation of Britain's apparently 'ugly' accent, and bearing a shite-eating grin that could only bode ill.

It was no surprise when Britain leapt over irritated lion style and started trying to thwack his brother in the face with a cricket bat that seemed to spring out of thin air. The rest of the room, not really interested in offering to bandage either of the two psychopathic island nations, left as soon as Britain had vacated the door way. India, bizarrely enough, stayed behind, but as it would later turn out, that was just so she could tell Britain to stop abusing her curries.

If you haven't worked out which city I'm from now, despite constant name-dropping, you should have figured it out by now. Birmingham's accent always sits at the bottom of UK accent polls and is widely frowned upon. Funnily enough, this BBC article 'Brummie is beautiful' revealed it polls very highly with foreigners, who seem to actually like it.

*bab: (Birmingham and Black Country English) roughly equivalent of babe, abbreviated form of 'babby', meaning baby

*'Sixth Meeting of the International Advisory Committee', which was part of UNESCO's 'Memory of the World' programme: it's related to a UNESCO project, but that's all I know

*so he couldn't moan about the Iraq War: a lot of Brits are still sore about the Iraq War, it severely damaged our opinion of Blair and our opinion of America

*Salut: (French) Hello

*Namaskar: (Punjabi Hindu) Hello

*Thaṛī der tong tusī̃ naśar nahī̃ āe!: (Punjabi) Long time no see!

*Éire: (Irish) Ireland

*Je peux pas: (French) I can't

*Irlande : (French) Ireland

*iz not in the North & is it in de South?: there is a North/South divide in England, and people will judge you based on which bit you come from. Now, Birmingham belongs to the West Midlands region, which is part of the larger Midland region, as such, it is neither Northern nor Southern. This is something neither Northerners nor Southerners will understand, and it infuriates us to no end.

*rewarded with a curry or chocolate bar for doing so: Birmingham is famous for its Balti Triangle, and the fact it created the balti, and Cadbury's chocolate, which was invented in Birmingham as well.

*Burr-ming-ham: Americans or non-Brits will say 'ham' instead of 'um', which just makes us laugh when American bands come over and play Birmingham, because they just end up mispronouncing it all of the time.

*barmpot: (Brummie and Black Country slang) silly person

*Geordie: the name given to Newcastle's accent, I'm sure there's another word for it, but I can't remember it.

*the most hated of them all: Brummie has consistently come at the bottom of UK accent polls.

*incapability... to pronounce 'th': most non-English speakers do seem to struggle with it, the French and Germans in particular.

*cricket strategies to trounce the England team: India and England are quite competitive about cricket, and the English (cricket fans) go nuts when we win, because it doesn't actually happen as often as we'd perhaps like.

*ow am ya?: (Black Country) how are you?