Thanks, Steve I'll check it out (and will be coming back this thread for any more suggestions).
 
Just watched the proper first ep of Rab (the pilot was that Christmas one "Seasonal Greetings"... the first ep is "Work"). Definitely good stuff.
 
Also, despite the thicker accent, I'm not having a hard time with it at all now. Very very similar to the east coast Canuck accent (specifically Newfoundlander) which I guess explains why I didn't have much of a hard time understanding folks when I visited Glasgow/Edinburgh. It's just a little harsher and of course the patter is a bit different.
 
Really the only place on the island where I simply could not understand a word was in Newcastle. It was mildly terrifying actually because I wasn't sure if folks were being friendly or about to rip my lungs out. Turns out they were being friendly... or at least they warmed up to me so my lungs remained in place. lol
 
I did not pass through Wales though. I think I would have a hard time with that dialect... but that's supposedly almost an entirely different language.
 
Cheers.

Beepster
 
 
 
I did not pass through Wales though. I think I would have a hard time with that dialect... but that's supposedly almost an entirely different language.
 
 

 
Yes, Wales has it's own language. My family on my mother's side are Welsh (mum's name is Myfanwy). Tidbit - no letter 'v' in the Welsh language.
 
 

Beepster
Really the only place on the island where I simply could not understand a word was in Newcastle. It was mildly terrifying actually because I wasn't sure if folks were being friendly or about to rip my lungs out. Turns out they were being friendly... or at least they warmed up to me so my lungs remained in place. lol
 

 
When I worked on Nantucket for a year I lived in a house rented by my boss for his workers (we were all painters). I shared the house with 3 Brazilian guys. It transpired that there was some bad feeling and friction between me and them, at least in their eyes - I was oblivious to it. Eventually my boss took me to one side and said look, it's not what you say to them, it's the way you say it. They're misinterpreting your Geordie accent and they think you're talking down to them in an aggressive manner. So apparently when I was, to my ears, politely (even jokingly) informing one of them that perhaps it was his turn to clean the kitchen, he heard a threatening tone in my voice as if I saw myself as his superior. It was all news to me, I always thought people from Newcastle were perceived as being super affable, lol....
 
I think the Geordie accent can be one of the most unintelligible in Britain when spoken in its thickest form. I remember taking the last bus home on a Friday night in Newcastle and listening to the drunken Geordie conversations around me, and even though I grew up there and speak the lingo fluently, if I "defocused" my ears a little I could hear it as a completely foreign language. 
 

sharke
I shared the house with 3 Brazilian guys. 

 
Wow!  That's a lot of guys!  

sharke
 
 
 
I think the Geordie accent can be one of the most unintelligible in Britain when spoken in its thickest form.
 

 
Let's see what the good chaps here make of Oz..
 

 
Another great series btw Beeps..'Auf Weidersehen Pet', about a motley crew of British workmen in Germany (and elsewhere) 

Hi,
 
There are a lot of things worth watching ... one I really enjoyed was "Cracker" way back when with Robbie Coltrane ... it was wonderful. Later, the original "House of Cards" with Ian Richardson was stupendous, and I'm saddened that folks that saw the American version thought it was good, and it wasn't. One fun one, was "Red Dwarf", whose 2 leads ended up in that series on the Stargate's towards the end. They were fun in there, but in the Stargate show, the chemistry did not click for me.
 
Haven't watched a whole lot recently. Got me the Ken Russell DVD set which had a bunch of his BBC specials and some of them are great ... the one on Rousseau, Debussy, Elgar, Isadora Duncan and then DG Rossetti, are excellent to watch ... and informative in many ways. By the time he did Rossetti, however, he was name dropping so fast that you and I get thrown at the gate and miss the "intellectual" joke!
 
Ken Russell's biographies have always been very good, and the only one I do not care for is Lizst. The film "Impromptu" is way better, but it is about George Sand a bit more, though!

jamesg1213

sharke
 
 
 
I think the Geordie accent can be one of the most unintelligible in Britain when spoken in its thickest form.
 

 
Let's see what the good chaps here make of Oz..
 

 
Another great series btw Beeps..'Auf Weidersehen Pet', about a motley crew of British workmen in Germany (and elsewhere) 

 
This was hands down the best TV show of the 80's. I watched it as a kid when it was first on TV around 1983 or so. I even had the book, and bought the theme tune on vinyl. This was a landmark show for Geordies because it was pretty much the first time the Geordie accent had been properly portrayed on TV without being watered down. Previous to that we had things like The Likely Lads, which, while being an absolute TV comedy classic, got the accents completely wrong. The producers of Auf Weidersehen Pet gave Jimmy Nail, Kevin Whately and Tim Healy absolute free reign to talk as they normally would without toning it down at all. There's one scene where Dennis stops Oz (the guy in that video) on the building site and says can I have a word, and Oz says what can only be described as "whaddayawantamawayowafo'abevvy" which sounds absolutely unintelligible unless you're a Geordie and can translate it into "What do you want, I'm on my way to the pub." 
 
Absolutely fantastic show and all on YouTube, I watched it all again a few years ago. Of course it didn't just feature Geordies, there were also great performances from Pat Roach (Bomber), the late Gary Holton (Wayne) and one of my all time favorite actors Timothy Spall as the lovable Brummie radish Barry. Might start watching it all again, it's so good. 

sharke

jamesg1213

sharke
 
 
 
I think the Geordie accent can be one of the most unintelligible in Britain when spoken in its thickest form.
 

 
Let's see what the good chaps here make of Oz..
 

 
Another great series btw Beeps..'Auf Weidersehen Pet', about a motley crew of British workmen in Germany (and elsewhere) 

 
This was hands down the best TV show of the 80's. I watched it as a kid when it was first on TV around 1983 or so. I even had the book, and bought the theme tune on vinyl. This was a landmark show for Geordies because it was pretty much the first time the Geordie accent had been properly portrayed on TV without being watered down. Previous to that we had things like The Likely Lads, which, while being an absolute TV comedy classic, got the accents completely wrong. The producers of Auf Weidersehen Pet gave Jimmy Nail, Kevin Whately and Tim Healy absolute free reign to talk as they normally would without toning it down at all. There's one scene where Dennis stops Oz (the guy in that video) on the building site and says can I have a word, and Oz says what can only be described as "whaddayawantamawayowafo'abevvy" which sounds absolutely unintelligible unless you're a Geordie and can translate it into "What do you want, I'm on my way to the pub." 
 
Absolutely fantastic show and all on YouTube, I watched it all again a few years ago. Of course it didn't just feature Geordies, there were also great performances from Pat Roach (Bomber), the late Gary Holton (Wayne) and one of my all time favorite actors Timothy Spall as the lovable Brummie radish Barry. Might start watching it all again, it's so good. 

 
Also featured a very young Ray Winstone in one episode, and the late Michael Elphick as the complete psycho 'McGowan'
 
It's in my top 3 TV shows ever, I loved it. What I like about watching it now is that they take time to tell a story in a linear fashion, it's quite slow moving (I think the first two series were 13 episodes of 50 minutes each?), and with none of the leaping back and forth in time and manic editing that more modern shows seem to have.

Yeah Ray Winstone looks so damn young in it...great actor. 
 
It was definitely raw TV from another era. No pretense, no flash, no tedious attempts at being artistic or trippy, no stupid flashbacks or dream sequences or camera trickery or pointless special effects, just good old fashioned gritty working class drama. It had some great peripheral characters too. Like the woman in season 2 who played Dennis's sister. She was utterly convincing as a homely Geordie housewife, a real gem. And of course Oz's ex wife Marjorie, played by the wonderful Su Elliot. 
 
Fun story: I was once approached in Newcastle by a girl with a tray of sausage roll samples from Greggs. As I politely declined it dawned on me that she was the actress who played Ally Frasier's girlfriend Vicky in season 2. Of course my unshakable Geordie tact compelled me to cry out: "Eeeeh! Didn't you used to be on the telly!"
 
She literally turned and ran away. Poor girl. 

I actually did try out some Auf *mumble* Pet again after seeing sharke and a few others rave on it. It definitely had promise but fershure extremely hard to understand. I might give it another go though after some of the other suggestions made here. My ears might be a little more tuned in and able cut through the accents.
 
A lot of the times it's the expressions that are the real barrier. I've realized that some of the stuff I thought was just getting obscured by accents are actually slang, sayings and expressions I'd never heard before... which of course are dripping with the accents too confusing things further.
 
Definitely loving the word "manky" though. Hopefully that's not considered a TOS violating swear but it's a great way to describe something/someone filthy. lol