Real Brits and Fake Brits

When I drive back from the parent-teen group I do on Tuesday nights, I listen to NPR. When I drive anywhere, I listen to NPR, actually, but the Tuesday night thing is what I'm on about now. Linda Hunt moderates an Arts Something or Other program. You know, Linda Hunt, the wee American actress who so wonderfully played a guy in that movie with Mel Gibson. (I saw her once in the produce section at my local supermarket--and she was sorta wonderfully playing a guy there too.) I don't know why Linda Hunt is moderating this arts program, but she clearly intends her accent to show how artsy she is. She speaks the Queen's English thicker than a Buckingham Palace valet--except when she doesn't, when she forgets or gets excited or somehow slips right back into an American twang. It annoys me. Phoniness annoys me. Bad phoniness in particular annoys me. Because I am such a straight shooter myself.