No music lover needing to keep in with the latest fads can afford to miss the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4. Yesterday morning, for instance, they turned their thoughts to the erudite phenomenon of British popular music artists singing with American accents.
To demonstrate their point, they introduced Scottish twin-set The Proclaimers, who gamely talked through their decision to retain their accents, even though they knew it would cost them sales. Integrity was the gist, although the word was never used.
After a snatch of their hit 500 Miles was played, they volunteered to reproduce it, but this time in a star-spangled tone. And as I, John Humphreys and surely three million other listeners observed, no matter how important being true to themselves was, avoiding an American accent was a wise idea for good practical reasons too.