Friday, I was out at the SICM with Ana, and her friend, and his friend Mary

And her mother (the friend of a friend's mother, that is) was there, and I was playing that game I play - is that an Australian accent or a British one?

I'm not very good at this game, but I play it anyway whenever I'm confronted with a possibly-Aussie-or-Brit.

By an amazing quirk of luck, she had the opportunity to tell her child "You fill down!" (the kid was fine), which enabled me to successfully peg her accent as New Zealand and get a literal pat on the back. Apparently, nobody had ever done that before!

I've heard New Zealand accents before, I'm sure, but if I ever heard that particular marker, short i for e, I didn't notice it. But I've read about it and was able to identify it accurately, thus proving that personal experience isn't, after all, everything. You can still get by by doing nothing more than reading a lot.






Which is good, because I spend so much time reading that I just don't get out that much!