THIS weekend I am in the Midlands at the absolutely bostin Black Country Folk Festival at Himley Hall, near the equally bostin Enville Brewery which makes my favourite ever beer, Enville Ginger. (“Bostin” is the local equivalent to the southern epithet “the dog’s bollocks,” by the way. Translation: brilliant and then some.)

I love language, accents and dialects and the fact that, despite the homogenising effect of modern mainstream media, these can still change so much in a relatively short distance.

It’s 50 miles from the striking vocal inflections of new Black Country ambassador, Kingswinford’s superb singer/songwriter Jess Silk, to the impenetrable Gloucestershire twang of my late uncle Maurice from Chalford Hill near Stroud, who died last Tuesday aged 89. (Rest in peace, Mar.)  But accent-wise, it’s a different world, and long may it remain so.