Celebration(The article is also completely on this page)Today, July 31st 1998, I checked the amount of visitors on my site. Only half the day the and the number was more than six times the normal amount... What happened? The Guardian, an English newpaper as you propably know, had published an article about Wallace & Gromit. The Internet version of The Guardian also had a section of 'Useful links' at the end of the article. Furthermore, lots of people would read the article (hot topic!), since a big announcement-link was made to it on the Guardian Home Page. It was quite astonishing to see that my 'Wallace & Gromit AND Shaun Picture Paradise' was on top of the list of four sites. I thought "cracking toast, Shaun!" I was filled with some proudness. Now lots of people are appearing on my site. My thanx to the people of the Guardian. And you should read the article, because it is worth reading. Here on the right you can see the article, with some 'highlighted' parts. You can find the article in the Guardian here: The Guardian - MPs get trousers in a twist over Wallace Enjoy this site and The Guardian Have fun! Gwynt Previous Page |
MPs get trousers in a twist over Wallace
By Sarah Hall
They have won two Oscars, been wooed by Hollywood, and had streets named after them. Not bad for a couple of Plasticine figures barely 10in tall.
But, yesterday, the true appeal of Wallace and Gromit - the nation's most successful animation figures - became clear as it emerged that they preoccupy Parliament. MPs are calling for a debate over rumours that the hero's accent had been changed from broad Lancastrian to received pronunciation.
A new video of the Oscar-winning film, The Wrong Trousers, supposedly substituting Wallace's soft northern tones for "clipped Oxford accents", has led 15 MPS to sign an Early Day Motion, stating they are "appalled" at the idea the dialect should alter to teach foreign students English.
The motion says the change is "an insult" to the North. The Lancashire-born Labour MP for Chorley, Lindsay Hoyle, said: "The whole history of Wallace and Gromit is based on the North. Why not leave them as they are and let people see there's an alternative to clipped English?"
But Aardman Animations, the company which produced Nick Park's three acclaimed films, insisted Wallace's accent - provided by Last of the Summer Wine actor Peter Sallis - had not been altered. Simply, local colloquialisms were "explained". Wallacisms like "By 'eck Gromit", and "cracking toast", remained but phrases such as "I'm down to my last few coppers" became "We have only got a few pence", while "I'll get the bounders", became "I can catch him".
Robert Maidment, video publishing manager at Oxford University Press, which has produced the video, released last week, said: "There's no sense we are trying to impose some sort of English accent. That would be appalling... the last thing Nick, who comes from Preston, would want. All we are trying to do is to make the original film understandable... It's been simplified because some of the phrases are just too impenetrable."
But Mr Hoyle remained unimpressed. "It's the thin edge of the wedge," he said.