My mother tongue is German and I am 79 years old. I learnt ("the Queen's") English at school in Germany and then, when I was 19, during about 4 years in England (mainly Lancashire) and Scotland (mainly Glasgow). Later, I used to work with North Americans, married a Canadian (from Alberta) and adapted my English accordingly. Throughout the years, I came across many English accents - even Irish, Indian and Australian. But I must say, I had never come across such an atrocious, unintelligible accent as the Islington(?) one spoken by Laura Trevelyan! It took me a number of months to understand about 50% of her sentences - with the help of subtitles. I tried to figure out her linguistic idiosyncrasy and found that she tends to stretch her mouth sideways with most vowels, as well as often using "w" where there should be an "r" (e.g., "Amaawiken" instead of "American"). There's no faultfinding with her personality etc.: she is friendly, good-looking and very educated. However, has nobody ever told her that she could take lessons in elocution?? Until then, please, PLEASE, replace her on BBC News "Amaahwika" with someone who has an intelligible accent - even if her husband is a "big cheese" at ABC!