ON the spur of the moment some friends of mine visited Wales last weekend, and spent Saturday night in a village pub with a Geordie country-singing duo providing the entertainment.

Imagine their surprise when the pair stopped the proceedings and said: "And now we'll sing an Oasis number for the Manchester couple at the bar," indicating my stunned, thoroughly Lancastrian friends.

It seems to me that when it comes to accents, Lancashire is the forgotten county. While the pair of pool hustlers in the tap room were indignant that people hadn't recognised they were from Birkenhead, it's perfectly acceptable for everyone to just ignore Lancashire altogether - lumping us in with 'mad for it' Mancunians and dour Yorkshiremen.

Well, my pals made a stand. "We're from Ossy and we're proud!" they announced. That shut them up.

Until someone said "G'day."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.