THE court case held up by the need to “translate” the accused’s Geordie accent has drawn attention to how little we understand each other in the British Isles.

It reminded me of what must surely be an urban myth about another hearing in Scotland, in which the accused or witness – to defence lawyers, these are often the same thing – was a native German who spoke no English.

The judge asked if anyone in court had the expertise to relay questions in German and translate answers into English. A worthy in the public gallery averred that he could and stepped forward onto the floor.

The first question was pretty straightforward and so, pinning an imaginary monocle to his eye and adopting his most fiendish, war-film, SS interrogator accent, this public spirited citizen said: “Vot is your name?”

The reason I sometimes think this story is not apocryphal is that, the way I heard it, the would-be translator quickly became the accused and was sent down for contempt of court. But perhaps that was a tale that grew in the telling. Indeed, later (or was it earlier?), Uncle Albert did the same thing down the pub in Only Fools and Horses.

That story in itself reminds me of the factual-style tale told in the documentary series, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, in which Hitler survived the war and settled down in Minehead, Somerset.

Wishing to stand in a local by-election, he changed his name to Adolf Hilter without anyone cottoning on, but was nearly caught out when his party colleague Ron Vibbentrop denied being Von Ribbentrop, saying: “Nein! Nein! Ha, ha, ha! No, different other chap. I in Somerset am being born.”

(They didn’t come unstuck even after that or when a fellow B&B guest noticed the map they were looking at for a supposed hiking trip to Bideford: “You’ve got the wrong map there. This is Stalingrad. You want Ilfracombe and Barnstaple.”)

My monograph so far has focused inadvertently on misunderstandings with people of a foreign or otherwise suspicious disposition. But it is surely a cause for celebration when we in the British Isles cannot understand each other.

It means that local dialects are alive and well, despite evidence on the TV and elsewhere that they are dying. Welsh, for example – and to me it is the loveliest of accents – seems to have gone altogether. That is to say, every Welsh person brought before the nation to account for themselves now speaks in a southern English accent.

Speaking of which, I wonder if there are many Cockney accents left. It is another accent that I like, along with Brummie, both of which many people affect to deplore.

Indeed, in the privacy of my own home, I speak to myself in a Cockney accent when trying to convince myself that I am streetwise and not at all bookish. In the garden, I address small birds and other endearing creatures in Shetlandic. I expect you do too.

Certainly, I wouldn’t wish to scare off the dunnocks by barking at them in an Ulster accent, which at least seems – perhaps appropriately – ineradicable. They haven’t surrendered to Received Pronunciation (RP). And, while that brogue may at times seem a trifle aggressive, it all adds to the gaiety of nations in Britland. Memo to DUP: when I say gaiety I’m not referring to matters of a conjugal or concupiscent nature.

I hope we don’t understand each other. We Scots, of course, cannot lecture others about language. Often, we too come across as being aggressive. Climbing up the British social ladder, our “Splendid, old chap” still comes out as: “I’ll stick the heid on your nose, pal.”

At any rate, I – despite shamelessly changing my Leith accent to climb the social ladder from hobo to proletarian – remain Scottish enough to get irritated when, waiting to listen to the PM programme on BBC Radio 4, I hear Scotsman Eddie Mair inevitably introduced as “Eddie Meh”.

It’s always been the trouble for me with RP users: they don’t speak English properly. But RP, or Estuary English these days, is the gold standard, and all deviations from it are seen as somehow “wrong”. And that’s not right.

Surely, we all like going different places and hearing different accents? My own limited travels indicate that not all is lost. And, sometimes, the telly news features local accents, usually when the speaker is not an official spokesperson for something, but a common or garden peasant caught up in some incident or drama.

The English comedian Bill Bailey does a funny routine that gently mocks the way we Scots say, “Is this you?”, “Aye, this is me.” So, on that note, this is me away. And if you’re still here, let me quote the Govan philosopher Nesbitt: “Beat it.”