Saturday, May 1st, 2010
FAMOUS FEATURES BLOG
By Alexandra McGowan for Famous Features
‘You say tomay-to, I say tomar-to,’ goes the classic sung by jazz legends Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.
Here in the Famous Features office, we feel like we’re living that song on a daily basis.
This week, there’s been a potent mix of: Crawley (Sally) Germany (Stef), Newcastle (boy Joe), Essex (girl Jo), Glasgow (Lorna) and Manchester (me), all in the one office.
What a melting pot of accents and dialects, and a great excuse to poke fun at each other.
‘Here you gan, pet,’ read one of my emails on Monday. Joe had sent me something to edit, and apparently that was Geordie for ‘Here you go, love.’
‘Nay bother,’ trills our lovely new girl Lorna as she speaks to people about their incredible real life stories, as we sell them to national newspapers and magazines.
‘It’s DAIN-GEROUS!’ exclaims our editor, Sally Windsor, who hails from Crawley but often slips into a sairf-London drawl.
We have concluded that no-one uses the word ‘Wally’ apart from her, either. Is that a suvvern fing as well?
Stef constantly impressed us with her ability to interview in English professionally and completely fluently, before babbling away on her mobile if one of her German friends called her.
And girl Jo? ‘Alright my darlin’’ she drawls in her dulcet Colchester tones. Even though she doesn’t wear white heels, she’s Essex through and through.
The differences between us all lead to no end of hilarity and confusion. For example, when Lorna thinks someone is attractive, we think she’s saying that they’re ‘fat’ – because that’s how it sounds when she says ‘fit’. Jokes!
Do you have a funny story to tell about accents and dialect? Did you meet your now-hubby, who has a completely different accent to you, through a funny misunderstanding down to the different ways you spoke?
Or has an accident left you with a completely different accent, as in the case of Sarah Colwill, who now speaks with a Chinese accent after experiencing chronic migraine pain?
It’s an unusual story, and one that we would be able to sell for a great fee to one of the women’s magazines, or national newspapers.
Get in touch with your funny accent stories – we can’t wait to hear them, whichever part of the country you’re from!
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
We urgently need these stories right now…. (see story requests below).
Simply visit www.FamousFeatures.co.uk to tell us if you would like to get paid to feature in any of these true life stories. Just fill in our online form.
Or, get in touch if you have any other stories that you would like us to consider.
Updated Daily
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Person or Story Wanted: Any Summertime Stories to fill the magazine’s summer specials/issues.
Where the story will appear: Various Women’s Magazines.
More info: Looking for any holiday stories to fill the summer pages of all of the magazines that we contribute to. Holiday romances, injuries and illnesses, heartbreak, disasters and so on. We’ll pay you for your story.
Person or Story Wanted: Individual who has suffered cardiac problems due to cocaine – or a relative of someone who has died.
Where the story will appear: Daily Newspaper Story.
More info: Looking for an individual, man or woman, who has suffered cardiac problems as a result of taking cocaine. And/ or an individual who has lost a relative after they died as a result of cocaine causing a fatal heart attack.
Person or Story Wanted: When plastic / cosmetic surgery goes wrong. Horribly wrong.
Where the story will appear: Weekly women’s magazine.
More info: We are writing a story to warn women about the dangers of cosmetic surgery.
Person or Story Wanted: I gave my baby to my parents.
Where the story will appear: Daily Newspaper Story.
More info: We are looking for the real life version of the Eastenders storyline where pregnant teen Lucy offers to give her baby to her parents Ian and Jane.
The real mum should be quite young, like Lucy and didn’t want to abort the baby but knew that her parents would be able to give it a good upbringing. Ideally the parents should have wanted another child, but were unable to have more for whatever reason.
It should be a positive story, looking at how the relationships have worked well, how the child has benefitted from having loving grandparents and how the mum has enjoyed having her child around.
Person/Story Criteria: The mum should have had the child in her teens. Her parents can be any age. The child can be any age now up to a teenager. This will require a chat with the whole family and a family picture. We will pay a fee on publication.
Person or Story Wanted: Women who love their very different bodies.
Where the story will appear: Sunday Newspaper Story.
More info: We are looking for women who have unusual/different bodies. Their faces must be considered ‘good looking’ and have bodies that are different from the norm. Examples of what we\’re looking for are:
-A very large woman who\’s proud of her plus size curves.
-A very tall woman.
-A very short woman.
-A woman with a lot of tattoos on her body.
-A female bodybuilder.
-A female amputee.
Any other women who have ‘different’ bodies to the norm, are beautiful and love how they look. We would prefer for them not to have appeared in the press before.
Person/Story Criteria: Aged 18-35, Female.
Person or Story Wanted: His affair made us stronger….
More info: URGENTLY looking for a couple case study where the woman has forgiven her partner for cheating. We just need a short chat about how she forgave him and move on. Need a picture of them together, but we could pixellate his face if necessary and pay generous fee…
Person/Story Criteria: 20-45
Person or Story Wanted: Looking for a woman or man who’s marriage has been affected by their mother in law.
Where the story will appear: Daily Newspaper Story.
More info: as Ashley Cole blames his mother in law for marriage breakdown, we’re looking to talk to couples who have been through similar experiences. Maybe they lived with their mother in law and their marriage has improved since she moved out? Maybe the husband feels the Mother in law negatively affected their marriage. Whatever the mother in law story we’d been keen to hear it! Thanks.
Person or Story Wanted: A woman, aged under 36, who has HIV and who contracted it through a heterosexual relationship.
Where the story will appear: Glossy Women’s Magazine Story.
More info: We’d ideally like a woman who will be identified.
Person or Story Wanted: Where the story will appear: Glossy Women’s Magazine Story.
More info: We are looking for men and women aged 18-35, who have been left by a partner, or who left their partner, for someone of the same sex. Generous fee paid.
Person or Story Wanted: “I gave my man a makeover”
Where the story will appear: Woman’s Weekly Magazine.
More info: We need men in their 20s who have had an image overhaul at their girlfriend’s request – eg extensive dental work, laser hair removal, cosmetic surgery etc.
Person/Story Criteria: Couple in their 20s – both would need to come to photoshoot.
Person or Story Wanted: Victims of copycat brides.
More info: Looking for comments/anecdotes from brides who have had their wedding ideas copied by another bride, or who copied someone else’s wedding – anonymity is fine! The sorts of anonymous examples I’m after are anecdotes from brides who had to deal with things like another friend announcing she’s marrying the same week as you, or in the same venue with the same band and decor, or buying the same dress, or having the exact same readings, first dance and ring, or copying your invites etc – so not just friendly borrowing of a nice idea but getting a bit OTT with the copycat behaviour! Especially if they had similar guest lists or, even worse, the copycat ends up having her wedding first and then the bride feared looking like she copied her!
