I've been to Britain twice (once that I remember - I was 2yrs old the first time I went!), and it is very true that accents vary greatly... Same thing in every country! We had an English GAP student staying with us for about 6 months recently. He was from Yorkshire, and his mother has a VERY strong (low[er] class) accent. He himself had had elocution lessons to overcome ending up with this accent himself. He therefore had what I guess you could call a highly cultured accent, but over the course of his stay (he leaves for the UK in a couple of weeks), it has been well noted that he has picked up many local mannerisms, and even some of the accent! What I mentioned about 'yeah' and 'yes' was just a little such thing that was noticed with our Pom. Of course there is great variety, but I think that that little reference might yet be quite applicable for the upper-middle class 'typical' British accent (I'm avoiding 'stereotypical', because that's always over the top and misleading). Perhaps that generational thing mentioned earlier applies with this situation, and it certainly seems to in Australia.