Pardon??

Well thank goodness, it's not just me.  At my age, you don't expect to hear quite as well as you did when you were young, but more and more lately I've found the need to switch the subtitles on in order to follow the dialogue in TV shows and films.  But it now seems I am far from alone - the BBC has reported a significant increase in the number of complaints it gets about actors "mumbling" their lines. American shows and films are the biggest problems in my book, because they don't just mumble - they mumble in American, which is even more impenetrable!  I think I've mentioned before that I had absolutely no problem with hearing Hugh Laurie in "Jeeves and Wooster" and "Blackadder" but when I watched a few episodes of "House", I couldn't understand half what he was saying!