From York to RP: Be a teacher for 5 minutes

Hi all,

I'm a native English speaker, born and grew up in York, England (but with parents who have a mix of accents - dad's from Stirling in Scotland whilst mum is from Derby).

I've been volunteering for a few months at a local drama group, and I'm starting to see that it might be worth my while to tone down my accent. Unfortunately, one of the first things people mention when they meet me is that I've got a strange accent and don't know where I'm from (but not in a good way - basically a mix of influences that confuses them!).

So I've been working on toning down my accent for a couple of months now, and my ideal is to eventually be able to learn Received Pronunciation, or something more like Standard English.

My request to you is:
- Listen to the recording here, which is a reading of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London
- Tell me what leaps out at you, as feedback to someone wanting to move towards RP.

Examples:

• Where would you think I'm from?
• What areas do I need to work on most?

(I've been working from a book, but it didn't come with audio or anything, so I'm waiting for an audio CD for RP training to arrive in the post. Your feedback would help me in the meantime.)