The message
from Frogleg contains these words:
On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 01:17:12 GMT, Jaques d'Alltrades
wrote:

Unforgets me of the summer of 1963 when i was a barman in a Perthshire
hotel. We had this USian guest who was, er, rather expert at sinking the
spiritual stuff.

snip the story

We're not *all* hopeless, you know. Nor are all of you. :-) When I
was in London (glorious!) some people sought to 'compliment' me by
remarking "you don't *sound* American." I had no clue what they meant.
That I didn't sound Texan or Georgian or Bostonian or as if I were
from da Bronx? How can people from a an area half the size of
California with more regional accents than France has cheeses believe
there's such a thing as an 'American' mode of speech?

I wasn't suggesting you were all hopeless. We rather enjoyed the company
of our guest. At the same time though, there was the a fellow at the
other end of the scale.

Typical cartoon of everyone's idea of a Texan - everything was bigger
and better there. There wasn't any malice in him, he was just a rancher
(yes, really a rancher) who was superproud. Nothing wrong with that, but
he had a habit of putting his foot in it with an ill-turned phrase.

Sitting in the cocktail bar he was chatting with Peter Sharpe, a local
farmer. He was telling Peter how he had flown over in his own plane (and
he had). Peter was a man of few words, and just listened. He had just
come in for an afternoon drink, having been working on the farm all
morning, and was dressed accordingly.

When he got up to go, our Texan said: "I sure like talking to you local
yokels." This amused Peter - he could have bought our guest out several
times over.

He would charter an air freighter and fill it with his pedigree horses
and fly them out to the US. You remember ('sixties or 'seventies) that
horrendously expensive bull which wouldn't? That was one of his.

He used to round up sheep driving a new Mercedes - and the village
blacksmith kept a stock of new sumps in....

Unfortunately it's those examples which spring to mind: you meet the
average USian and they're remarkable for being unremarkable.

Just remembered a Mayor of Chicago who was over in Scotland and entered
Tossing the Caber in the Auchterarder Highland Games.

It was a typical cool summer's day and he appeared with a kilt over
tracksuit bottoms and was - er - discouraged.

He was (to my young eyes) elderly, rather overweight and not too good at
the event, but he persevered until he tossed the caber properly, and got
a round of tumultuous applause - genuine, generous applause for his
determination to succeed, and in no way derisive.

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/