Global Warning

Andrew

Isn't this getting a bit repetitive now?

Ed Lancey

He should never have given up the day job. He is turning into an expense account bore. Although I see the conference were too stingy to fly him out on a non-charter flight.

David Short

Try Ryanair. I'm sure the 'flight attendants' there must have taken compulsory lessons in 'customer hostility'.

I try to avoid using the airline now, but when I do I absolutely never bother to smile or say hello, goodbye or thank you to them. It is never reciprocated, and they probably prefer surliness anyway...

By the way, don't forget that your own managing director contributed to the vulgarisation of British society when he dumbed down the previously excellent Sunday Times, which enriched my life as a young 'proletarian' when edited by Harold Evans!

EyeSee

Theo, you are a gem. It is as it is and if we could be rid of the real bores, the foul-mouthed English and have back the real English, then that would, strangely be progress. I defer to you Sir, not least because deferrence is a step in the right direction. You carry on saying what you like, because that is what I like.

Judith

On this side of the Atlantic, your British reputation of mannerly sophisticates & consummate gentelmen preceeds the evident reality of the more boorish Brit that you describe. Maybe it's all the upstairs-downstairs British television shows we watch in the States that enforces this misconceived idea we Americans have of the polite British. Thought it was an abberation when traveling in Hong Kong amidst all the British expatriates & watched them congregate in loud, druken stupor even in the most upscale hotel bars & city restaurants. Struggling to place my heavy carry-on suitcaste in the overhead bin of a British Airline plane, I figured some helpful English gentelmen would jump to assit me only to be rescued by a humble, classy American.

Lydia

I haven't experienced the British in Britian, but have endured the worst through the net. The hardest to deal with are the young British women. The men are still a bit more decent. The women's comments on various blogs remind me of what Basil Fawlty said: There is only one brain between the lot of them. These are the young college women, mind you, a class that I used to think of as being more refined and knowledgeable about civilization.