MichaelR: Sweeney & I had, as you say, a 'dust-up'; i.e a brief disagreement just between the two of us; now reconciled if you look. I can't feel it just to call that 'mean-spirited' in the same sense as the drawing attention to the comment about Ms Boyle's intellectual capacities on another thread, about which you may recall I agreed with you in the very next post to yours denouncing it; but from which you nevertheless extrapolated the generalisation over which SpleenCringe took issue with you.

You appear to me to be confusing two different sorts of discourse to mount an ill-considered attack on the bona fides of UK posters in general — American ones being invariably sweetness·&·light in their posts, no doubt!?.

You say you were 'just holding up a mirror': are not those who do that liable to catch sight of their own faces?