The thing about the English that is engaging is a sense of the ridiculous, and a taste for it.

*G* I think the Scots have you English beat on that score, McGrath. I'm thinking about something Billy Conolly said on a talk show here in the US a few years back.

He was wearing a pretty ridiculous looking pair of sandals. They were big and black and clunky looking with a huge square silver buckle right in the center of the top of each of them. The host of the show asked him why he was wearing such goofy looking sandals.

Billy said, "TAE PISS OFF PEOPLE AH DON'T LIKE!

(I'm pretty sure he meant "piss off" in the US sense ;-)