Jim, I am a computer consultant and have worked with dozens of different people at all levels. I have always lived in Manchester and now live just outside 'inner city' Salford. My father immigrated here from Poland and worked in the mines and mills of Lancashire before marying my shop girl mother. He became a painter and decorator and I followed him into the building trade at first, becoming a clerk, then inspector for the local council building maintenance department. I am, and always will be, a working man.

I drink in the pubs around Salford and Swinton and, yes, there is some awful bigotry goes on in the vaults and bars, usualy from people with a Sun or Daily Mail under their arms. I myself was subjected to bigotry at a young age and my parents changed our surname from Polakow to help stop this. But conversley, in the folk clubs, where most of my good fiends come from, you would be hard pushed to find a bigot amongst them. I don't believe that situation is any different from anywhere else in the world. The point is, there is good and bad everywhere.

I am not looking though rose tinted glasses, nor am I 'cocooned' as you suggest. But neither do I view the majority of English people with the cynicism you do. I think we are both flogging a dead horse if we try to make a guess as to what the percentage of bigots would be - You may start at 90% and I may start at 10. I don't think we will ever meet. The point is you cannot say, whatever the percentage is, that the English are a nation of bigots. It is demonstrably not true and blatantly wrong to mark a whole nation with the traits of some of it's people.

And this is where we came in.

Using stereotyping to portray a whole nation as one type of person, whether it is to say they ae bigots, they cannot sing or they are thick, is neither true nor acceptable. I suspect I will never convince you otherwise but if, on occasions, someone stops to think what the consequences of calling someone a thick Paddy, tight Jock or racist George are then at least I will have done my bit.

Cheers

Dave