Of course, we know that all English are football louts; lecherous, peasant-raping, lords, or brolly-carrying bankers who eat beans for breakfast, kippers anytime, and swill down bad tea by the Imperial gallon while queuing for the National Health Service. They also talk and spell funny and all the women look like the Spice Girls.

You really shouldn't get your opinions of others from the media.

I live in the American West of dime-novel fame, where Butch Cassidy (real name: Robert Leroy Parker), Boone Helm, mountain men, and the Oregon Trail all traveled. Not very far away are the sites of various Indian fights, including the Little Big Horn.

114 people here lost their jobs to environmental litigation a couple days ago; the group heading the litigation call them "unfortunate by-products of litigation." Nobody has strapped on a .44 and gone hunting the insensitive lout, thought -- instead, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition has lost all support in the Greater Yellowstone Area.

In fact, the last murder here was Tuesday. In the true, Old West style a guy beat his father-in-law to death with a piece of wood. Of course, the guy who did it has been charged with murder and is currently in jail, held without bond or bail.

Sure, there are stereotypes and nutcases. I'd no more let them assume my view of "The Amemrican Way Of Life" than I assume all Scotsmen wear the kilt or no one in France bathes.