[BITList] Fwd: The No1 Ladies Detective Agency author Alexander McCall Smith puts British to shame - Telegraph

[HUGH]

Mike,

Brilliant books, and his views on rudeness are clearly based on his 
experiences and those of others he knows, however, I am regularly 
discomfited by strangers nodding to me when I am not expecting a sign of 
recognition.  Not getting a nod in the street is not the same as getting 
snarl. The kind of rudeness that upsets me is that displayed by males below 
a certain age on buses, effing this, and effing that.  A few months back I 
had to put a 30-something thug in his place on a bus, and was shocked at the 
indifference around me.  He threatened the driver, did his business 
ticket-wise and stomped up the passageway glaring and swearing.  I told him 
to sit on his arse and shut up.  Clearly he hadn't been spoken to that way 
for many years, so he subsided and sat down, but still muttered 
imprecations.  It took another broadside before he finally clammed up.  The 
other passengers?  Facing the front.  Lips pursed. In shock. Hearing and 
seeing nothing.

While I'm on it, to one side of the McCall Smith article there was a 
reference to one about a footballer by an ex-footballer.  I read, "Gary 
Lineker: 'Team GB disrespected Beckham'."

When did "disrespected" become a word?  And whence came this "Team GB" 
nonsense?  One commentator on TV attempted to take it a bit away from its US 
origins by suggesting "Team Great Britain", and it does take it away a wee 
bit. Another in the Independent asked what was wrong with "The British 
Team"?  What is wrong with all of this is that the team is from the UK, so 
it should be "The UK Team".  I take it athletes and others from Northern 
Ireland are allowed in. An even worse situation exists in the mind of a lady 
in the US who posted something about her family on a website I looked at 
yesterday.  "They came," she said," from the English Isles."  Now there's a 
thing.

Hugh.