[wilf leek]

Dear Turk (if I might use the familiar form of address, Oh, and do please just use plain old "Wilf" yourself in reply).

You are so very right about the quintessentially English way of going about things - we don't actually like to win, believing that that might potentially generate some ill feeling sometime in the future. We prefer to secretly occupy the moral high ground.

Thus - as you suggest, I should be very glad to call our interchange an honorable draw, unless of course that is not an acceptable way to complete matters in your culture, whereupon I could declare you the winner if you so wished??

I am not too well acquainted with Evesham, having only driven through it a couple of times, so I can't tell if "Fladburry" is still there. If you like I could ask around.

Steak and kidney pie though - that's another matter, and we English still insist on inflicting it on our digestive systems at regular intervals. Despite having some of the most stringent food hygiene regulations in the world, we have outbreaks of FPHS (Food Poisoning Hysteria Syndrome) on a regular basis. It just goes to show how resistant our basic foodstuffs are to any outside interference. The Newspapers love it, and our Government responded by appointing a Minister for Food. Which has, of course, made little difference.

On a more serious note, when I first become afflicted with CAS (Cobra Addictive Syndrome) I little realised that it was a world wide pandemic. Because of this I have made friends from all corners of the world who suffer from the same affliction. I hope it would not be too forward of me to include your good self in that number now that we have exchanged gentle insults???

It is interesting to note, since I deal with US work colleagues on a regular basis (based in NY) that the gentle (and mutual) insult form of interchange forms the main basis of communications between our two nations in my experience. Long may it last - it is the truest form of friendship, with no true hurt given or taken.

Oh - I think it could equally well be "Tah Tah" or "Dah Dah". Ask Mr Gates - his piece de resistance does it to me every time I have to reboot.

In friendship

Wilf

PS - With the temperature resolutely well below freezing today, I am still going out in the beast. I have to get in all the rides I can right now, since I am stripping it for its paint job next week, and will have severe withdrawal symptoms. Mad?? Quite possibly so.