Typical American

Can I just say I'm very saddened to hear of these comments. As a Scot, I like americans and find them interesting folk to meet. I've just spent nearly 2 weeks showing my friends Mom and wee sister round East Lothian and the Highlands, my third tour. They are from Orlando and have that southern charm that everyone warmed to from resteraunters, b&b proprietors and the ordinary folk we met on our travels that Mom Whitman just loved to blether away to with 'old school' charm

Immigration is seemingly a foul word down there. Up here you'll come across english b&b owners who've moved up to enjoy the quiet life. On the Isle of Skye there is a former U.S. Attorney from NYC who runs a salmon fishery business. She came over one summer for a vacation and fell under the spell that is the Isle of Skye and has been there 16 years.

Can I just say I'm very saddened to hear of these comments. As a Scot, I like americans and find them interesting folk to meet. I've just spent nearly 2 weeks showing my friends Mom and wee sister round East Lothian and the Highlands, my third tour. They are from Orlando and have that southern charm that everyone warmed to from resteraunters, b&b proprietors and the ordinary folk we met on our travels that Mom Whitman just loved to blether away to with 'old school' charm

Immigration is seemingly a foul word down there. Up here you'll come across english b&b owners who've moved up to enjoy the quiet life. On the Isle of Skye there is a former U.S. Attorney from NYC who runs a salmon fishery business. She came over one summer for a vacation and fell under the spell that is the Isle of Skye and has been there 16 years.

The native Scots of Skye are sometimes not so friendly.  I remember being refused service in a B&B in Skye when the woman found out I worked for the planning department  and i've known many English people say they've had a more than frosty reception once they've moved there for a change of scene.   

I think you'd get a frosty reception in a lot of places for working in the planning department! And I can understand some resentment towards incomers, particularly in the Highlands and Islands, because often it's wealthy people from the southeast of England who are buying up property that locals can't afford because a) the work isn't there for them and b) rich people are willing to pay whatever because compared to where they're coming from it's dirt cheap. They also don't always try to integrate into their new communities. My heart always sinks a little bit when I hear more non-native than native accents up there for that reason.

I think you'd get a frosty reception in a lot of places for working in the planning department! And I can understand some resentment towards incomers, particularly in the Highlands and Islands, because often it's wealthy people from the southeast of England who are buying up property that locals can't afford because a) the work isn't there for them and b) rich people are willing to pay whatever because compared to where they're coming from it's dirt cheap. They also don't always try to integrate into their new communities. My heart always sinks a little bit when I hear more non-native than native accents up there for that reason.

True!  But I don't expect to be refused service as a lowly Statistician for the Council just because I work for planning 

I'm a Highlander so I understand a lot of the issues.  Some towns like Plockton have become completely swamped with incomers to the extent that (iirc from my planning stats years) about 60%-70% of the houses lie empty over the winter.  That understandably makes a lot of people who are born and bred mad. 

It just makes me a little miffed sometimes that people go on holiday to Skye, think everyone is lovely (because they rely a lot on tourism) decide to move and realise the reality is very different.  Then they form little cliques with other English/Americans and there are like these two bitter resentful camps of people.  It just makes me sad. 

No, of course you shouldn't be refused service, that's rather petty. She must have had a stick up her ars* after getting refused permission for a conservatory or something

Not all the english b&b owners are bad, I've made friends with a few but youre right about them selling up their property in the south of England and coming up and buying all the property because they can afford it. I have had a problem with a Yorkshire woman who runs a b&b in Uig on Skye, during a job last year she moaned about me cancelling the 2nd night due to the job finishing early, then later phoned me to complain about a missing room key, in all my five years of travelling I've never had anything like that happen before. Lochcarron is another village thats full of english folk but my b&b contacts are scottish. The Glencairn b&b near Mallaig is run by an English guy and his scots wife who are both ex-army-medical, real nice folk, he told me, during a recent visit, that he was down at the local bank in Mallaig and overheard an english woman complaining loudly about being given scottish money, he was so embarrassed.

Sorry, but I think this is entirely the wrong tack to take.  It just perpetuates the stereotype of Americans as being violent, arrogant, and incapable of irony. 

But isn't Miss Lara's joke the very definition of ironic...I mean coming from a nice lady who obviously isn't going to smack down the other person?

I think it goes back to that thing about British ironic humour.....you have to be able to take it if you are to dish it out. If a a Brit says a snide remark about Americans being fat, shouldn't they expect a retort?

Here is another example:

At a company Christmas party a guy says to me of the venue, a historic olde inn, "This is the kind of place chubby yanks off a coach would stand and oooh and ahhh over." I replied that actually we would probably wonder why the h*ll anyone would open a restaurant and have only four parking spaces. I thought it was funny, but he went all quiet on me.

Looking back it would have probably been better to have just chuckled along with the guy....

It just makes me a little miffed sometimes that people go on holiday to Skye, think everyone is lovely (because they rely a lot on tourism) decide to move and realise the reality is very different.  Then they form little cliques with other English/Americans and there are like these two bitter resentful camps of people.  It just makes me sad. 

The magic of Skye is not the people, its the scenery. If the b&b owners gives you grief, then take your business elsewhere, there's more than enough anyway...

sonofasailor, Yes, it is ironic! It is irony, and humour. (Thank you for noticing!)

And, I assume the Brits get that, but they still don't like it.
They can dish it out... 

And, I imagine if they turn around at lunch with fellow Brits the following week and say, "I met an American in Holland Park last week, and she threatened to shoot me for no reason."

So, it is maybe NOT the best PR.

So, I have filed that ironic joke in the circular bin.

I'm no expert, but am getting the idea that not everyone in this thread is operating under the same definition of 'ironic'.  Some may be using the Alannis Morrisette definition! 

A lot of irony is in the phrasing.  Personally, I don't think it's funny to say "Where I come from we shoot people like you."  That is phrased as a threat.  But if you say something like, "Well, I'm American, so obviously I just shoot people who annoy me," then that's clearly ironic.  However, I hope we can agree that all shooting-people jokes are in pretty poor taste given the recent events in Colorado and Wisconsin, whether they're intended as irony or not.  

Yeah, they are totally in bad taste - gun jokes, in general, and especially at the moment.

Of course, at the time I made the stupid comment, I was listening to a very long rant about how everyone in America is violent, how America is full of serial killers, and how all Americans would kill children for ipods, and America is full of gangs, and Americans love guns...

So, at the time, it was sort of... in with the theme of the conversation...

Lucky for me, we moved into London, so I never see this person ever again.

Some may be using the Alannis Morrisette definition! 

Ugh. I hate that song. 

And I can understand some resentment towards incomers, particularly in the Highlands and Islands, because often it's wealthy people from the southeast of England who are buying up property that locals can't afford because a) the work isn't there for them and b) rich people are willing to pay whatever because compared to where they're coming from it's dirt cheap.

Lol- I'm an incomer and I hate all the people making property so darn expensive up here!   

And I can understand some resentment towards incomers, particularly in the Highlands and Islands, because often it's wealthy people from the southeast of England who are buying up property that locals can't afford because a) the work isn't there for them and b) rich people are willing to pay whatever because compared to where they're coming from it's dirt cheap. They also don't always try to integrate into their new communities.

This is a good point, but it's not really the whole story.  It's not so much a question of 'integration' in the sense of community/cultural activities.  It's more about an outlook that says 'We've moved here for a quaint and relaxing retirement, and we'll be damned we allow any development that will raise our council taxes/spoil our view.'  They don't want new businesses, because it'll increase traffic and/or noise.  They don't want construction projects because it might temporarily inconvenience them.  They don't care about local job creation because they're retired.  They don't care about supporting local services such as education, because they and their family don't use those services.  They come to every public meeting and consultation, just so they can complain and vote no and make sure that nothing ever changes.  They're determined to keep the area stuck somewhere around 1955.

Ultimately, it's not too different to the way folks at home felt about people from Illinois, and for the same reason.  When people move to an area, but have no interest in the future of that area, there are going to be problems.  At least the locals in the Islands don't seem to have made up rude acronyms to describe English incomers.  That I know of, anyway.    Gaelic doesn't really have swear-words, so that probably limits the options.