To the accusation of 'Perfidious Albion'...

...I must actually speak up for the Brits (after all I was born here and my family before me for many generations). Its not that the British lie or cannot be trusted. I think it is best delineated as single thinkers versus double thinkers (that's dialectic reasoning for the uninitiated). This is where you (I was going to say beyond calais, but that only includes the east, and to be honest, the greatest difference between the Americans and the British is the English language, so lets include the West too!!!! Tho' actually those who speak different languages quite often ask for qualification!!!) so often will come unstuck, it's not that we lie, it's that you can only get your head around one truth. As I pointed out to someone the otherday, to nearly every question there are multiple answers. When one statement has multiple interpretations and crucially will have i.e. future tense, if you leave a conversation with an Englishman without having him qualify every syllable, then later realise he was actually saying the complete opposite to what you thought he said, you only have yourself to blame.