Fair enough - so the rule is “when in Rome”? Fine. Next time you lot come to the USA how about visiting a goddamned dentist? (you know, that British “teeth” thing) 
Several years ago, my husband was taking his stepfather to the U.S. immigration office in Newark for some reason (the stepfather was a legal immigrant but not a citizen). A British couple were in line in front of them and were treated rather rudely by the bureaucrat behind the counter (as were my husband and stepfather, BTW). My husband apologized to the British couple for the rudeness they had encountered, and said he felt embarrassed on behalf of the country for the clerk’s behavior. “That’s all right,” said the British fellow. “We have idiots back home, too.”
As a yank I have to agree with you that Americans are bad tourists. Here in Colorado we have a term for the worst of them, we call them “New Yorkers or Texans”. There is a definate attitude difference between the east and the mountains in how people act. There is a wierd sense of entitlement that just doesn’t fit in here, and I’d imagine it fits in less well around the world. The whole loud talking thing to start with, plus the fact it just gets louder and more annoying over the most trivial things, creates a lot of resentment.
I lived in London for six months, and I was never able to pick out a person’s nationality based on their hair. Is there some cabalistic method of divination that I’m missing?
Sadly yes. This is closer:
And yes there most certainly is such a thing as American Hair.
Fair enough. I’ll even put on 50lbs to fit in. 
[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.]
[ul][li]In Italy (I don’t remember if it was Milan, Florence or Venice – but I think it was Venice) there was an elderly American couple. ‘Hey Murray! Go stand by that statue. I want to take a picture of it!’[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
I remember standing in front of the Goldenes Dachl in Innsbruck (which is in the middle of the Old town Pedestrian Zone, and surrounded by great restaurants, which were really cheap that year, because the dollar was so strong) and hearing some kids say: “Mom, where’s the Burger King?”
Personally, I don’t have anything against most American tourists. I just can’t stand the ones who show no interest at all in the local customs, quisine, art, etc. These are ususally the elderly couples doing the “Europe in a week” trips, who sometimes don’t even know what country they’re in anymore. Or, it’s the college-age kids who go to Amsterdam for the drugs and sex, and to Prague for the beer and sex.
For some reason most Americans are really surprised when they travel the equivalent of a trip from Baltimore to D.C. and they are suddenly in a different country, where the people speak a different language, eat different food, and just behave differently in general.
Naturally we must mention that a lot of tourists, of any country, are rampaging and loud idiots. 
I lived in London for 3 years and you kind of just turn off the presence of some of the tourists.
Okay fine, but what is it? You keep saying this and yet won’t explain. Is there some big mystery about it that you aren’t allowed to tell anyone?
Don’t forget Boris!!!
No not really. It’s just if I start explaining it it turns into a rambling high-jack and I’m a well brought up bloke so I don’t do that.
The only other person with hair like BORIS is BORIS’ Dad.
Traveling in eastern Europe in the early 90s, we kept hearing from locals that it was the loud and obnoxious German tourists they really resented.
(But that may may have been because, at that point, they were overrun with German tourists, and not so many Americans. I’m sure those same locals have plenty of “boorish American” stories to tell now. None in which I am featured as a character, I hope.)
In Amsterdam we see a lot of loud, drunken English tourists.
I believe there’s a thing called ‘binge’ drinking. They binge a lot here. Must be our cheap booze.
That comment really brings back memories. I went to France for the first time around the time Pulp Fiction was released. It sucked - all the people I was traveling with kept talking about getting a “Royale with Cheese.” I spent half the time trying to shrink into my clothes, and the other half avoiding the people I was traveling with. “Um, so, Chad - why don’t you go get your ‘Royale with Cheese’ and I’ll just stroll around here.” bolts for Marseilles as soon as Chad leaves
I read somwhere that 90% of the people who fall in the canals in Hamster Jam are British. I’m quite proud of my countrymen if that’s true.
hahahaha
Just the other day a drunken guy from Finland claimed he had a fight and punched someone in a canal. Trouble is: He couldn’t remember which canal.
The police are still searching.
Hey–I think we’d all forgive you if you went on that “rambling high-jack.” I think I speak for many of us when I say that we want to know what the heck American hair is!
As a non-bald American, I am especially concerned that it may be not only our horrible foreign policies that are alienating our European brethren, but our coiffures. Please, in the interests of international cooperation and understanding, tell us what you mean by the phrase, “American hair.”
Hmmn. I wouldn’t be too sure about that. I f I let my hair go native I could almost be a Johnson too. Erm, if you know what I mean.
Oddly enough, almost the first thing I saw, the first time I visited Rome, was a large Wimpy’s hamburger restaurant. It looked so authentically American that I was surprised to learn later that there’s no such thing as Wimpy’s in America.