Was trying to explain to a friend back in UK the typical expats you meet out here, using sitcom / comedy film characters as examples. But I sorta dried up, couldn't get much beyond the waiters in Lebanese restaurants looking like the spiv in Dad's Army, and the been-here-far-too-long-and-unemployable-anywhere-else-50+-construction-project-managers resembling the fat bloke who exploded in The Meaning of Life.

Got any other examples?

There's the slightly portly, faintly yellowed, beer swilling dude on a bike that looks a bit like Homer Simpson.


...but I haven't seen any of them.

I don't understand why the Lebanese have to always be the first in line...

'cos they push their way to the front?

Not in the line of fire...

anyone draws attention to themselves by pushing their way to the front, so they are effectively putting themselves in the line of fire. if you don't make a fuss, you don't get noticed. it is as simple as that.

My comment had nothing to do with queuing and Homer Simpson knows that...

types aspiring after those two on absolutely fabulous?

darling this...darling that

yep, yep, yep!

We have all these caricatures in the UK....

Fat, overpaid blokes in pubs? check.

Ruddy red-faced rugby players? Check.

Dahling 'mwah mwah' ladies? Check.

Expat managers a bit like ole bomber out of auf vedersen pet!

appartment landlords acting like Rigsby, in Rising damp

Motorcycle, Police doing a palastinion version of Chips

..and nobel laureates - Literature I guess.

Does this include fiction? Could this mean Tony Blair for his book? For which he's going to receive the US Liberty Medal/Award? The US equivalent to a Nobel Peace Award?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worl...l-Clinton.html

Yes, think he meets the criteria for a caricature of, take your pick -

an honest person
a hypocrite
an honest politician
a hypocrite
a megalomaniac
a hypocrite
champagne socialist
a hypocrite

Where's Gerald Scarfe when you need him?

To be fair, I've never heard of the US Liberty Medal and I'm half American and lived in the US for a long stretch. It's a long stretch to call it the US equivalent of a Nobel Peace Award.

The congressional medal of honor and presidential medal of honor are the only American awards that are noteworthy, other than the specialist awards like the oscars or the pulitzer.

well at least the practice of irony is not completely lost - just partially.