European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 24, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Happy landings and Nice manners in England Dav Barry. Recently i went to England on a selfless humanitarian Mission to sell books. Twas a very relaxing trip until about 35 minutes after the plane landed at Heathrow Airport which is when a Brit ish person cheerfully informed my wife and me that terrorists had been shooting mortar bombs onto the runway. Really. They have political organizations Over there that having apparently received Public relations advice from Chatles Manson believe that the Way to Garner Public support is to bomb an mortar the Public. Hey the Public is apparently supposed to respond. Homicidal loons Are trying to kill me i am feeling supportive toward them shortly Ter we arrived there were two More mortar attacks on Heathrow none of the bomb detonated but i was starting to wonder about the Quality of the Airport Security. I envisioned squad Rons of Scotland Yard detectives wearing Sherlock Holmes hats crawling on hands and Knees scrutinizing every Blade of Glass through powerful magnifying glasses not noticing trucks rumbling past them wit Large signs that said caution mortar bombs Don t get me wrong. I live in South Florida and we have our problems too. The very week i was in England a German tourist checking out of a South Florida hotel complained about an odor in his room which turned out to be emanating from i am not making this up a Corpse under the bed. Apparently he failed to put out the Little Doorknob sign that says maid please remove  but we South floridians Pride ourselves on our mor tar free runways which enable us to guarantee that our tourists will be Safe and secure. Unless of course they Are foolish enough to actually get off the plane. Anyway the mortars were scary but we had a much scarier experience in England somehow probably because of another massive screw up at the Cia we got invited to Dine at the . Ambassador s residence. We were the Only people on the guest list whose titles were or. And mrs everybody else was something like the lord Earl of web Bing and her worshipful Hood the viscountess lady Huff in ton  so when we arrived at the ambassador s residence which is approximately the size of Wales but with More bathrooms we were feeling socially intimidated. Fortunately the ambassador and his wife were extremely Nice which was reassuring As was the fac that they had three dogs one main two backups with no sense of etiquette whatsoever i know let s sniff the viscountess. Nevertheless when i came time to eat dinner i developed severe table manners paranoia. I estimate that there were 27 Forks at my place setting alone plus it turns out that at these formal dinners they have rules about whom you talk to before the main course you re suppose to talk exclusively to the lady on your left As though she is the most fascinating human on the planet but when the main course arrives you re supposed to drop her like used chewing gum and talk to the lady on your right. It s amazing to watch the changeover. All Heads in the room swivel simultaneously like synchronized motorized elves in a Christmas display. Of course i did t know about this so Midway through the dinner i suddenly found myself having an animated conversation with the Back of the head of the lady on my left who despite having been Only moments earlier my closest personal Friend no longer seemed to realize that i existed. To this Day she never Calls and she never writes speaking of exciting social adventures several nights later we were at a party and the Host came up and said i d like you to meet Salman  really. Apparently Salman has turned into a major party animal. So there i was chatting with him try ing to appear Cool but in fact wondering if i would have been safer just staying at the Airport. So Sal Man i wanted to say. Perhaps we would be More comfortable if we were lying face Down on the floor away from the windows but other than these few anxious moments we had a wonderful time in England. They were having some highly entertaining government scandals. We americans tend to have obscure Boring complicated financial Whitewater Type scandals that nobody understands whereas the British have scandals involving straightforward Clear Cut issues of obvious significance such As High government officials paying for sex with fish.  \ speaking of food the British Are definitely get Ting better at cooking and they have discovered the ice cube. Fortunately however some things have not changed they still have the Royal dysfunctional family and it is still a constant source of entertain ment. The Day we got there Prince Charles made the newspapers by asking on a tour of a cosmetics Plant if anybody wanted to i am not making this up lick Mango butter off his body. Also the British still speak in British accents so that no matter what they say it sounds really Intelli gent to americans and they still really say things like bloody and  plus they keep in venting wonderful new expressions. For example i saw a newspaper front Page that had a photograph of a Man with the headline or. Chuckled  i asked a number of British people about this expression they had no idea what it meant but they All agreed that they would definitely try to use it a lot. So should we i think. We should maintain close ties with our friends across the Atlan tic. But we should also remain out of mortar Range,1 slam Herald Page 28 sunday april 24, 1994