My sister-in-law, who lives and works in Washington DC, says the heterosexual women of the city are extremely confused by British men.
This is apparently because if a man in DC crosses his legs when he sits down, he is thought to be gay (read also “European” and/or/thus “sophisticated”), and therefore undatable. But it seems that British men, at least in DC, all cross their legs when they sit down.
Statistically (if not anecdotally) British men can’t all be gay – in my science-teacher dad’s totally inappropriate yet oddly appropriate term, “a bit more DC than AC”.
So what’s a girl to do? I don’t know. But I do know I’m a Brit, I’ve been to DC, and I often cross my legs when I sit down.
I suppose any particularly Sherlockian DC lady, on the lookout for clues, might be alert to the colour of sock revealed by any Brit bloke seen to cross his legs and thus elevate the bottom of his trouser. (‘Sock’ and 'trouser’ both singular not plural, yes. At least, in 1930s Britain they were.)
If it’s mauve, in the words of Withnail’s Uncle Monty, we may not know “what he’s planning”. If it’s red, he may be the former British ambassador to DC Sir Christopher Meyer, who was famous for sporting such crimson hosiery and who once mused publicly and controversially on Tony Blair’s fondness for a “ball-crushingly tight trousers”.
Not that any of that would tell us anything about anything either.
