It may have been the wine talking, but I doubt it. Hammond Eggs, in one of his late night voyages of Wiki-discovery, stumbled on this delicious list: British Words Not Widely Used in the American Language.

There are some corkers. Some more obvious than others. Our Heath Robinson is their Rube Goldberg. We say arse rather than backside, buttocks or anus; plus there's always baps and bangers, blagging and bodging. But what about cagoule or breve (as in the musical note - for some reason Americans don't have quavers either)? Higgledy-piggledy? It's all at sixes and sevens.

The list is chock-full of words that, never mind the Americans, need to be bought back into limey-land and dropped into conversation once again. Little idiosyncrasies that give our speech texture and make English unique from the other commonwealth tongues.

So celebrate next time you call someone a Kev or a Joey; relish the way a squidgy, manky lurgy rolls off your tongue;  and watch out for mingers and nonces. English rocks - and not just the rhyming slang. Crikey! Let's scarper before the rozzers get here!