Letter: Big country

Sir: Bill Bryson writes of the "London, England" syndrome in the United States (Bryson's America, 23 November).

On this side of the Atlantic we suffer from the opposite: you could call it the "51st state" syndrome. Listening to the radio in the car yesterday, I heard Classic FM plugging a Christmas shopping trip to Boston. "Fine," I thought, "but what's so special about a market town in Lincolnshire?" But of course it wasn't that Boston.

Shortly after that I passed a takeaway advertising "Southern Fried Chicken". Now I've lived in the south of England for most of my life, but I never knew we had a special way of frying chicken.

Then of course, there's "country" music...

JOHN WILLIAMS

West Wittering, West Sussex