Oh aye - I was up that way with my Liverpudlian husband and the intimidating stares were directed half at him and half at the kareoke machine no one wanted in their pub. My husband decided to go with it - and got up and SANG. Now - he's tone deaf, AND they hated him for being english AND for firing up the kareoke. He continued on regardless through an american song (even worse) in tone deaf fashion - as the audience yelled at him to shut the feck up and various other comments. I thought they were gonna kill him. The song finished amid more catcalls and thank fecks its over - at which point my husband put another one on. By the end of the second song they were laughing and we had drinks bought for us, though not without lot of joking about stealing "their women" and suchlike.

My husband said he didnt understand a word they were saying later, and was too busy watching the kareoke machine to see the gestures... poor sod came close to a kicking many times while we were married without knowing it....

In a cafe in Stromness on Orkney and got to hear the life story of a man sitting there waiting for his family - he was from Edinburgh.
In the Stromness Bookshop I spoke to the owner for just five minutes - he was American who had lived many years on Orkney, he showed me a photograph in one his books of a beautiful Swedish woman; she was his wife who had died two years previously. Those five minutes stayed with me for a long time after I left the shop.

People are great where ever you go - but alcohol does seem to bring out the worst.