London - Something in the British character is enjoying the US presidential election debacle.
The past week of confusion over who won the White House, Mr Al Gore or Mr George W. Bush, has fuelled British stereotypes about their upstart American cousins across the pond - that they are overly litigious and bad sports.
"I think the majority of British people are sitting in the pub and expanding on the uselessness of America's system," said Prof Patrick Dunleavy of the London School of Economics. "The idea that you can hold an election and nobody wins."
"It would be a travesty of democracy indeed, albeit a thoroughly American one, if the most powerful office in the world was now decided by the wrangling of lawyers," the Sunday Telegraph said.