The post is based on this discussion.
Rule #1. Ask a Westerner where s/he is from. When s/he answers, exclaim, “Canada / Scotland / Spain / Texas / Germany / Quebec, etc.! By the way, it used to be a dream of mine to emigrate to your beautiful country. But then I decided to stay home and try to make it as wonderful as Canada / Scotland / Spain / Texas / Germany / Quebec, etc.”
Rule #2. Figure out what the Westerner’s political leanings are and say either,
a) “I’m a neo-Marxist with Anarcho-Syndicalist sympathies, and by the way, can I borrow your copy of The Parallax View just for a second? I’m going to quote it tomorrow at the meeting of my cooperative of queer feminists.”
or
b) “I’m a believer in free markets because this is what our Lord Jesus Christ mandated, and by the way, I stayed up reading Ayn Rand all night long to inspire me to do the best at the five full-time jobs I’m working today.”
Rule #3. Tell all your buddies that there is a gullible Westerner with a loose pocketbook in the vicinity.
Clarissa's Blog 
If this happened to me I’d just stand in utter incredulity that anyone could consider England beautiful or wonderful.
LikeLike
Canadians are hungry for approval. They would lap this up.
LikeLike
Not me, maybe because I wasn’t born in Canada, I’d just probably list all of the ways Canada’s really not the paradise other people (That is, liberal Americans) construe it as being.
LikeLike
Spoken like a true Englishman (or woman). Patriotism is just not very British.
LikeLike
The strategy works either way. A patriot will want to speak to the swindler because they will be flattered, and the anti-patriot will want to explain why the comments are misplaced. Every panhandler knows that the most difficult part is to get the mark to start talking to you. 🙂
LikeLike
Well, speaking as an American tourist the castles everywhere are pretty cool.
LikeLike
That’s one of the irritating things about working with leftists in Canada, they’ll often check carefully if a foreign country’s political movement/protest is ideologically correct before they decide to support it, when I feel that learning about their goals and why they’re protesting is more important than whether or not they’re leftist.
Though I suppose it’s better than uncritically supporting anything with the word “protest” in it like the U.S lefties that I knew tended to…
LikeLike
“Though I suppose it’s better than uncritically supporting anything with the word “protest” in it like the U.S lefties that I knew tended to…”
– So true.
LikeLike
Nah, few male Canadians buy little of this nonsense. Never did, never will.
LikeLike
Oh, my dear. I hope you are being sarcastic.
LikeLike
A good way to get money is to have a constant series of little emergencies, the kind you can assure others will never happen again. It’s a once off: “My child needs school fees and the deadline is tomorrow.”
LikeLike
That’s how this is done in Cuba. But all one gets with this strategy is really small potatoes. In our countries, though, people only believe in making any sort of effort if big money is involved.
LikeLike
I had a guy who used to pull this sort of thing on my all the time (the small potatoes stuff), but his needs were somewhat genuine, and this was at a time when John Howard was in power, trying to convince us all to adopt a lower-middle class mentality of mean-spirited concern for every cent we could grab, so given the choice, I preferred to cast my lot with the lumpen proles than with these lower-middle class mean-spirited vegetables. At least the former were happy, free-spirited and highly entertaining. That is better than being grey and hostile to anyone who seems not to be as puritanical as thou.
LikeLike
I discovered that, in Cuba, I had to plaster the ultra-Soviet hostility onto my face because otherwise life became completely intolerable. I do have a suitable amount of guilt because we were the ones to draw the Cubans into the whole sorry mess, but I can’t go through several weeks of being treated like a wallet on legs. It gets very tiresome soon enough.
LikeLike
http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=38838#.UwqMFvmSxh5
LikeLike
“Every panhandler knows that the most difficult part is to get the mark to start talking to you.”
Yep. Those who say “I’d just say (something very different)” have just failed the first skirmish. Swindler 1 – You 0
My tendency is to grunt and keep going.
LikeLike
Exactly. The best strategy is to look straight ahead and have headphones on to drown out the noise. I was once followed around in Havana by a guy who walked next to me for over 3 hours, telling me one sob story after another. I won but it wasn’t easy. 🙂
LikeLike
Note to self: Avoid Havana.
Turkish bazaars are easy. Smile, nod your head and don’t stop (unless your pretty sure you’ll want to buy). And never sit or accept tea.
LikeLike
My parents last month let somebody in Cuba engage them in a conversation with the oldest trick of, “Oh hi, I’m staying at the same hotel with you…”
Also, if you go to Cuba, remember never to reveal that you speak Spanish. If you do,forget about getting served any food or drink or being provided with any medical care, irrespective of how much money you have. The best thing to be in Cuba is British. Then, everybody loves you.
LikeLike