My great-Uncle was telling me once about pubs in the North of Scotland where as soon as a stranger walked in the door the conversation would change from being in English to Scot's Gaelic, so this kind of thing does happen...
Welcome Stuart! We are so happy to see you! Are you going to visit Hawaii again soon?
The FAQ is a good place to learn about the site. You may want to join some of the interest groups such as Business in Japan, Project Managers, Java, .NET and Python.