I'm not sure how anyone goes from "Peoria, Illinois" to the sound of barfing,

Ill-y noise. (Indicating that I don't know what "Illinois" is, never mind "Peoria".)(It's called humour!)

no I did not notice any hint of irony.

The clues were: a) the direct/indirect people were in the exact opposite to my previous suggestion; b) "Or maybe that's just the way I remember it.".

Not to mention my explicitly stating that a) I didn't know where the Mid-West was; b) and that, my impressions of the "New Yorker" came from cheesy film stereotypes.

I was quite clearly making the point that the exact locations mentioned were immaterial to the discussion of cultural differences. And that any deep examination of the accuracy or otherwise of the location references was equally irrelevant.

and heads down the path of insults and flame wars.

There are no "insults", nor anything that should lead to "flame wars" in that post. None intended, nor implied. None at all. Really, zip, nada, zilch.

The entire post is about showing exactly how discourse can be misinterpreted. How offence can be taken, or not, at the whim of the reader, regardless of the writers intent.

Remember: "But they also apply the American stereotyping of the Brits, to our faces. And we laugh all the louder because it's not personal."

Please--suspend your disbelief for just 2 minutes--go back read the whole post again in the light that I was not attempting to insult you. That I was simply trying to make my case through that discourse. To show you how easy it is to misinterpret.

More successfully than I anticipated it seems :(