But his was, I like to think, a minority voice.
There were no right or wrong answers when it came to wine; all that mattered was "I like it" or "I don't like it".
It may be nothing like your image of the quintessential New Yorker cartoon, but my tastes have always been simple, like the fictional New Yorker editor on "Seinfeld" whose justification for running a certain abstruse cartoon was: "I like the kitty".
The last line of my letter was: 'I like your moustache, how did you get your job?' He wrote back and said do your GCSEs, do A-Levels, do a degree but not in media, then do a post-graduate course in broadcast journalism and get a job in local radio.
But I hadn't listened well enough, and on the last day of my visit, I learned from an amused cabdriver that what I'd been telling Damascene shopkeepers as I giddily snapped up copper trays, brocade runners, kilims, ouds, camel leather purses and other bounty, was: "I like young Syrian men".
It was, "I like the guy, the guy likes me".
