US V. UK Stand Up: Comparing Notes

UK open mics?
UK scene and etiquette?
We all know UK comics. ( No question there)
American style?

I'm going to stop with the question marks before this thread starts to sound like some terrible sketch.
I've been doing open mic stand up for a while and was wondering if anyone in the same situation in the UK would wanna ('merica) talk style, venues, maybe even disturbed performers?

There was this one guy who got on stage and talked about about ear rape, mouth rape and just plain old boring rape. All before moving on to his magnus opium: gun rights (it's texas). 15 other people were in the room and we all thought we were going to get muged if we left the room. He was *definatly* outside. I now hang out with this man every week. I'm not sure if he's a genius or if he wants to sell me pot. Genuinely good guy, though.

Now your turn. I really want to know what it's like with British open mics (i.e. stories).

I've had experience of both US and UK stand-up scenes, admittedly fairly limited in the US, but have seen in various cities including New York, LA, Boston, Philly and various Texan comedy clubs. What stands out most in the US is a similar style between most stand-ups, especially newer ones. In Texas (mostly Dallas) I noticed a tendency for some pretty poor mysogynistic 'comedy' that you'd have trouble finding one act doing over here, let alone half a dozen. There are also more brushes with borderline racism that few acts would do here. There are a bigger spread of styles of acts in the UK, although there seems to be a growing paucity of new voices.

Also, gong shows apart, the UK open mic scene is less of a conveyor belt of acts. Our open mic nights tend to have a more experienced act (occasionally a pro act) compering the night, in the US there is rarely a compere on such nights.