Re: the Gervais article - having lived in both countries, I think the author's talking out of their ear a little bit. And massively over-generalizing (what, in an opinion piece?? *GASP*). Good-natured ribbing between friends is a phenomenon I witnessed and experienced on both sides of the pond. Bad-natured ribbing was not. When a remark was mean-spirited, in my experience, it tended to go down just as badly in the UK as it did in the US.

I don't think you can put a nationality on someone making a cheap bid for publicity by trying too hard to be controversial.