Leon Unczur, the Modern day Sheriff of Nottingham, talks about his gay partner

AWW: You have the advantage of both your city and your specific job title being known by virtually everyone in the world, certainly everyone in the English-speaking world.

LU: Well, it's the most wonderful thing. I'll give you a slight example. My partner - we have a home in Manchester, and that's where my partner lives - and I were to a luncheon. And of course, my partner knows an awful lot of people in Manchester and he's well known up there. I'm well-known down here. But I was talking to somebody who was a director of a housing association - which is charitable housing - and I think he was rather surprised because he didn't know who I was. He just knew who my partner was, but I knew so much about housing. After 20 minutes, he said "what job do you do?"

And I said "I'm the sheriff of Nottingham." And he looked at me as if to say "we've just had a reasonably intelligent conversation for 20 minutes, now you're taking the rye." And then my partner had to point out, "No, Gerald, he really is the sheriff of Nottingham. He really does exist." And I think that's often the case. People here - at first they laugh and then they're bowled over by it. And particularly in the States because they naturally assume you must be responsible for law and order. And they find it much better when they find out a) that you're not going to be able to arrest them and lock them up and b) you're able to tell them a good ol' yarn.

http://www.boldoutlaw.com/robint/unczur.html