HIS distant relative may have been seventh US president Andrew Jackson, who defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans, but American businessman Mark Jackson is a complete Anglophile.

At the drop of a stars and stripes hat he flew in to the UK to become a chat show-style celebrity at a business breakfast at York’s Merchant Adventurers’ Hall.

And if you still don’t believe his enthusiasm for our green and pleasant land, then pop into his Alabama home’s “man space” where the bathroom is kitted out with a Union Jack shower curtain and lavatory seat.

Mr Jackson, who enjoys fishing with President George Bush Senior in his spare time, arrived at York’s 600-year-old hall to talk to an invited audience of 40 business people about his company, Moreson Conferencing Inc.

And as chief executive and chairman of the global specialist tele-conferencing group, which operates in 65 countries, he also spoke of world business issues.

That included his difficulties doing business in Russia and the affect of the BP oil rig disaster on business in the southern states.

Mr Jackson, who stayed at the home of Merchant Adventurer David Rayner in The Mount, York, was taken on tour around the city and, as a devout Christian, was particularly impressed with the Minster and later, the Archbishop’s Palace in Bishopthorpe.

His chat show interviewer was Alan Kaye, organizer of The Merchant Adventurers’ Business Breakfasts, which provide a networking opportunity for senior business leaders to share ideas and listen to an exceptional guest speaker.

Coincidentally, Mr Kaye is also in the telecommunications industry.

Later Mr Kaye and Mr Rayner put their guest on a train, bound for London, then Oxford and finally Paris, where he had arranged meetings.

Previous speakers at the Merchant Adventurers’ breakfast gatherings have included Julian Richer, the founder of RicherSounds, and Chinese Professor Li Shirong, the deputy director-general of the Congqing Foreign Trade and Economics Relations Commission and also president of the World Chartered Institute of Building.