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Originally posted by Grokesx:
I think many of us in the UK agree with the sentiment often attributed to Sir Thomas Beeching:

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You should try everything once except incest and morris dancing

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2) The Mother of All Parliaments.
Here! Here!
Featuring: Black Rod, ‘honourable gentlemen’, the speaker in his gown and a host of other customs (including shutting our head of state out). Not to mention the other place containing hereditary peers in a ‘democracy’.

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Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:
Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:

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Thanks, The Midge.

A nice reminder to our friends in the colonies of the heritage they have lost by being rebellious.

Perhaps - on the strength of that - they would like to reconsider their position, and repent of their wrong-headed attitude to British rule?

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While I'm sure that most British people would have taken the above as a tongue-in-cheek, self-mocking reference to the limited appeal of our culture and foibles, it seems I may offended a couple of our American friends....for which I unreservedly apologise.

I can only imagine that a sense of irony is also an eccentricity peculiar to the English.

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Nah, you didn't offend me. Not at all! But the Internet isn't very good at conveying irony, British or otherwise. I did notice the self-mockery, though.

Although our defensiveness about those sorts of comments is probably an American eccentricity. We're the "land of the second son," after all, and so it's in our DNA that we have to prove ourselves to Europeans. That quickly becomes a chip on our shoulder. As a "mid-coast" (Great Lakes) native on the US West Coast, I've noticed a similar dynamic out here vis-à-vis the US East Coast. I'm also a youngest child, and I remember always feeling the need (real or imagined) to prove myself to be mature, smart, or whatever, in my older sisters' eyes.

But then again, our relationship with the UK has been like a child who grows up, becomes successful, and sticks its mother in a home. So maybe you Brits have your own sort of defensiveness toward us!

I'm from a city where people notoriously didn't seem to care who was ruling them - France, US, England, whatever. Apparently they still spoke French in Detroit for a while after the city became US (it had been part of Upper Canada, which was French at the time). Our city's flag features the 3 flags that have flown over the city, but the French and British flags aren't the Tricoleur or the Union Jack. (The British flag only flew over Detroit for a bit during the War of 1812; the general who surrendered it to the British remains the only US general to ever be executed for "military incompetence"!)

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I reserve the right to change my mind.

My article on the Virgin of Vladimir

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Originally posted by Ariston:
3.5 The pitcher of cream
No, seriously, what's up with that? I might occasionally have ice cream or whipped cream on a piece of pie (sharp cheddar, if it's apple), but pouring heavy cream on everything from treacle tarts to sticky toffee pudding isn't something I would have ever thought to have done.

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Originally posted by Haydee:

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Originally posted by Ariston:
3.5 The pitcher of cream
No, seriously, what's up with that? I might occasionally have ice cream or whipped cream on a piece of pie (sharp cheddar, if it's apple), but pouring heavy cream on everything from treacle tarts to sticky toffee pudding isn't something I would have ever thought to have done.

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Or even better - clotted cream.

One heats thick (double) cream slowly for 8 hours or so until it is even thicker.

Sadly non-existent in this previous colony...

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Originally posted by Avila:
Yes I am a celt, of the Welsh variety -

the English thread is fine, but you say WE are the ones without an anthem?

I present -
Mae hen wlad f'nhadau (The old land of my fathers)

What do the English play if they win in the Commonwealth Games? Being the dominant neighbour yes the UK song came from you. But is it a national anthem or a royal one??

(Ducks and runs back over the border...)

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I know to stand when I here that tune as I'm half Welsh. It is a fine anthem and mch better than dreary old 'God Save the Queen'.

England should have its own anthem IMNHSO.

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Some days you are the fly.
On other days you are the windscreen.

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Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:
Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:

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Thanks, The Midge.

A nice reminder to our friends in the colonies of the heritage they have lost by being rebellious.

Perhaps - on the strength of that - they would like to reconsider their position, and repent of their wrong-headed attitude to British rule?

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While I'm sure that most British people would have taken the above as a tongue-in-cheek, self-mocking reference to the limited appeal of our culture and foibles, it seems I may offended a couple of our American friends....for which I unreservedly apologise.

I can only imagine that a sense of irony is also an eccentricity peculiar to the English.

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I knew it was a joke.

We do irony, but we call it "sarcasm" or "mild/light sarcasm". (Here, irony is like the story, "The Gift of the Magi". A young married couple is too poor to buy Christmas presents, so she sells her hair to buy a fob for his watch, and he sold his watch to buy her a decoration for her hair.) The problem is that a) the reader has to either have the same cultural assumptions or at least know what they are; and b) be aware that someone might actually joke about *that* in *this* circumstance. Plus our spoken sarcasm tends to be accompanied by a lot of non-verbal cues--tone of voice, pitch, eyes, head tilt/roll, posture. I gather that the English tend to a dryer style. A Shipmate posted once that they'd visited the UK and found that folks there initially seem very nice and pleasant--until you begin to understand what they mean. I.e., lots of sarkiness.

Internet posts don't have those cues, unless someone uses smilies.

That having been said, many Americans love the British humor found in TV Britcoms, Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, P.G. Wodehouse, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, etc. (Britcoms and dramas are especially popular here in N. California, where they're eagerly awaited and watched on PBS.)

We rough-n-ready former colonials aren't quite as dull and humorless as you lot think!

And at least *we* don't eat blood pudding! (Other than the vampire community, of course.)

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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")

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Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
Vinegar on french fries (chips).

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
I can't let this rest, I mean Midge, are you an agent provocateur ? A Yank in Englishman's clothing ? If not, YOU LET THE SODDING SIDE DOWN MAN !

'Bizare'.

I'm doing a Walken after typing that. And that.

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Originally posted by Desert Daughter:
I've lived a couple of years on that wonderful island, still go there a lot for business and holidays and consider myself an Anglophile. But what I'll never understand is

a) the state of the railway "system" (leaves on tracks, wrong kind of snow...need I say more?)

a1) why it is so incredibly expensive to travel on that "system"

b) the lack of real, decent shower installations in most homes and B&B's

b1) why the sad electric appliances masquerading as showers are called "power" shower - they're anything but!!

-- still, it's a great country

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Originally posted by Desert Daughter:
I've lived a couple of years on that wonderful island, still go there a lot for business and holidays and consider myself an Anglophile. But what I'll never understand is

a) the state of the railway "system" (leaves on tracks, wrong kind of snow...need I say more?)
...

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Originally posted by L'organist:
Although not English, can I point out to our US 'cousins' that THEY are the insisters on calling something a 'bathroom' when, more than likely, it doesn't have a bath?

As for 'toilet' this is very non-U.

You mean crapper/ bog/ head.

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Originally posted by L'organist:
You mean crapper/ bog/ head.

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Cockney rhyming slang.

Lovable villians.

Pie and eel shops.

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Originally posted by balaam:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Cockney rhyming slang.

Lovable villians.

Pie and eel shops.

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No. Most of England, and most of the English, exist outside the M25 (aka London orbital car park.).

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Originally posted by The Midge:


4) Test Match Special on Radio 4;
Listening to cricket commentary on radio. My Wife likens it to listening to paint dry. But it is surprising how much you learn about pigeons and cake baking among other things. Then there is the cricket itself; 5 days play and there is still the possibility of a draw.

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Originally posted by Twilight:
In American homes it usually does have a bath and it's just a bit nicer to refer to the more pleasing image. When talking about the big public ones we usually say restroom.

The one thing that really seemed bizarre to me when I was in England was the sheer hatefulness directed at celebrities by the newspapers. Our papers aren't kind by any means, they love to catch people out without make-up and cellulite is actually circled with arrows pointing, but in British papers the articles all seem to be written by the celebrity's evil, jealous, worst enemy. I remember reading columns about Ginger Rogers and Helen Gurley Brown -- both almost ninety at the time with lots of sarcastic, patronizing remarks and lurid descriptions of their age worn faces and bodies. What's up with that?

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The Daily Mail

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Some days you are the fly.
On other days you are the windscreen.

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Beecham - as in Beecham's powders; not Beeching - as in bolloxed up the Railway system. His first name was Richard anyway.

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Originally posted by Twilight:
In American homes it usually does have a bath and it's just a bit nicer to refer to the more pleasing image. When talking about the big public ones we usually say restroom.

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Originally posted by Desert Daughter:
But what I'll never understand is...

b) the lack of real, decent shower installations in most homes and B&B's

b1) why the sad electric appliances masquerading as showers are called "power" shower - they're anything but!!

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Our builder explained that to us. Until recently, it was illegal in the UK to have hot water at mains pressure. Instead, you had a header tank in the attic, which fed the hot water tank. Thus you have hot water at low pressure and cold water at mains pressure, which means you have dreadful showers. If you want a good warm shower, you need high pressure hot water, and you cannot achieve that with just a tank in the attic providing the pressure.

"Power showers" either pump the hot water through from the hot water tank, getting the pressure up to something decent or they heat the cold water as it runs through the shower. The former work well. The latter do not.

We initially solved this for our house using a Venturi effect shower, which uses the mains-pressure cold water to pull the low-pressure hot water at high speed.

We now have a new high pressure hot water cylinder and our showers are as good as those in US/NZ/Oz.

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Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds

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11) Not putting our country on stamps/ coins

Are we the only nation that don’t bother to put our country on the stamps and coins etc? Just the queens head and we expect everyone to just know where they came from. I mean how snobby is that?

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Originally posted by The Midge:
The Daily Mail

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Eh that's another thing I don't understand. What's up with the extreme newspaper prejudice? Americans have a little of that. I prefer the Washington Post over the Washington Times but I'll read both and I'm not ashamed to be caught with one over the other.

The two articles I just mentioned were both in the Sunday Times magazine section. While I was living in England the big Charles and Diana divorce scandal was happening. I was in the habit of buying all the papers the local newsagent carried from the Sun to the Times (I had no TV, no internet.) I noticed that the scandal stories were repeated almost word for word in all the papers, the only difference was that the tabloids had it first.

BTW I once counted 80 negative mentions of Americans in the London Sunday Times. We barely talk about you guys at all.

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Originally posted by Palimpsest:
My own list includes

Accent as a marker of class as a marker of social class

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Originally posted by Twilight:
[QUOTE]

BTW I once counted 80 negative mentions of Americans in the London Sunday Times. We barely talk about you guys at all.

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Originally posted by Zach82:
English post offices seem to be little convenience stores and community centers. What's that all about?

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Originally posted by Spike:

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Originally posted by Twilight:
[QUOTE]

BTW I once counted 80 negative mentions of Americans in the London Sunday Times. We barely talk about you guys at all.

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I'm not aware of that newspaper. Perhaps you mean the Sunday Times?

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Originally posted by leo:
The M25 - I don't drive and don't know where it is

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Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Which is owned by News International, which in turn is owned by News Corporation of which the Murdoch family, headed by Rupert Murdoch (an American)

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Originally posted by balaam:

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Originally posted by L'organist:
You mean crapper/ bog/ head.

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It's only a head it it's on a boat/ship/submarine.

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:

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Originally posted by leo:
The M25 - I don't drive and don't know where it is

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The ability to drive is an unnecessary skill on the M25.

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Originally posted by Ariston:
2. Eating potatoes with everything.
Someone made a comment during dinner that one of the things they were looking forward to once they got back home to the States was meals without potatoes. People were shocked. "You mean, like only with chips?"

3. Insanely sweet and sticky deserts
They don't call it zuppa inglese for nothing: a gloopy, overly sweet mess of God-only-knows served with a side pitcher of cream: it's the classic English desert. Trifle, custard, or mess, there seems to be some lingering effect of sugar rationing on the English palate, and a need to make up for lost time.
3.5 The pitcher of cream
No, seriously, what's up with that? I might occasionally have ice cream or whipped cream on a piece of pie (sharp cheddar, if it's apple), but pouring heavy cream on everything from treacle tarts to sticky toffee pudding isn't something I would have ever thought to have done.

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Originally posted by Spike:

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Originally posted by Twilight:
BTW I once counted 80 negative mentions of Americans in the London Sunday Times. We barely talk about you guys at all.

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I'm not aware of that newspaper. Perhaps you mean the Sunday Times?

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:

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Originally posted by Palimpsest:
My own list includes

Accent as a marker of class as a marker of social class

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IME this exists in the US as well, though perhaps to a lesser degree.

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Originally posted by Golden Key:
L'organist--

"Non-U"?

Thanks.

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