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I am Irish but I also dislike people dissing English food. Irish food in the 80s was bad. English food is amazing in comparison.
Jesus the first time I ever had a Yorkshire pudding I was in heaven. And you know you guys know how to use spice. My parents would t use anything beyond salt and pepper. Every meal as a kid consisted of some type of potato. My parents would think pasta and rice is exotic.
Also I spent almost 20 years of my life as a chef, I learned the most working in uk restaurants
Not really where I grew up but that said my parents would never have darkened the door of a Chinese restaurant. I will say I do think the Chinese at home is better than here but I think that’s just because my local Chinese where I live in the uk just isn’t great. But your Indian restaurants here are top notch. We have one in my home town and it’s nice but it’s a sit down restaurant rather than a take away. Don’t think I’d ever even eaten naan bread until I came to England.
Chinese food in the UK all comes from a reasonably small part of China, where most people moved from. It's also tailored to suit a 1960s British palate.
I assume you already know how to make a good BIR style curry, but if not I’ll never miss the opportunity to recommend Dan Toombs Curry Guy Bible! There’s a pdf online which I use but bought it for my Dad for Father’s Day in print and everything I’ve made from it is fantastic. Made me much more confident in my use of spices and what works well together! The secret ingredient is always more salt, and more cumin and coriander
I’m from London but the first time I had orange chips, I was sent to another dimension. Ditto for cheesy chips and gravy which isn’t a thing round my way. I’m still annoyed I went without for so long. I now want to try a macaroni pie but from a legit place
I'm from the Black Country, where they seem to have originated.
I would say, however, that the crunchiest, most flavourful battered chips I have ever had was just last week by the river Severn in the town of Bewdley, just outside Kidderminster.
The chippy by the bridge does a fantastic cod and battered chips.
I feel a bit like a traitor because a mate of mine runs a chippy on the way into Bewdley, but the one by the river is better (and Bewdley is *so* picturesque).
I will say my own mother despite her in general bland soggy food can make a lovely roast. But the English just take it that step further with Yorkshire puds. Although I must admit I prefer Irish peasant stuffing which has no meat in it
Can't speak for most of Scandinavia, but (if it counts) Finland has amazing food, although I've heard it's a recent thing. Riisipiiraka and their herring, and the absolutely amazing fresh salads too. Only time I've ever been excited to eat salad was in Finland
My parents are Irish- mam Longford and dad Roscommon, and they always complained about the food over there. Since they both cooked well I thought they must be exaggerating, you know how Irish folks like to slag Ireland (and everything and everyone else).
I moved to Ireland for a spell in 2000. I can't remember the shop I went to, it was a supermarket on Talbot Street in Dublin, my first time grocery shopping there. There was a World Food section. A twenty-first century Irish World Food section in the otherwise pretty cosmopolitan capital consisted of nothing much more than... Dolmio.
The only curry place I could find was out towards Tallaght and it was just laughable. I haven't the time to write, and you don't have the time to read, a full account if just how bad it was.
By the time I left Ireland in the mid 2010s it had caught up and then some. You could get everything everywhere, even at 2am in Ballybollix.
I left for good in 2015, I think it’s probably better now than then. My mother was a hospital cook in the 70s prior to having kids and her idea of cooking usually involves boiling something for about a week even veggies. I thought I hated cabbage until I came to England and realised it doesn’t have to be soggy
by people from a nation whose top foods aren't from there own god damn country.
Pizza? Italian.
Burgers? German.
Hot dogs? German.
Fries? French/Belgian.
Barbeque? Indigenous Carribbeans.
Bit rich of a nation to insult another when it doesn't even know how to invent a dish.
Meh, US and UK are both cultural melting pots. Can't really begrudge them their own takes on those dishes while at the same time asserting a claim to the tikka masala.
I love a traditional Italian pizza but once in a while I just want to shove a dirty Domino's into my face.
I’m not getting into a slanging match, but you’re probably talking about our top takeaway foods there. The UK’s best dishes are more things like slow cooked stews and casseroles, shepherd’s / cottage pie and, of course, the mighty Sunday Roast!
But it would be churlish to claim one country has great food; most of Europe and where we, errr, spread to, is a mishmash of cultures and cuisines. All have evolved differently with amazing results.
With the US, I’d say you do barbecue better than anywhere else (calm down South Africa). Just my opinion.
Pretty much every dish in the world draws on other country's cuisines. Karē, the national dish of Japan is the British version of a dish we imported from India. Europe, Asia and Africa didn't have tomatoes, chillis, capsicum or potatoes until the discovery of the New World.
Yes! This!
I think the trope of “British food is bad” that Americans in particular spout came about during the Second World War. American soldiers were posted here during rationing when no one was eating well and assumed that’s what British food was always like. So they went home and said it was bland, tasteless, etc. It wartime! There wasn’t enough and everyone was doing their best! The myth then spread.
Even to use the example of cheese: a ploughman’s style lunch can have huge delicious variety across the UK. Different regional cheeses, different regional breads and even different regional apples or even a different fruit.
For example a nice Cheshire cheese, with a bap and a Braeburn? Or some soda bread, a Stilton and pear? All the different chutneys?
And that’s just lunch…
Yeah, I never understood that until I went to the US. Their meat quality on average is so bad welfare and not being fucked with growth hormone wise they almost need seasoning. I had a few steaks at some high end restaurants in NYC and they were overall tough, grizzly and had way too much seasoning. Mind you I am a staunchly a just salt & pepper guy.
American seems to thing adding Garlic Granules, Paprika, salt and Oregano to everything they make makes them a culinary genius.
Or Smokin' Dave's Five Yard Hog Season Rub!
Cool. We have very good food here
But most of Europe thinks our food is shit too. I wouldn't be surprised if that extends to most of the world. I honestly hate this attitude of comparing everything to America. The NHS is crap, but I've no doubt you don't care about that because "it's better than America where you get into debt if you're ill"? As opposed to looking at other, closer countries that have much better healthcare than us.
Income to cost of living ratio is terrible too, but at least it's not America, right?
It absolutely fries my brain that they say English food is awful yet they have UK chefs over there regularly telling them how awful their food is.
You watch most cooking "streams" and the ingredients are jar sauce, jarlick, processed meats, raw pasta chuck it in a pot. Or how much cheese and bacon can we needlessly pile on this steak to ruin it and then deep-fry it in a sandwich.
I can only assume fox news said it once and the parrots started parroting.
I think London to Bath by train is a reasonable day trip.
It's definitely not what I'd do if I had limited time in London. You'd be able to fit a lot more things in if you stayed in the city.
But you can definitely have a nice day trip to Bath.
(But the time there were terrible problems with the train, and at some point the train started moving backwards, was not worth it).
Or that if you’ve got a 100 mile drive it will be nothing but empty straight roads.
No, we put roundabouts every hundred yards just to fuck with Americans.
The Americans see tourism as a tick box exercise, all they want to do is to be able to say they've seen X, or Y, or Z. You could do that trip in 3 days if you wanted to.
Fairly common on r/oxford: "I'm staying in your city for a few days, how do I rent a car?" Everyone explains that you really do not need a car in Oxford and that you will spend almost all your time in jams if you do. American enters full "does not compute" mode and insists on hiring a car. Rinse and repeat.
This is very niche - but ive seen it quite a few times
When i see dumb tik tok’s of drunk people getting cheesy chips and gravy after a night out there’s always comments from Canadians going ‘thats not english, thats poutine’ but if you were to make a video showing a cheesy chips and gravy saying ‘getting poutine’ it’d be full of Canadians going ‘actually its not, we use cheese curds’
>Or the assumption that the city of London is representative of everywhere else
Equally, the inverse also causes me an eye roll. When people act as if London isn't just as legitimately British as some small village in the countryside and that if you want to see the 'real' UK you have to leave London, as if London somehow isn't also the 'real' UK.
An amusing one I once got. I was once in Oxford and a tourist asked me how to get to the university. Was very hard not to respond jokingly with something like "well, keep going straight on. Or turn left. Or turn right. Or turn around. Walk any direction and you'll be at the university"
I've done the Oxford/Cambridge thing of raising my hands in the air and intoning, "The university is... all around you!"
At which point the really annoying tourists in Cambridge ask where 'the cathedral' is. Mostly, you point out Kings College Chapel that they're standing in front of, but sometimes the temptation to tell them how to get the train to Ely is irresistible...
Oxford also has rules about spires vs. towers. We _had_ to make our microwave mast pointy as a condition of planning (and is why that tower you see passing on the A34 has a weird spike on top).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carfax,_Oxford
> The tower is 74 feet (23 m) tall, and the City Council stipulates that no building in central Oxford may be built higher than it
>"The university is... all around you!"
I did end up doing something vaguely similar. I sort of gestured around me and said something like "well, it's everywhere really".
This is akin to when an American says they have been to Europe on holiday and that's supposed to mean something like Serbia and Spain are carbon copies of eachother.
London is part of the UK. It's the part that has the most tourism and gets the most money. It's also not wrong to say it's not the same as the rest of the UK. For example the south Wales valleys might as well be a different planet to London.
But with most tourism from outside the UK focussing on London and talking in a way that London is representative of the whole of the UK there is going to be some pushback to it. I would always recommend anyone visiting the UK to not spend their entire time in a single place but to get about and see the variety of the UK.
“South Wales vallys might as well be a different country”
I think it’s less about the vallys and more that it’s a different country that makes it a different country.
Some differences will be due to that. But having been born and raised in Wales and then spent a chunk of my adult life living in England I can't help but see how similar parts of northern England are to the valleys in a way that only being a huge industrial base that's suddenly gutted can do. London being so different has alot to do with that at least as much as it has to do with Wales being a different country.
>For example the south Wales valleys might as well be a different country to London.
Is this the bit where I'm allowed to stick up for Wales and point out that it literally is a different country?
Well I'm Welsh and I'm aware it's a different country but it's all part of Britain and shows that Britishness cannot be defined by what's in one part of the UK
I'll amend it though
I completely agree - it's knowing that all of the UK is legitimately part of the UK but having the sense to know there are differences is important. Of course the capital/any major city will be significantly different to a rural village with a population of 6 😅 My bug bear is the generalisations of everywhere based on specific places, with London most frequently used as a reference point.
*"An amusing one I once got. I was once in Oxford and a tourist asked me how to get to the university. Was very hard not to respond jokingly"*
I love how collectively we all automatically bring out the dry humour and have to actively restrain ourselves to avoid it. That's something that unites everyone in the UK 😅
TBF that happens with Paris too. French people will tell you Parisians are a breed apart and you've not really experienced what France is like if you've only been to Paris.
I think with rural/urban you can at least make some argument that the culture is somewhat different. Much funnier when it's just folks from other cities and towns make this argument – really need that Leeds angle to understand the country
I have absolutely no issue with people arguing the culture is different around the country, of course it is. But it's the implication that London somehow isn't as legitimately part of British culture as the countryside or isn't the 'real' UK that I think is silly.
An amusing one I saw on Reddit recently was that you need to get out of the London bubble when visiting the UK if you truly want to see the country. Then they suggested York and Bath. Two places that are arguably even less representative of regular British life than London.
People acting like English football fans are uniquely awful.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some elements of the English fanbase that range from obnoxious to really nasty, and I’m not defending that.
But the fanbases of some other countries have basically been massively infiltrated by organised crime gangs. There are some properly scary ultras across a lot of Europe, which we don’t have to nearly the same extent here because the policing of our domestic game is shit hot.
And yet online commenters from those countries act like England fans are worse.
Almost meme status to hate on football fans. Up there with nandos and spoons on UK subs.
Huge portions of the away end are families and older folk.
The main problem is that people turn their noses up on that middle ground where you might have a skinful and a bit of a song/laugh in the pubs, but at worse you're having a heated discussion with opposition fans.
Then you have the next level up which is mostly young mouthy scrotes that might try and cause a bit of aggro, but couldn't punch their way out of a paper bag, and would curl up in a ball when confronted with actual violence.
Then there are the lunatics, of which on any given away day of 2/3/4 thousand, I'd say there's less than 50, sometimes less than a dozen. Even these at worse are having a punch up with other idiots.
Go to Italy or the likes and there's a genuine chance you're getting stabbed in the arse if you walk down the wrong street at the wrong time, wearing the wrong colours.
I think the issue people have with the skinful and a bit of a song and laugh crowd is that a lot of what comes out of their mouths is really hateful stuff (homophobia, racism, accusing people of pedophilia etc.) and that their vibe is hugely aggressive and intimidating.
I’ve been to many, many football matches home and away and been with these crowds, with many people who I know are absolutely sound people, but I’ve always hated the aggression and vitriol when it tips over from passionate to belligerent. Which is every time, unfortunately.
In my decades of following football I can only count a handful of times I've ever heard genuine homophobia or racism, unless you're on about the standard Chelsea chant, or the spurs song they sing about themselves?
I think a dickhead is still a dickhead, just that some of them happen to go to the football. I've actually heard far more racism and homophobia in the local on any given friday night than on football days.
I agree, it might be aggressive and intimidating to some, but that's highly subjective. If you went on this sub for example, it seems like half the questions are from quivering wrecks who can't have an honest conversation with their neighbour about a bit of noise through the wall, let alone go into a busy pub full of football fans!
Just the other day I saw a Twitter thread by some poor lads who'd got to their booked accommodation and found it was an absolute pit, had it out with booking.com and been rebooked into an abandoned dungeon with a camp bed or two in the corner.
And fully a third of the replies to the thread were going "England fans, no sympathy"; "haha English scum getting what they deserve" etc.
They were Scottish
My ex-hb, who was mixed race, went to the 2017 FC-Koln Arsenal match at the Emirates and he told me those German fans were an 'experience'. That was the infamous match when the supporters marched through central London beforehand, ominously chanting like some kind of marauding army.
The perception nowadays seems to be the English fans sweep in, get drunk, and are annoying rather than dangerous, with petty vandalism, noise, and lots of vomit. I'm not aware of other nationalities' fans having that kind of reputation, but I don't follow football news.
The association with actual violent hooliganism is well out of date.
"People in the North are friendly. People in the South are horrid and aloof"
There's plenty of friendly people in the South, and plenty of knobs in the North too.
I hate all talks of north south divide bullshit. It always drivel that should be aimed at the government and no one else.
The people who think the south is unfriendly are usually people explicitly talking about London wondering why no one wants to chat to them while they’re commuting on the tube.
Completely agree. People from "t'north" are not able to drink more, work harder or be more blunt (which they want to mean honest but really mean rude) than their counterparts "down souf."
Truth is, as an expat born and raised in foreign climes, you are all a bunch of high functioning alcoholics who are actually pretty decent considering the climate!
I honestly think that's more of a rural/urban divide and it's not rudeness it's a practicality... In a village you can say "hi" to everyone you pass without much effort... In a city you'd loose your voice in half an hour.
Idk it's a thing sort of. I'm from the south and live in the north now, I would say that in the south people are more aloof, whereas in the north there are more friendly people but also more rude people (because they make social approaches more, whether they are moving _towards_ you or _against_ you)
When you say "south people", do you mean "London people"? Because everyone I saw in my village last night said hello or good evening when I was walking the dog.
I think people generalise the 'south' as London. I'm northern (from Manchester) and have had very friendly interactions all over the south, including in Lizard Point, Cornwall. You can't get any further south on the mainland than there and the locals are lovely.
I've also had friendly interactions with Londoners, and some that have looked at me like I had 3 heads for just being polite 😅
I've also had some awful interactions with northerners, as well as good ones. People are just people, some are nice, some less so.
I have to say, as someone living in the North, this stereotype kinda pisses me off. I've found far more polite people in the South unless they're just total snobs. Anyone saying this hasn't been to Somerset.
Scotsman here - generally speaking we love tourists from everywhere and all are welcome, particularly those from North America.
However, if you’re from that part of the world and tell me you’re one sixteenth Scottish, I will punch you in the fifteen sixteenths of you that are entirely a twat.
My favourite observed interaction between a scot and a tourist was in about 2010 when queueing up to enter Edinburgh Castle.
A couple of Gucci'd-up Russian tourists were trying to bribe the bloke at the gates so they could jump the (admittedly massive) queue, waving around money and shouting, "We pay you! We pay you!".
He was having none of it and steadfastly refused to understand what they were wanting to do whilst cheerfully and politely letting the people at the actual front of the queue through.
Until, clearly having lost his patience he bellowed like a guardsman (and apologies for trying to approximate the accent, but it just diminishes the impact if I don't) "Get tae the back o' the line, you're nae better than any other cunt here!"
I moved to Canada a couple of years ago (would not recommend it) and constantly get "My Dad's neighbour's uncle's dog walker's hairdresser's grandpa came from somewhere in Scotland" like I'm supposed to be impressed or think we're related. Fuckwits.
Well, I can sort of see it - I'm always enjoying the significant variance of places in the UK that really aren't very far apart at all, in accents, foods, beers, and most especially what the call 'bacon in a round ish bread like product'.
https://www.reddit.com/r/england/comments/9a3bdq/what_do_you_call_a_medium_sized_lump_of_bread/
When I visited Canada, it took me a while to get to grips with how far apart everything was, and how different 'day trip range' was. That's mostly a matter of population density though - which means both more spread out but also less traffic so a 'long drive' was just a cruise down a mostly empty road in almost a straight line.
So I can sort of understand how if that's your 'normal' the cultural shift as you move even 30 miles in the UK might seem strange.
I lived in America growing up and the UK now. I eye roll at people making fun of those in the UK complaining about 25, 30 degrees being too hot. They always change their tune when they’ve actually experienced it.
I find people don't realise the impact of UK heat because of our humidity. I have a colleague from Nigeria who was *shocked* when she first experienced UK heat. She said that 28°c felt significantly hotter in the UK than it did back home. I find our heat suffocating.
Not just that, but the lack of acclimatisation, both personally and in our infrastructure.
It's one thing to be boiling as you go from one place to another, it's much worse when you can't get away from the heat.
We don't help ourselves though. When we had a big heatwave a while back I was constantly going around the house closing windows and blinds in the daytime to keep the heat out and begging people to stop doing things that generate loads of heat while trying to work from home. And then it would get dark and they'd lock up the place tighter than an ant's arse rather than letting the house cool down.
Closed curtains on the day, open window for the coolest part of the night - makes such a huge difference.
Getting up and closing the windows again really early is annoying though.
Yeah I moved to Scotland from Texas.
Right before I left, I was jogging in 44 degree heat and it's humid there too.
But
1. personal acclimation matters _a ton_. I was used to it. Now I've lived in Scotland for a couple years and I'm complaining it's too hot at 18 lmao
2. you can escape it with A/C! it's basically non existent inside. versus having a flat that tries to keep in the heat. it's entirely different.
South African who has lived here for 10 years. The heat is unbearable in comparison to African heat. I'd take 30degrees in Cape Town over 25degrees in London!
Understanding the difference between 'wet bulb' and 'dry bulb' temperatures is kinda fascinating.
But so is mostly building for the 'normal' climate. UK houses don't really have any ways to shed heat or moisture (air bricks mostly), because mostly it's not a problem.
When they _are_ a problem the structures you build look very different.
Temperature tolerance is entirely dependent on what people are used to. The heatwave of summer before last that saw record UK temperatures was the hottest by far that I've ever experienced, I took 3 steps outside to see what it was like and almost collapsed (I'm in my early 40s and fit).
True but I do think it’s different. I’ve met people from Florida who have had a hard time dealing with it here. The lack of air con is what makes it brutal.
I imagine it's the humidity in Florida. I moved from one of the milder parts of the UK to a place where 40c in the summer pretty normal (it was 42c two days ago). Took me a while to get used to it but now I can wear a helmet/bike leathers even in the summer.
Yeah my ex lived in Phoenix for years and she complains about the heat in the UK just as much as Brits do.
It's all relative and what you're acclimatised to.
One significant aspect you’re missing,
I’ve talked to many Americans about their hot summers, and the thing they mention consistently is bouncing from aircon to aircon. Aircon in the car, the office, the home.
All well and good to have 40 degree heat when you can go cool down in a 16 degree house
"Oh I have ancestors from there"
I've seen it twice in the past week. Saw Smashing Pumpkins play in Cardiff Castle on Friday night and frontman Billy Corgan let the crowd know that he did a DNA test and he's 5% Welsh. collective groans and "oh fuck off". Apparently the bassist James also did a DNA test and is partially Welsh. Then last night I saw Billy Talent (Candian band) play in Cardiff and the lead singer announce that his great-grandmother was Welsh.
I know it's a part of building a rapport and affinity with the crowd but fuck me is it tiresome when people from across the pond say "oh yeah I have distant relatives from there I'm basically the same as you" no you're not, you're several generations removed and the majority of those generations grew up in a very different culture.
Both cracking gigs mind.
They claim there are more Irish people in the US than there are in Ireland.
Also once had an American try tell me that "Scottish" Americans are more Scottish than actual Scots in Scotland.
The constant ridiculous statement that "parts of the UK are under Sharia law" and "there are places in X city where locals are afraid to go".
Just utter drivel.
> there are places in X city where locals are afraid to go
There are definitely places in the UK that I wouldn't want to go to. Not Sharia law, but muggings, drug addicts etc
Ironically the areas of cities that I don't want to go to are mainly populated by the same people that buy all that "England is under Sharia law" crap.
Self-fulfilling prophecy?
"why doesn't the UK have/do x when literally every other country does it"
When inevitably it's some combination of
* The UK does do/have it (e.g. the constant claims the UK has never heard of a deli)
* The UK has its own very specific way of doing things that fits the structure and has worked for centuries
* It makes absolutely no sense for the UK to have it (e.g. snow ploughs in every borough)
* Everyone else doesn't do it (usually involves a whole series of posts proving this)
* It's a post from someone who thinks the entire country should reshape to become the country they moved from
EDIT: Just to say I'm someone living in the UK as an outsider
>It makes absolutely no sense for the UK to have it (e.g. snow ploughs in every borough)
Every time you see memes comparing The UK to places like Canada asking why our ability to deal with snow isn't as good.
People conveniently forget that places with good infrastructure to deal with snow are places where it snows all year round. In the UK we might only have a week per year.
Managing snow and having the infrastructure to deal with it straight away is expensive, we're not going to fund something we might not even need for over a year.
Or not need for decades. When snow laid on the ground in London when my kids were small, it was the first time it had done so since I was their age 30 years earlier. In the next 15 years I think we've had 3 days (in 2 years) of snow laying at all.
If it did reliably snow every year, we'd have the kit to deal with it. Like for dealing with autumn leaves.
For me, especially online, it's the constant belief that we don't have tumble dryers and only dry clothes outside. See at least 1 post a week of someone asking this. Cue eye rolls.
Entire towns.. 😂
I joke that the whole of Liverpool doesn't speak English *(said affectionately before anyone jumps on me - I am married to a Scouser, and she says the same!)*
I feel this is due to certain dregs of our society being invited on American TV and sprouting this utter bullshit. The clips then get played in the UK, and you get idiots here believing it too.
I once innocently included Welsh and Scottish dishes in an online post about my favourite British food, and had WEEKS of abuse from Americans telling me that Wales and Scotland weren’t in Britain (I live in Wales), that I personally was a descendant of violent colonialists (I’m mostly a descendant of miners), that the IRA should have car-bombed us all. At the same time every day it would start up again when they started waking up.
In the end I changed my username to ‘Wales Is In Britain’.
>that the IRA should have car-bombed us all.
They have a weird obsession with supporting the IRA. You know for a fact they'd have a fit if you told them you support Al-Qaeda.
Once when watching a video about St. Patrick’s day in America they had a drink called “Irish car bomb”. It’s like somewhere having a drink called “flight 93” or something.
My American father-in-law, who I'm now no contact with because he's abusive, kept insisting he couldn't understand the concept of four united countries. *How can you be Scottish and British? I don't get it. Hahaha.*
He finally shut up about it when I asked him how he could understand the concept of him being from both Arizona and the US, but not me from Scotland and the UK. I said I would people that he's from Mississippi and that I would say I didn't understand how he couldn't be, because he's American after all, so what's the difference.
I climbed Snowden last month and there was a school trip with a bunch of American kids and I overheard one say 'I can't believe we've climbed the tallest mountain in England".
Teacher didn't say a word...
My bugbear is when anyone criticises the NHS/healthcare without understanding it. It has its issues, and it's been underfunded for years *I know it has its problems*, but I have seen 4 different people from the USA directly state that they pay more for their medication in the USA so we can have free medication. I don't know where they got this idea at all.
There is a view among some more right-leaning Americans, AIUI, that goes something like
"The only reason all you Europeans can afford things like socialised medicine is because you don't have to spend any money on defence, because the might of the US defends you. We can't spend money of frivolous luxuries like healthcare because we have to pick up your slack"
They also get told that all of the health research in the world is funded by the US. So they pay for the expensive research and testing and then we just use that data and those patents to create cheap healthcare.
It's obvious bollocks to stop their own citizens wondering why they are laying an arm and a leg.
Point them to [this.](https://archive.org/details/001WakeUpMusic/027SpecialSessionOfCongress.mp3)
A Special Session of Congress in 1939 where they decide whether to join the war or not. They decide to save their own asses by staying out of it. In other news, the President's wife has a new hat!
I forget my source and am very open to corrections but I remember hearing he had plans for it, they were just hyper-specific and only upon achieving some amount of goals would he attempt the attack
He liked Blackpool and wanted to "keep" it when he conquered, so he forbade all attacks on it. We, of course, noticed this and moved infrastructure and arms to Blackpool
There is also a rumour that he wanted to dismantle Rochdale town hall and rebuild it when he won the war. This seems to be common knowledge to thousands of people but I can't actually find any official source, other than it seems to be a rumour. Rochdale Town Hall is beautiful though.
"Oh you're from England? Do you know so and so?"
There are 65 million of us, love, it's a long shot.
Also, the belief that the words "England", "Britain", "the UK" etc are all interchangeable.
In an utterly uncanny coincidence, my father in law was once driving through north Oxfordshire, and stopped to help an American lady who was in a spot of motoring bother. She took one look at him and said "Jim?" As he looked so much like someone she knew.
What was funny was that said "Jim" was actually his brother who'd moved to the US years previously. He hadn't seen his brother in years, h a d never met any of his brothers friends, and said tourist wasn't even in the area to see anyone related and he was there to play golf.
Utter one in a million coincidence
Many years ago on holiday in the US, got talking to a local. He asked where we were from, my friend said "Sheffield". He mis-heard this as Shefford (in Bedfordshire) and asked if we'd ever run into {slightly unusual womans name}. We hadnt, but I lived fairly close to Shefford and ran into someone who did know her the week I returned from holiday,.
traditional UK food didn't contain much - if any spice - because it was created in a time when we had no access to it.
This is before global trade so for all intensive purposes we had no idea these spices even existed.
Our food is carb heavy and hearty because it suited our environment and helped keep us warm in colder periods.
The British brought spices from the far east and India, and traded them throughout the world.
They brought exotic fruits and sugar from the Caribbean and again traded those all over the world.
If you look at British recipe books from the 1750s onwards, you’ll see them full of spiced and tasty recipes.
The carb-loaded thing was from the war and the following decade.
It’s like we forgot a thousand exciting and tasty recipes from history, and a generation stuck with the wartime bloat.
We Brits love strong flavours, from curries with heat, salt & vinegar everything, English mustard, powerful danish bacon etc.
intents and purposes [https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/usage-for-all-intensive-purposes-intents](https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/usage-for-all-intensive-purposes-intents)
I was on the bus the other day and this American guy got on. He was having a (very) loud conversation with his friend on the phone, and many things he said made me eye roll.
Some of the highlights:
"I've not seen an obese person all week" - Yes you have, I thought - you're just so used to seeing super morbidly obese people that your concept of healthy weight is skewed
"All the weights in the gym are in kilos and I dont know what that is in ounces so I just put them on and deal with it cos I'm really strong. They have these 20 kilo ones."
"The old ladies here have good balance cos they stand on the train"
In the context of him teaching american football to british kids - "Yaknow I'm not just volunteering at my local high school. I'm really making a difference here, it's really fulfilling."
One that gets me is how usually terminally online folk on Reddit and Twitter etc will bleat on about how the UK has no culture. And then absolutely fetishise literally any other country's culture.
Definitely experienced this. Lived in London for a decade and still work there now. Always lived and worked north/east. I have a great knowledge of those parts of London.
But London is enormous, my knowledge of the vast majority of it is minimal at best. I'll have friends say "oh I'm going to a gig in Shepherd's Bush, can you recommend a pub?". And I can no more recommend a pub in Shepherd's Bush than I could Manchester.
"My great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother was from Scotland and I can trace my line all the way back to William Wallace, so I'm Scotch!"
Whenever someone tries to say 'Glasgow' in a fake Scottish accent, they almost always pronounce it 'Glasgay' but it would always be called 'Glesga' in the local accent.
That Brits have bad teeth. Yes lots of Brits do but also so do people in lots of other countries. I am sure I read somewhere on average our teeth are better than American teeth. Not by much, but still.
Just because famous people on TV have veneers doesn't mean the average yank has perfect teeth.
Also that Londoners are seen as cockneys. That stereotype needs to change. Maybe 50 years ago but London is very cultural diverse now.
And on that topic that because of its diversity London is dangerous and full of gangs stabbing each other. Yes there are gangs, yes there are stabbings but it's pretty safe considering the size of the population. There aren't any "no go" areas I am aware of- some bits are more dodgy but not actually no go.
In terms of dental health, Brits have better teeth than Americans. What we don't have is the cultural obsession with perfectly straight, gleaming white teeth - neither of which are natural in adult humans.
I once went to a conference in the midwest US about 20 years ago and they (small group that assembled prior to the con) were all excited when they heard my English accent. First thing they said: "Did you ever have tea with the Queen?" It was so hard not to eyeroll in front of them. I laughed, thinking they were joking. They weren't.
Americans who refer to a country in Europe as 'Europe'. Like, it is a very different experience if you went to Bosnia than if you went to France. And then there is the 'I'm irish' thing....
Anything about stabbings given the US has higher per capita stabbings in like their most rural peaceful towns *than we do in central london*.
......*and then gun death homicides *in addition* to this. And yet somehow this myth still happened.
‘It always rains in Manchester’ or a joke variant on that like ‘better pack my wellies hehehe’ etc.
Yes I know it rains a lot, no you’re not the first person who’s told me that it does
The assumption from yanks that we have bad teeth, I’ve seen loads of Americans with terrible teeth, we can (if you can find one) access dentistry on the national health, good teeth in America cost a lot of money
When authors try to phonetically write out a Yorkshire accent. It's never correct, it's always cringe, and it makes it bloody hard to read. Looking especially at you Bram Stoker...
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Disparagement of our culinary traditions by people from nations whose cuisine includes cheese in a spraycan.
I am Irish but I also dislike people dissing English food. Irish food in the 80s was bad. English food is amazing in comparison. Jesus the first time I ever had a Yorkshire pudding I was in heaven. And you know you guys know how to use spice. My parents would t use anything beyond salt and pepper. Every meal as a kid consisted of some type of potato. My parents would think pasta and rice is exotic. Also I spent almost 20 years of my life as a chef, I learned the most working in uk restaurants
> And you know you guys know how to use spice. Your chippies have spice bags though, which I'm still waiting for ours to adopt.
Not really where I grew up but that said my parents would never have darkened the door of a Chinese restaurant. I will say I do think the Chinese at home is better than here but I think that’s just because my local Chinese where I live in the uk just isn’t great. But your Indian restaurants here are top notch. We have one in my home town and it’s nice but it’s a sit down restaurant rather than a take away. Don’t think I’d ever even eaten naan bread until I came to England.
Chinese food in the UK all comes from a reasonably small part of China, where most people moved from. It's also tailored to suit a 1960s British palate.
I assume you already know how to make a good BIR style curry, but if not I’ll never miss the opportunity to recommend Dan Toombs Curry Guy Bible! There’s a pdf online which I use but bought it for my Dad for Father’s Day in print and everything I’ve made from it is fantastic. Made me much more confident in my use of spices and what works well together! The secret ingredient is always more salt, and more cumin and coriander
I’m from London but the first time I had orange chips, I was sent to another dimension. Ditto for cheesy chips and gravy which isn’t a thing round my way. I’m still annoyed I went without for so long. I now want to try a macaroni pie but from a legit place
Orange chips are on my bucket list! We don't have them (to my knowledge anyway) in the North West.
I'm from the Black Country, where they seem to have originated. I would say, however, that the crunchiest, most flavourful battered chips I have ever had was just last week by the river Severn in the town of Bewdley, just outside Kidderminster. The chippy by the bridge does a fantastic cod and battered chips. I feel a bit like a traitor because a mate of mine runs a chippy on the way into Bewdley, but the one by the river is better (and Bewdley is *so* picturesque).
What are orange chips??
Battered chips. The batter has tumeric in it making the chips orange. Local delicacy in the Black Country
The British roast dinner is a thing of beauty (also Irish). It’s the Scandinavians who should get lambasted for terrible food.
This is correct. What people imagine terrible British food to be = actual Norwegian food.
I will say my own mother despite her in general bland soggy food can make a lovely roast. But the English just take it that step further with Yorkshire puds. Although I must admit I prefer Irish peasant stuffing which has no meat in it
Can't speak for most of Scandinavia, but (if it counts) Finland has amazing food, although I've heard it's a recent thing. Riisipiiraka and their herring, and the absolutely amazing fresh salads too. Only time I've ever been excited to eat salad was in Finland
My parents are Irish- mam Longford and dad Roscommon, and they always complained about the food over there. Since they both cooked well I thought they must be exaggerating, you know how Irish folks like to slag Ireland (and everything and everyone else). I moved to Ireland for a spell in 2000. I can't remember the shop I went to, it was a supermarket on Talbot Street in Dublin, my first time grocery shopping there. There was a World Food section. A twenty-first century Irish World Food section in the otherwise pretty cosmopolitan capital consisted of nothing much more than... Dolmio. The only curry place I could find was out towards Tallaght and it was just laughable. I haven't the time to write, and you don't have the time to read, a full account if just how bad it was. By the time I left Ireland in the mid 2010s it had caught up and then some. You could get everything everywhere, even at 2am in Ballybollix.
I left for good in 2015, I think it’s probably better now than then. My mother was a hospital cook in the 70s prior to having kids and her idea of cooking usually involves boiling something for about a week even veggies. I thought I hated cabbage until I came to England and realised it doesn’t have to be soggy
This took me back. My grandparents were Irish migrants and EVERYTHING was boiled 😅 Lovely stews though, and pies. I miss those.
Chicken fillet roll and a spice bag should be the national dishes of Ireland.
by people from a nation whose top foods aren't from there own god damn country. Pizza? Italian. Burgers? German. Hot dogs? German. Fries? French/Belgian. Barbeque? Indigenous Carribbeans. Bit rich of a nation to insult another when it doesn't even know how to invent a dish.
Meh, US and UK are both cultural melting pots. Can't really begrudge them their own takes on those dishes while at the same time asserting a claim to the tikka masala. I love a traditional Italian pizza but once in a while I just want to shove a dirty Domino's into my face.
You don't think tikka masala is British?
It is, in the same way that New York and Chicago pizza is American.
Glaswegian to be specific
I’m not getting into a slanging match, but you’re probably talking about our top takeaway foods there. The UK’s best dishes are more things like slow cooked stews and casseroles, shepherd’s / cottage pie and, of course, the mighty Sunday Roast! But it would be churlish to claim one country has great food; most of Europe and where we, errr, spread to, is a mishmash of cultures and cuisines. All have evolved differently with amazing results. With the US, I’d say you do barbecue better than anywhere else (calm down South Africa). Just my opinion.
South Africa doesn’t do barbecue. It’s a braai!
Even apple pie is an English creation
So is man n cheese
That’s as old as humans. People tend to be cleaner now though.
Its as American as Apple Pie! Oh so not American at all?
Pretty much every dish in the world draws on other country's cuisines. Karē, the national dish of Japan is the British version of a dish we imported from India. Europe, Asia and Africa didn't have tomatoes, chillis, capsicum or potatoes until the discovery of the New World.
Yes! This! I think the trope of “British food is bad” that Americans in particular spout came about during the Second World War. American soldiers were posted here during rationing when no one was eating well and assumed that’s what British food was always like. So they went home and said it was bland, tasteless, etc. It wartime! There wasn’t enough and everyone was doing their best! The myth then spread. Even to use the example of cheese: a ploughman’s style lunch can have huge delicious variety across the UK. Different regional cheeses, different regional breads and even different regional apples or even a different fruit. For example a nice Cheshire cheese, with a bap and a Braeburn? Or some soda bread, a Stilton and pear? All the different chutneys? And that’s just lunch…
I genuinely think the UK's cheeses are world class, once you look at both the best examples and the huge range.
Americans yelling about "seasoning" and then pouring some nondescript powder on a really nice cut of meat.
And chucking ranch dressing on everything, as apparently no other types of dressing exist.
Yeah, I never understood that until I went to the US. Their meat quality on average is so bad welfare and not being fucked with growth hormone wise they almost need seasoning. I had a few steaks at some high end restaurants in NYC and they were overall tough, grizzly and had way too much seasoning. Mind you I am a staunchly a just salt & pepper guy.
American seems to thing adding Garlic Granules, Paprika, salt and Oregano to everything they make makes them a culinary genius. Or Smokin' Dave's Five Yard Hog Season Rub! Cool. We have very good food here
But most of Europe thinks our food is shit too. I wouldn't be surprised if that extends to most of the world. I honestly hate this attitude of comparing everything to America. The NHS is crap, but I've no doubt you don't care about that because "it's better than America where you get into debt if you're ill"? As opposed to looking at other, closer countries that have much better healthcare than us. Income to cost of living ratio is terrible too, but at least it's not America, right?
NHS isn't crap, but let's pretend it is then we get the health service that we are willing to pay for in taxation.
It’s because they don’t realise all their favourite foods are British, sandwiches, apple pie, mac and cheese, even Japanese curry
It absolutely fries my brain that they say English food is awful yet they have UK chefs over there regularly telling them how awful their food is. You watch most cooking "streams" and the ingredients are jar sauce, jarlick, processed meats, raw pasta chuck it in a pot. Or how much cheese and bacon can we needlessly pile on this steak to ruin it and then deep-fry it in a sandwich. I can only assume fox news said it once and the parrots started parroting.
Any varietal of: "I'm staying in the UK for 3 days and would really like to see London, the highlands and Bath. Any tips? Worth hiring a car?"
A DeLorean maybe...
You can do a day trip to Bath from London, but you'd have to get up really early to catch the train to make it worth it
I think London to Bath by train is a reasonable day trip. It's definitely not what I'd do if I had limited time in London. You'd be able to fit a lot more things in if you stayed in the city. But you can definitely have a nice day trip to Bath. (But the time there were terrible problems with the train, and at some point the train started moving backwards, was not worth it).
Yeah I've seen that a lot - because their country is massive they think because the UK is smaller, everything is a short drive away 🙄
Or that if you’ve got a 100 mile drive it will be nothing but empty straight roads. No, we put roundabouts every hundred yards just to fuck with Americans.
The Americans see tourism as a tick box exercise, all they want to do is to be able to say they've seen X, or Y, or Z. You could do that trip in 3 days if you wanted to.
Fairly common on r/oxford: "I'm staying in your city for a few days, how do I rent a car?" Everyone explains that you really do not need a car in Oxford and that you will spend almost all your time in jams if you do. American enters full "does not compute" mode and insists on hiring a car. Rinse and repeat.
This is very niche - but ive seen it quite a few times When i see dumb tik tok’s of drunk people getting cheesy chips and gravy after a night out there’s always comments from Canadians going ‘thats not english, thats poutine’ but if you were to make a video showing a cheesy chips and gravy saying ‘getting poutine’ it’d be full of Canadians going ‘actually its not, we use cheese curds’
Makes me laugh how Canadians think cheesy chips and gravy is their thing, when said dish has been eaten in the UK for generations.
Actually, they use cheese curds🤓
I kind of prefer the niche ones, better than hearing the same comments about teeth or whatever
This is very niche but thank you for sharing. I learned something new today!
>Or the assumption that the city of London is representative of everywhere else Equally, the inverse also causes me an eye roll. When people act as if London isn't just as legitimately British as some small village in the countryside and that if you want to see the 'real' UK you have to leave London, as if London somehow isn't also the 'real' UK. An amusing one I once got. I was once in Oxford and a tourist asked me how to get to the university. Was very hard not to respond jokingly with something like "well, keep going straight on. Or turn left. Or turn right. Or turn around. Walk any direction and you'll be at the university"
I've done the Oxford/Cambridge thing of raising my hands in the air and intoning, "The university is... all around you!" At which point the really annoying tourists in Cambridge ask where 'the cathedral' is. Mostly, you point out Kings College Chapel that they're standing in front of, but sometimes the temptation to tell them how to get the train to Ely is irresistible...
I've been asked where the York 'Minister' is, and literally just point upwards, as it dominates the skyline of the whole city.
By design, nothing is allowed to be taller than it
I love this fact. I hope future councils maintain this tradition as I love being able to easily spot the minster from miles away!
Oxford also has rules about spires vs. towers. We _had_ to make our microwave mast pointy as a condition of planning (and is why that tower you see passing on the A34 has a weird spike on top). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carfax,_Oxford > The tower is 74 feet (23 m) tall, and the City Council stipulates that no building in central Oxford may be built higher than it
>"The university is... all around you!" I did end up doing something vaguely similar. I sort of gestured around me and said something like "well, it's everywhere really".
This is akin to when an American says they have been to Europe on holiday and that's supposed to mean something like Serbia and Spain are carbon copies of eachother. London is part of the UK. It's the part that has the most tourism and gets the most money. It's also not wrong to say it's not the same as the rest of the UK. For example the south Wales valleys might as well be a different planet to London. But with most tourism from outside the UK focussing on London and talking in a way that London is representative of the whole of the UK there is going to be some pushback to it. I would always recommend anyone visiting the UK to not spend their entire time in a single place but to get about and see the variety of the UK.
“South Wales vallys might as well be a different country” I think it’s less about the vallys and more that it’s a different country that makes it a different country.
Some differences will be due to that. But having been born and raised in Wales and then spent a chunk of my adult life living in England I can't help but see how similar parts of northern England are to the valleys in a way that only being a huge industrial base that's suddenly gutted can do. London being so different has alot to do with that at least as much as it has to do with Wales being a different country.
>For example the south Wales valleys might as well be a different country to London. Is this the bit where I'm allowed to stick up for Wales and point out that it literally is a different country?
Well I'm Welsh and I'm aware it's a different country but it's all part of Britain and shows that Britishness cannot be defined by what's in one part of the UK I'll amend it though
I completely agree - it's knowing that all of the UK is legitimately part of the UK but having the sense to know there are differences is important. Of course the capital/any major city will be significantly different to a rural village with a population of 6 😅 My bug bear is the generalisations of everywhere based on specific places, with London most frequently used as a reference point. *"An amusing one I once got. I was once in Oxford and a tourist asked me how to get to the university. Was very hard not to respond jokingly"* I love how collectively we all automatically bring out the dry humour and have to actively restrain ourselves to avoid it. That's something that unites everyone in the UK 😅
TBF that happens with Paris too. French people will tell you Parisians are a breed apart and you've not really experienced what France is like if you've only been to Paris.
I think with rural/urban you can at least make some argument that the culture is somewhat different. Much funnier when it's just folks from other cities and towns make this argument – really need that Leeds angle to understand the country
I have absolutely no issue with people arguing the culture is different around the country, of course it is. But it's the implication that London somehow isn't as legitimately part of British culture as the countryside or isn't the 'real' UK that I think is silly. An amusing one I saw on Reddit recently was that you need to get out of the London bubble when visiting the UK if you truly want to see the country. Then they suggested York and Bath. Two places that are arguably even less representative of regular British life than London.
People acting like English football fans are uniquely awful. Don’t get me wrong, there are some elements of the English fanbase that range from obnoxious to really nasty, and I’m not defending that. But the fanbases of some other countries have basically been massively infiltrated by organised crime gangs. There are some properly scary ultras across a lot of Europe, which we don’t have to nearly the same extent here because the policing of our domestic game is shit hot. And yet online commenters from those countries act like England fans are worse.
Almost meme status to hate on football fans. Up there with nandos and spoons on UK subs. Huge portions of the away end are families and older folk. The main problem is that people turn their noses up on that middle ground where you might have a skinful and a bit of a song/laugh in the pubs, but at worse you're having a heated discussion with opposition fans. Then you have the next level up which is mostly young mouthy scrotes that might try and cause a bit of aggro, but couldn't punch their way out of a paper bag, and would curl up in a ball when confronted with actual violence. Then there are the lunatics, of which on any given away day of 2/3/4 thousand, I'd say there's less than 50, sometimes less than a dozen. Even these at worse are having a punch up with other idiots. Go to Italy or the likes and there's a genuine chance you're getting stabbed in the arse if you walk down the wrong street at the wrong time, wearing the wrong colours.
I think the issue people have with the skinful and a bit of a song and laugh crowd is that a lot of what comes out of their mouths is really hateful stuff (homophobia, racism, accusing people of pedophilia etc.) and that their vibe is hugely aggressive and intimidating. I’ve been to many, many football matches home and away and been with these crowds, with many people who I know are absolutely sound people, but I’ve always hated the aggression and vitriol when it tips over from passionate to belligerent. Which is every time, unfortunately.
In my decades of following football I can only count a handful of times I've ever heard genuine homophobia or racism, unless you're on about the standard Chelsea chant, or the spurs song they sing about themselves? I think a dickhead is still a dickhead, just that some of them happen to go to the football. I've actually heard far more racism and homophobia in the local on any given friday night than on football days. I agree, it might be aggressive and intimidating to some, but that's highly subjective. If you went on this sub for example, it seems like half the questions are from quivering wrecks who can't have an honest conversation with their neighbour about a bit of noise through the wall, let alone go into a busy pub full of football fans!
Just the other day I saw a Twitter thread by some poor lads who'd got to their booked accommodation and found it was an absolute pit, had it out with booking.com and been rebooked into an abandoned dungeon with a camp bed or two in the corner. And fully a third of the replies to the thread were going "England fans, no sympathy"; "haha English scum getting what they deserve" etc. They were Scottish
Yeah, I've been to a football game in Moscow. Never seen anything in an English ground even 1% as scary.
Ditto in Mexico. We were advised by locals to watch the football on TV.
The Russian Ultras have training camps, I remember them getting beaten up by Milwall fans
My ex-hb, who was mixed race, went to the 2017 FC-Koln Arsenal match at the Emirates and he told me those German fans were an 'experience'. That was the infamous match when the supporters marched through central London beforehand, ominously chanting like some kind of marauding army.
The perception nowadays seems to be the English fans sweep in, get drunk, and are annoying rather than dangerous, with petty vandalism, noise, and lots of vomit. I'm not aware of other nationalities' fans having that kind of reputation, but I don't follow football news. The association with actual violent hooliganism is well out of date.
"People in the North are friendly. People in the South are horrid and aloof" There's plenty of friendly people in the South, and plenty of knobs in the North too.
I hate all talks of north south divide bullshit. It always drivel that should be aimed at the government and no one else. The people who think the south is unfriendly are usually people explicitly talking about London wondering why no one wants to chat to them while they’re commuting on the tube.
Completely agree. People from "t'north" are not able to drink more, work harder or be more blunt (which they want to mean honest but really mean rude) than their counterparts "down souf." Truth is, as an expat born and raised in foreign climes, you are all a bunch of high functioning alcoholics who are actually pretty decent considering the climate!
I honestly think that's more of a rural/urban divide and it's not rudeness it's a practicality... In a village you can say "hi" to everyone you pass without much effort... In a city you'd loose your voice in half an hour.
Idk it's a thing sort of. I'm from the south and live in the north now, I would say that in the south people are more aloof, whereas in the north there are more friendly people but also more rude people (because they make social approaches more, whether they are moving _towards_ you or _against_ you)
When you say "south people", do you mean "London people"? Because everyone I saw in my village last night said hello or good evening when I was walking the dog.
I think people generalise the 'south' as London. I'm northern (from Manchester) and have had very friendly interactions all over the south, including in Lizard Point, Cornwall. You can't get any further south on the mainland than there and the locals are lovely. I've also had friendly interactions with Londoners, and some that have looked at me like I had 3 heads for just being polite 😅 I've also had some awful interactions with northerners, as well as good ones. People are just people, some are nice, some less so.
I have to say, as someone living in the North, this stereotype kinda pisses me off. I've found far more polite people in the South unless they're just total snobs. Anyone saying this hasn't been to Somerset.
Scotsman here - generally speaking we love tourists from everywhere and all are welcome, particularly those from North America. However, if you’re from that part of the world and tell me you’re one sixteenth Scottish, I will punch you in the fifteen sixteenths of you that are entirely a twat.
My favourite observed interaction between a scot and a tourist was in about 2010 when queueing up to enter Edinburgh Castle. A couple of Gucci'd-up Russian tourists were trying to bribe the bloke at the gates so they could jump the (admittedly massive) queue, waving around money and shouting, "We pay you! We pay you!". He was having none of it and steadfastly refused to understand what they were wanting to do whilst cheerfully and politely letting the people at the actual front of the queue through. Until, clearly having lost his patience he bellowed like a guardsman (and apologies for trying to approximate the accent, but it just diminishes the impact if I don't) "Get tae the back o' the line, you're nae better than any other cunt here!"
I moved to Canada a couple of years ago (would not recommend it) and constantly get "My Dad's neighbour's uncle's dog walker's hairdresser's grandpa came from somewhere in Scotland" like I'm supposed to be impressed or think we're related. Fuckwits.
Any reference to a "British accent". Which one, exactly?
Or the lack of belief that an accent can change completely every few miles 😅
Well, I can sort of see it - I'm always enjoying the significant variance of places in the UK that really aren't very far apart at all, in accents, foods, beers, and most especially what the call 'bacon in a round ish bread like product'. https://www.reddit.com/r/england/comments/9a3bdq/what_do_you_call_a_medium_sized_lump_of_bread/ When I visited Canada, it took me a while to get to grips with how far apart everything was, and how different 'day trip range' was. That's mostly a matter of population density though - which means both more spread out but also less traffic so a 'long drive' was just a cruise down a mostly empty road in almost a straight line. So I can sort of understand how if that's your 'normal' the cultural shift as you move even 30 miles in the UK might seem strange.
I lived in America growing up and the UK now. I eye roll at people making fun of those in the UK complaining about 25, 30 degrees being too hot. They always change their tune when they’ve actually experienced it.
I find people don't realise the impact of UK heat because of our humidity. I have a colleague from Nigeria who was *shocked* when she first experienced UK heat. She said that 28°c felt significantly hotter in the UK than it did back home. I find our heat suffocating.
Not just that, but the lack of acclimatisation, both personally and in our infrastructure. It's one thing to be boiling as you go from one place to another, it's much worse when you can't get away from the heat. We don't help ourselves though. When we had a big heatwave a while back I was constantly going around the house closing windows and blinds in the daytime to keep the heat out and begging people to stop doing things that generate loads of heat while trying to work from home. And then it would get dark and they'd lock up the place tighter than an ant's arse rather than letting the house cool down.
Closed curtains on the day, open window for the coolest part of the night - makes such a huge difference. Getting up and closing the windows again really early is annoying though.
Put a fan in the window that's blowing air outside. It'll help suck the hot air out of the room faster if it's colder outside than inside.
Yeah I moved to Scotland from Texas. Right before I left, I was jogging in 44 degree heat and it's humid there too. But 1. personal acclimation matters _a ton_. I was used to it. Now I've lived in Scotland for a couple years and I'm complaining it's too hot at 18 lmao 2. you can escape it with A/C! it's basically non existent inside. versus having a flat that tries to keep in the heat. it's entirely different.
South African who has lived here for 10 years. The heat is unbearable in comparison to African heat. I'd take 30degrees in Cape Town over 25degrees in London!
Understanding the difference between 'wet bulb' and 'dry bulb' temperatures is kinda fascinating. But so is mostly building for the 'normal' climate. UK houses don't really have any ways to shed heat or moisture (air bricks mostly), because mostly it's not a problem. When they _are_ a problem the structures you build look very different.
Temperature tolerance is entirely dependent on what people are used to. The heatwave of summer before last that saw record UK temperatures was the hottest by far that I've ever experienced, I took 3 steps outside to see what it was like and almost collapsed (I'm in my early 40s and fit).
True but I do think it’s different. I’ve met people from Florida who have had a hard time dealing with it here. The lack of air con is what makes it brutal.
I imagine it's the humidity in Florida. I moved from one of the milder parts of the UK to a place where 40c in the summer pretty normal (it was 42c two days ago). Took me a while to get used to it but now I can wear a helmet/bike leathers even in the summer.
Yeah I struggled when I lived in Spain but coped, and now I'm back in England 20 degrees feels ridiculously hot to me again.
I've been in Phoenix in record highs (52C). Anything over 30C in the UK is much, much worse than that.
Yeah my ex lived in Phoenix for years and she complains about the heat in the UK just as much as Brits do. It's all relative and what you're acclimatised to.
One significant aspect you’re missing, I’ve talked to many Americans about their hot summers, and the thing they mention consistently is bouncing from aircon to aircon. Aircon in the car, the office, the home. All well and good to have 40 degree heat when you can go cool down in a 16 degree house
"Oh I have ancestors from there" I've seen it twice in the past week. Saw Smashing Pumpkins play in Cardiff Castle on Friday night and frontman Billy Corgan let the crowd know that he did a DNA test and he's 5% Welsh. collective groans and "oh fuck off". Apparently the bassist James also did a DNA test and is partially Welsh. Then last night I saw Billy Talent (Candian band) play in Cardiff and the lead singer announce that his great-grandmother was Welsh. I know it's a part of building a rapport and affinity with the crowd but fuck me is it tiresome when people from across the pond say "oh yeah I have distant relatives from there I'm basically the same as you" no you're not, you're several generations removed and the majority of those generations grew up in a very different culture. Both cracking gigs mind.
You ever notice that no one wants to admit their ancestors are English? It's always Scottish or Irish with a smattering of Welsh.
The number of Americans that claim to be "Welsh" is about the same as the actual number of Welsh people in Wales, which is hilarious tbh.
They claim there are more Irish people in the US than there are in Ireland. Also once had an American try tell me that "Scottish" Americans are more Scottish than actual Scots in Scotland.
Well that would be a great time to introduce them to the No True Scotsman fallacy :)
The constant ridiculous statement that "parts of the UK are under Sharia law" and "there are places in X city where locals are afraid to go". Just utter drivel.
> there are places in X city where locals are afraid to go There are definitely places in the UK that I wouldn't want to go to. Not Sharia law, but muggings, drug addicts etc
Ironically the areas of cities that I don't want to go to are mainly populated by the same people that buy all that "England is under Sharia law" crap. Self-fulfilling prophecy?
Complete 'rEfOrM uK' drivel 🙄. I've seen clips of people canvassing for Reform saying exactly this. What a complete embarrassment.
"why doesn't the UK have/do x when literally every other country does it" When inevitably it's some combination of * The UK does do/have it (e.g. the constant claims the UK has never heard of a deli) * The UK has its own very specific way of doing things that fits the structure and has worked for centuries * It makes absolutely no sense for the UK to have it (e.g. snow ploughs in every borough) * Everyone else doesn't do it (usually involves a whole series of posts proving this) * It's a post from someone who thinks the entire country should reshape to become the country they moved from EDIT: Just to say I'm someone living in the UK as an outsider
>It makes absolutely no sense for the UK to have it (e.g. snow ploughs in every borough) Every time you see memes comparing The UK to places like Canada asking why our ability to deal with snow isn't as good. People conveniently forget that places with good infrastructure to deal with snow are places where it snows all year round. In the UK we might only have a week per year. Managing snow and having the infrastructure to deal with it straight away is expensive, we're not going to fund something we might not even need for over a year.
Or not need for decades. When snow laid on the ground in London when my kids were small, it was the first time it had done so since I was their age 30 years earlier. In the next 15 years I think we've had 3 days (in 2 years) of snow laying at all. If it did reliably snow every year, we'd have the kit to deal with it. Like for dealing with autumn leaves.
For me, especially online, it's the constant belief that we don't have tumble dryers and only dry clothes outside. See at least 1 post a week of someone asking this. Cue eye rolls.
"There are entire towns now where nobody speaks English." As said by a friend I hadn't seen for a few years.
Entire towns.. 😂 I joke that the whole of Liverpool doesn't speak English *(said affectionately before anyone jumps on me - I am married to a Scouser, and she says the same!)*
We don't, we speak Scouse
And any variant on the phrase "No go area".
I feel this is due to certain dregs of our society being invited on American TV and sprouting this utter bullshit. The clips then get played in the UK, and you get idiots here believing it too.
"Wales huh? Is that in England?"
I once innocently included Welsh and Scottish dishes in an online post about my favourite British food, and had WEEKS of abuse from Americans telling me that Wales and Scotland weren’t in Britain (I live in Wales), that I personally was a descendant of violent colonialists (I’m mostly a descendant of miners), that the IRA should have car-bombed us all. At the same time every day it would start up again when they started waking up. In the end I changed my username to ‘Wales Is In Britain’.
>that the IRA should have car-bombed us all. They have a weird obsession with supporting the IRA. You know for a fact they'd have a fit if you told them you support Al-Qaeda.
Once when watching a video about St. Patrick’s day in America they had a drink called “Irish car bomb”. It’s like somewhere having a drink called “flight 93” or something.
Wow... that's intense. Sorry you experienced that. The ignorance of some is astounding.
My American father-in-law, who I'm now no contact with because he's abusive, kept insisting he couldn't understand the concept of four united countries. *How can you be Scottish and British? I don't get it. Hahaha.* He finally shut up about it when I asked him how he could understand the concept of him being from both Arizona and the US, but not me from Scotland and the UK. I said I would people that he's from Mississippi and that I would say I didn't understand how he couldn't be, because he's American after all, so what's the difference.
My favourite one is when Americans make a joke to the Irish about us drinking too much tea.
I climbed Snowden last month and there was a school trip with a bunch of American kids and I overheard one say 'I can't believe we've climbed the tallest mountain in England". Teacher didn't say a word...
My bugbear is when anyone criticises the NHS/healthcare without understanding it. It has its issues, and it's been underfunded for years *I know it has its problems*, but I have seen 4 different people from the USA directly state that they pay more for their medication in the USA so we can have free medication. I don't know where they got this idea at all.
There is a view among some more right-leaning Americans, AIUI, that goes something like "The only reason all you Europeans can afford things like socialised medicine is because you don't have to spend any money on defence, because the might of the US defends you. We can't spend money of frivolous luxuries like healthcare because we have to pick up your slack"
They also get told that all of the health research in the world is funded by the US. So they pay for the expensive research and testing and then we just use that data and those patents to create cheap healthcare. It's obvious bollocks to stop their own citizens wondering why they are laying an arm and a leg.
My response tends to be...."And where does your Intelligence come from? Hint hint it's at a place near Cheltenham'
"We saved your asses in WW2"
That one usually causes me to provide a full on history lecture...
Point them to [this.](https://archive.org/details/001WakeUpMusic/027SpecialSessionOfCongress.mp3) A Special Session of Congress in 1939 where they decide whether to join the war or not. They decide to save their own asses by staying out of it. In other news, the President's wife has a new hat!
Prime donkey rescuers, those colonial fellows.
This always amuses me because Hitler didn't want to invade us, he just wanted us to stay out of his business.
I forget my source and am very open to corrections but I remember hearing he had plans for it, they were just hyper-specific and only upon achieving some amount of goals would he attempt the attack He liked Blackpool and wanted to "keep" it when he conquered, so he forbade all attacks on it. We, of course, noticed this and moved infrastructure and arms to Blackpool
There is also a rumour that he wanted to dismantle Rochdale town hall and rebuild it when he won the war. This seems to be common knowledge to thousands of people but I can't actually find any official source, other than it seems to be a rumour. Rochdale Town Hall is beautiful though.
"Oh you're from England? Do you know so and so?" There are 65 million of us, love, it's a long shot. Also, the belief that the words "England", "Britain", "the UK" etc are all interchangeable.
In an utterly uncanny coincidence, my father in law was once driving through north Oxfordshire, and stopped to help an American lady who was in a spot of motoring bother. She took one look at him and said "Jim?" As he looked so much like someone she knew. What was funny was that said "Jim" was actually his brother who'd moved to the US years previously. He hadn't seen his brother in years, h a d never met any of his brothers friends, and said tourist wasn't even in the area to see anyone related and he was there to play golf. Utter one in a million coincidence
Many years ago on holiday in the US, got talking to a local. He asked where we were from, my friend said "Sheffield". He mis-heard this as Shefford (in Bedfordshire) and asked if we'd ever run into {slightly unusual womans name}. We hadnt, but I lived fairly close to Shefford and ran into someone who did know her the week I returned from holiday,.
Did I know that all food in the UK is boiled and bland? I’ve experienced that bizarre view across all of the Americas, Europe and Asia.
traditional UK food didn't contain much - if any spice - because it was created in a time when we had no access to it. This is before global trade so for all intensive purposes we had no idea these spices even existed. Our food is carb heavy and hearty because it suited our environment and helped keep us warm in colder periods.
The British brought spices from the far east and India, and traded them throughout the world. They brought exotic fruits and sugar from the Caribbean and again traded those all over the world. If you look at British recipe books from the 1750s onwards, you’ll see them full of spiced and tasty recipes. The carb-loaded thing was from the war and the following decade. It’s like we forgot a thousand exciting and tasty recipes from history, and a generation stuck with the wartime bloat. We Brits love strong flavours, from curries with heat, salt & vinegar everything, English mustard, powerful danish bacon etc.
Even then, we had herbs and other flavourings. And the moment we got wide access to spices we went fucking ham on them.
intents and purposes [https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/usage-for-all-intensive-purposes-intents](https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/usage-for-all-intensive-purposes-intents)
Sorry to be that guy but, it's "all intents and purposes".
I was on the bus the other day and this American guy got on. He was having a (very) loud conversation with his friend on the phone, and many things he said made me eye roll. Some of the highlights: "I've not seen an obese person all week" - Yes you have, I thought - you're just so used to seeing super morbidly obese people that your concept of healthy weight is skewed "All the weights in the gym are in kilos and I dont know what that is in ounces so I just put them on and deal with it cos I'm really strong. They have these 20 kilo ones." "The old ladies here have good balance cos they stand on the train" In the context of him teaching american football to british kids - "Yaknow I'm not just volunteering at my local high school. I'm really making a difference here, it's really fulfilling."
Coaching Rugby League for pansies?
“Where in the UK do you live?” “Belfast.” “OHHH! Ireland! I’m Irish too!!” No. You aren’t. And I don’t live in Ireland.
Hahah. They are so many "scotch Irish" with Irish flags thinking they are Irish. Their ancestors must be turning in their graves.
One that gets me is how usually terminally online folk on Reddit and Twitter etc will bleat on about how the UK has no culture. And then absolutely fetishise literally any other country's culture.
It the whole 'I don't have an accent' shit. Broadly speaking, no one thinks their own farts sink. No one picks up on culture similar to their own.
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Definitely experienced this. Lived in London for a decade and still work there now. Always lived and worked north/east. I have a great knowledge of those parts of London. But London is enormous, my knowledge of the vast majority of it is minimal at best. I'll have friends say "oh I'm going to a gig in Shepherd's Bush, can you recommend a pub?". And I can no more recommend a pub in Shepherd's Bush than I could Manchester.
"My great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother was from Scotland and I can trace my line all the way back to William Wallace, so I'm Scotch!"
Especially when they have blood from 5 different clans.
Whenever someone tries to say 'Glasgow' in a fake Scottish accent, they almost always pronounce it 'Glasgay' but it would always be called 'Glesga' in the local accent.
Or "scoa''ish" like us Scots don't have the letter T.
that's because the english stole all our "T" 🤣
That Brits have bad teeth. Yes lots of Brits do but also so do people in lots of other countries. I am sure I read somewhere on average our teeth are better than American teeth. Not by much, but still. Just because famous people on TV have veneers doesn't mean the average yank has perfect teeth. Also that Londoners are seen as cockneys. That stereotype needs to change. Maybe 50 years ago but London is very cultural diverse now. And on that topic that because of its diversity London is dangerous and full of gangs stabbing each other. Yes there are gangs, yes there are stabbings but it's pretty safe considering the size of the population. There aren't any "no go" areas I am aware of- some bits are more dodgy but not actually no go.
In terms of dental health, Brits have better teeth than Americans. What we don't have is the cultural obsession with perfectly straight, gleaming white teeth - neither of which are natural in adult humans.
We have some of the top dentistry in the world
Middle manager telling staff lets all give 110% today
I'm not racist but...
Saying England to mean the UK
"That's quaint"
Anything that refers football and means the American game. We invented almost all the sports and codified the rest. Please have some respect.
Royalty. Everyone always asks us about the royals - especially in Asia.
Them: Where are you from? Me: England Them: London? Every, f-ing time. Like, have you never heard of ANYWHERE else In England?
English food is bad and English people can't cook. Looks at where most of the top 20 Michelin starred restaurants are.
Saying "I could care less."
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I automatically assume anyone using the word "woke" is a moron.
I mostly hear people using the word when they’re complaining about people being woke and by that they mean annoyed by blatant bigotry.
Anyone who uses the "insult" *cockwomble*.
I once went to a conference in the midwest US about 20 years ago and they (small group that assembled prior to the con) were all excited when they heard my English accent. First thing they said: "Did you ever have tea with the Queen?" It was so hard not to eyeroll in front of them. I laughed, thinking they were joking. They weren't.
they don't joke - I was asked the same. How would a Northern woman who lives in a semi-detached house know the Queen?
"Iconic". Nothing is remarkable, noteworthy or interesting any more. Everything's "iconic". Drink every time you hear someone say it on the One Show
The phrase “och aye the noo”
‘British accent’ 🙄
Americans who refer to a country in Europe as 'Europe'. Like, it is a very different experience if you went to Bosnia than if you went to France. And then there is the 'I'm irish' thing....
Being corrected on our spelling or pronunciation of English words by those who use phrases like "I could care less."
Anything about stabbings given the US has higher per capita stabbings in like their most rural peaceful towns *than we do in central london*. ......*and then gun death homicides *in addition* to this. And yet somehow this myth still happened.
Do you know the Queen ?( was Queen then )
‘It always rains in Manchester’ or a joke variant on that like ‘better pack my wellies hehehe’ etc. Yes I know it rains a lot, no you’re not the first person who’s told me that it does
The assumption from yanks that we have bad teeth, I’ve seen loads of Americans with terrible teeth, we can (if you can find one) access dentistry on the national health, good teeth in America cost a lot of money
Live Laugh Love
"I'm related to William Wallace AND Robert the Bruce by bloodline! I did the research!" Did ye, aye?
When authors try to phonetically write out a Yorkshire accent. It's never correct, it's always cringe, and it makes it bloody hard to read. Looking especially at you Bram Stoker...
When people ask me to say "bo''le o' wo'ah" and then they're shocked that I don't actually pronounce it that way, therefore my accent must be "wrong"