To be surprised at how advanced the US were to us?

[Hownoobrooncoo]

was watching an old movie earlier set in The 50's and a character mentioned her glass of champagne her 85 calories - would anyone in the UK even have known what a calorie was back then?

The first microwave ovens appeared in the home in the 50's in the US as well, same as TV remote controls - Jesus, we were lagging behind.

What hot water godliness is this? We've got a boiler that drives us nuts! Enlighten me please my character has been built enough!

Thing is OP is talking about scenes in a movie: well, it was probably made in California & made by rich elite people, effectively, it wasn't made by or about truly average 1950s Americans. And American movies-media are often aspirational, so again, not reflecting reality but rather something for folk to admire.

Even in 1958-9 California, My mother was a teenager with 2 babies, had an unemployed barely-out-of-teens husband & was living in a caravan & stealing oranges to feed herself.

3 yrs later she was regularly dating Hollywood camera-men, and used to regularly see John Wayne driving to work, but that's another story :).

I was born in 1981. I distinctly remember watching Top Cat on cable TV as I was getting ready for my first day at school. We had a microwave, but no dishwasher. I remember eating pasta, cous cous and rice dishes regularly from age 7/8. We had an Atari, a Commodore, a Sega Mastersystem for me to play on, one of those first 'proper' desktop PC's, the PC appeared at home when I was about 8yo too.

I got a Megadrive for my 10th birthday.

We had fresh fruit juice every day, orange, Apple etc, not the concentrate stuff, the Tropicana type. Probably why, even now as a skint Lone Parent, I can't buy cheap concentrate fruit juice, and HAVE to have 'proper' fruit juice, as it's what I had all through my childhood.

Elaine I think you're right! My first flat in London, I once went two months with no hot water at all, because none of my flatmates were bothered about it. Two months!

Kit I wish I was a plumber and could explain it but basically, in all the places I lived in the US, you don't have individual boilers in each flat, just some central mechanism for the whole building (even in houses converted into flats) so the hot water is just there, you don't have timers or run out of it or anything.

Even when I lived in a proper house as a teenager, where I guess we must have had something for heating the water, I don't remember it ever running out. The only time you would not have hot water is if you did like three loads of laundry and ran the dishwasher, then you might run out for a little bit.

RE: showering after gym. My son is 14 and at middle school in USA. They have no showers and no AC in the school. The smell coming from a math's class full of teenagers at the end of a hot day (it's 35C at the moment) must be grim..

Is the lack of powerpoints in our bathrooms due to the higher voltage here which would make them more lethal???.

Must say the lower power in US means kettles take forever and hairdriers go FWHOOooooooooo, instead of WWWWHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOO

They don't seem to do roll-up cigarettes at all.

I can remember sitting on a wall rolling a fag (they don't call them that either ) while a cop stood there and glared at me, and waited for me to light up. Presumably he thought I wouldn't be brazen enough to smoke it in front of him if it was a spliff.

Not saying that's more or less advanced, just different.

Completely disagree about the lack of good Indian food! Obviously I don't know what the US was like in the 90s or earlier but you people need to come to Queens for mind-blowingly excellent Indian food. Jackson Heights is just Indian culinary heaven. Way better than anything I've had in the UK and sooooo cheap.

Yep there's also been amazing Indian food around DC for decades -- big South Asian immigrant population there.

For a giggle, you can check out the pub menu for a place in DC that bills itself as a traditional British pub, serving classic British food:

www.elephantcastle.com/sites/default/files/MM_EYST_PM_web.pdf

Just to clarify, I boil water in the kettle to pour into the pan in which I boil my pasta. So the pasta is cooking within about 1 minute rather than within the 5 minutes it takes to heat that much water on the stove. In case anyone American was going to try something weird like put pasta in the kettle thinking it's the drjohnson method.

Another one that's just sprung to mind about how we view each other - some American students in London were once banging on at me about how our houses are so useless (mixer taps etc - can't disagree there) but were particularly exercised that our windows don't have bug screens on them. I don't think they got that we don't really have the kind of bugs you need to keep out of your house in London. I think they were from somewhere southern so maybe were worried about mosquitos and refused to believe that we were fine without bug screens.

Hot water in the US comes from a huge water heater that is normally found in the basement, a tank that holds water that is periodically heated by a gas element to a temperature that you control by adjusting the knob. Parenting manuals advise keeping the temp of the hot water heater at a point where babies won't be scalded if they are accidentally exposed to hot water in the bath. Even if you go through your forty gallons the water heater will be refilled from the mains and heated in a fairly continuous process.

While on the subject of gallons -- the US should have ditched imperial measurements decades ago.

The thing about screens is that Americans have pretty much zero tolerance for any bugs in the house and consider bluebottles and wasps almost as much of a nuisance as mosquitos (which are a pest everywhere -- try going to the Lake Superior shores in July without a nice big bottle of Off and see how long you last)

Oh yes. I do miss screens.

Even in London, they at least slow down burglars.

it's funny that some people have mentioned things which are the opposite to what i thought. in the midwest the americans i lived with were far more uptight about nudity than any of the british people. I suspect there are as many differences between states as countries.

Agree on the bugs.
We have three excellent curry houses within a ten minute drive.
On the subject of hot water, when we moved over here, we lived in an Avalon apartment where each apartment did have it's own boiler (in a cupboard off the balcony) we spent the first three to four months having barely warm showers as the maintenence people tried to figure out the problem.
Now we are in a house it's not a problem. But back in the UK I grew up with a combi-boiler which was pretty much hot water on demand.

They're definitely more uptight here about child nudity which I just don't get.

I would like a bug screen. Currently got about 20 blue bottles in my house, I'm in London.

We also had a big water heater when I lived in Scotland, loads better than a stupid boiler. It lived in the attic.

i think that when people mention lack of indian food they mean it's not anywhere near as widespread. I've had some great Indian food in the states but you won't find it outside of major population centres. My local town in the uk (pop. 5000) had as many indian restaurants as at louis

Tyler it really depends. :) In the part of Minnesota where I grew up, almost everyone was of Scandinavian descent and took saunas with their families and others all the time, and didn't care about nudity in the slightest.

Now I live farther south (in the same state though) and it's much different!

I agree about the child nudity. You just don't see small children running around naked on beaches or elsewhere. Nudity in changing rooms -- I disagree. In the changing rooms I am most familiar with (public pool and YMCA) there were communal showers that everyone used, and boys over 7 were quite strictly banished to the men's and boys' changing room as a result. Much more public breastfeeding where I was in the US too (but comparisons with Ireland on that score are guaranteed to make anywhere else look good)..

i used to lifeguard on a lakeside beach, one day one of the other's approached me and said there was a naked toddler on the beach and what should she do!

I was just going to post to say when would you ever get a bluebottle in your house in London and then yelloraincoat has them. Yellowraincoat, do you live on a lilypad?

We have bug screens and they are great. Unfortunately they don't keep the stink bugs out though. They really are the most ugly, annoying things I've come across here (and they really do stink...).
I think the Indian food depends on where you live. There is a large Indian community in the town next to us with some great shops and restaurants. There are also some fantastic Chinese supermarkets near us.

If being uptight was an olympic sort the USA would win every 4 years. Take your child to an outdoor pool in the US and even your little 5 year old will be expected to have a bikini on at all times whereas in Spain no one bats an eyelid if your prepubescent children run around naked on the beach all day long.

And why they can't adopt the roundabout is beyond reason.

The thing about bug screens is, as DJC said, that many parts of the US have far worse bugs than most parts of the UK! I guess I'd like screens if I was in a midgy bit of scotland but elsewhere, the odd fly is easily swattable. Though I must say that's helped by my US-made flyswatter which is awesomely good. It was part of DHs leaving present when his secondment ended - his experiences of US bugs was a running joke. He thought someone was playing a prank with a plastic beast when he saw a praying mantis on the outside of his office window... till it moved.

I was also impressed by how many picnic sites with tables there were...then wondered why you never saw anyone just picnicking on the grass like we do in Britain. Well how was I supposed to know about chiggers?