If I ever judged the UK by what I saw on TV when I lived in the US

[Tee2072]

Everyone in the UK would either speak with a Cockney or RP accent.

They would all either live in an over crowded terrace or a huge country estate.

All the schools would be crap.

The populace would spend their entire lives in pubs.

Now, I never believed any of that, being a relatively smart human being.

So am I being unreasonable to wonder how come I'm constantly battling US TV stereotypes here on MN?

It's a thread about many many many threads.

The tipping is because server minimum wage is less than national level because it is expected they'll get tips.

You're taking away their income if you don't tip but you certainly may tip low or not at all for bad service.

Not in Belfast you can't FS!

And I don't get the drunk driving thing either.

You can get cheap manicures here, nail bars are full of Vietnamese indentured workers though so fuck that.

Fairfield County. My husband is from the area. Greenwich is bling, so is Westport, but go to Bethel or Milford and there they are: the college sweatshirt folk.

stopgap I grew up in Westport.

That's why they are in the US too Orf. Various Asian girls being paid who knows what...

where did you live Tee?

can here nail bars have popped up everywhere but staff badly treated in many :(

Thank you for the drink driving responses. Not everything on tv shows is unrepresentative then.

Pacificdogwood - I know that phone. They have it on Kramer Vs Kramer, Ditto the brown paper bags with no handles for groceries.

and YY to Americans and "hiking". It's what we call walking . Hiking here is 20 miles across Dartmoor in the rain wearing a cagoule and waterproof trousers, not three mile stroll in the sunshine, wearing Banana Republic.

sadly I think there is one stereotype that's truer than we think it is and that's the guns thing. Of course not all Americans have guns but even those who don't largely accept that it's normal to have guns.

An American friend was telling me she was really anti-guns and that her attitude and mine were really the same on guns with the words "If DD is having a playdate I call the parent to make sure all the guns are locked away beforehand". She had no concept that that is not a call you really ever have to make in this country.

Gun culture is the reason I feel I could never live in the US. DH has had a few opportunities for secondments there, but that is the one thing that really stops me.

I find the US tipping system odd. But I think it's easier if you think of it as a service charge, not what we think of as a tip. I find it odd because I kind of feel the advertised price should be what you need to pay, not a starting point with percentages automatically added on later. A better base salary for staff should be built into the price. That probably seems less odd to Americans because they are used to many others goods having additional taxes added at the point of sale too (because of variations in state taxes), instead of being built into the ticket price. We only really see that with things like building work where we all get the shock of our lives when we realise VAT has to go on top.

That said, we in the UK have a long way to go on paying our service staff properly too, we aren't on the side of the angels on that one.

Going back to the original OP - what TV shows are/were shown in the States? Do you get the soaps?

Ooh, yes, that's interesting. Which TV shows did you Americans watch growing up that were set in the UK?

I think the single biggest difference between the US and the UK is the amount of government intervention in people's lives.

Someone was rescued by police while contemplating suicide by jumping from a bridge in the US. Some observers were heard to complain that the US was becoming a 'police state' and that it was unacceptable for the authorities to intervene in someone's personal choices.

It's the same with the gun laws. Americans do not easily accept the government telling them what to do. It is, after all, The Land of The Free?

Until the advent of BBC America, most British shows were shown on PBS (Pubic Television System) and were/are considered a bit high brow.
Masterpiece Theater featured, for example, Upstairs Downstairs, The First Churchills, Poldark, Brideshead Revisited, Love in a Cold Climate (the one with Judy Dench). Downton Abbey is now Masterpiece's most popular series ever.

Later we began to get the "Britcoms," Fawlty Towers, Blackadder, Are You being Served, 'Allo 'Allo, You Rang, M'lord, Keeping Up Appearances, As Time Goes By. No soaps.

But PBS was very much for (and still is) a niche audience, so many Americans would not have watched them.

Now we have much more with BBC America. Broadchurch just started here (no spolilers, please!)

No, never got any of the soaps when I was growing up. I thought the obsession with soaps here was very strange... People actually protesting to free characters from jail and giant billboards promoting a new plot line... Very strange.

I don't think we ever got any English shows actually... In high school, a friend discovered Jeeves and Wooster and bought the box set, but I hated it. Think Monty Python was about all we had really!

Enjoy Broadchurch Scone. Won't give any spoilers, but don't expect it to get any cheerier than it starts!

Thanks, TheContrast. I should have mentioned that we also had and still have quite a lot of British mysteries: Morse, Inspector Lewis, Inspector Banks, Foyle's War (my current favorite), Rebus, etc.

I was a lover of all things English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish from an early age so watched anything and everthing that came from across the pond. And still do.

reggiebean the British obsession with soaps is a bit odd. I'd forgotten about the whole 'Weatherfield One' saga.

It's interesting to hear about what was/is shown in the US. I thought (perhaps incorrectly) that often if a UK series was a success it was remade for the US market, like The Office.

HighJinx, many have been. The most successful was probably All in the Family which was based on Til Death Do Us Part.

A full list: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_television_series_based_on_British_television_series

Re gun culture, I think it depends where you live. It wasn't until, post Sandy Hook, and the Lower Hudson Journal (a local paper) took it upon itself to print an interactive map of every gun licence owner in 3 counties that I was even aware of how many gun owners there were locally. 14 on my street alone.

But it really isn't in your face. The only thing I have done differently from when we lived in the UK, parenting wise, is teach my kids if, when at a playdate, their friends ever ask them if they want to see their parent's gun, they always say no. The only guns I've ever seen here were being worn by cops.

'An American friend was telling me she was really anti-guns and that her attitude and mine were really the same on guns with the words "If DD is having a playdate I call the parent to make sure all the guns are locked away beforehand".'

I agree Quangle, if a parent told me they were anti guns in the UK, I would assume that they meant no playing with toy guns, no making guns from random items. Not please make sure my child doesn't die on a playdate.

I watch so much TV it's impossible for me to generalise

On the God thing, in my short stint in a Deep South grade school I was shocked that some kids prayed/said grace at lunch, in school, off their own back and no one took the piss.

Waitstaff minimum wage can be around $2 an hour, with employers supposed to make it up to normal min wage if they don't get enough tips but it dosent always happen and you can be taxed on expected not actual tip level so lose out on a slow night.

That's exactly what scares me about the guns CoolStory. I mean, things like Sandy Hook and Columbine are terrifying, obviously. But what really freaks me out is the idea that a child might 'show off' to mine by getting his mum's gun. Or that my teenager might drunkenly try and let themselves into next door and be mistaken for an intruder. Or that my briefly depressed teenager might have easy access to firearms. I've read that, if you own a gun in the US, the most likely victim of a fatal shooting is yourself or a family member. Followed by a member of your neighbourhood. Don't know if that's true, but it scares me incredibly.

A good portion of my family in the US are in law enforcement, from police officers to SWAT members to Secret Service. Guns still aren't a thing I worry about when I go home. Maybe because my own family is so anal about their storage and always have been.