to think that 'it's what they do in Europe' should be excluded for all arguments and discussions.

[Pipbin]

So far in the last few days I have read threads where people have stated that in Europe they:

• have a much better attitude to renting and therefore it is more common to rent and the need to own property is a very British thing.
• that hitting another car when parking in perfectly normal in Europe and everyone accepts it and the British are just too uptight.

In previous threads I have also read that:

• in Europe they don't start school until they are 7 and they have the better maths and literacy results.
• children in Europe all have a glass of wine with their meals and are allowed to do as they please in restaurants.

Now I'm not denying that any of this is true but I am fed up with 'in Europe' being brought up as an argument.
Europe is not some magical mystical land, it is not one county, it is a group of different countries and cultures that includes our own.

Saying that in Europe they tend to rent doesn't help someone who wants to own their home and the attitude in this country isn't going to change quickly (mores the pity in my opinion).
Saying 'but it's what everyone does in Europe' doesn't help someone whose car has been damaged by someone who can't park.

It is a lazy argument and I think that like Godwin's Law we should name it.

In Portugal it's also a mix. :)

The main difference is probably that you tend to see more children out and about later than in England.

The difference is (in Spain) restaurants are cheap enough to eat out regularly so they get used to it, and noisy enough that it doesn't matter when your child pipes up, and there isn't such a thing as child-free places in general. There aren't specifically child-friendly places either, so unusual to see crayons and kids menus, except in resorts.

The Spanish tend to be too loud, though, anyway and are known to touch everything even if not allowed. Ahem.
We also tend to talk about Europe as an abstract entity for some reason. As in "the others". :)

Coffee as a teacher in Northern Spain who has worked in various schools and with a range of SEN your comment is inflammatory and so far from the truth it's almost funny. It's not a fair discussion if you fabricate crap to suit whatever agenda you are pushing.

Some classes here are also smaller to accommodate children with sen, if they are deemed to be better at mainstream education.

So Coffee, in your world there is Africa, Asia, the Americas, Australasia, Antarctica, Europe and the UK

Is there? oh right, thanks for letting me know, that is what I love about this forum!!

Well you did say that the UK was in no way anything to do with Europe, so it must be then.

What's the agenda behind claiming that the UK isn't part of Europe? At risk of sounding disingenuous (e.g. is there a UKIP presence on thread?), I don't get it what's Europe to you? It's not some independent fundamental truth, if politicians decide the UK is European it is! The Europe that came out of years of painstaking european integration is a construct.

School starts later in "Europe" but it's straight in with sitting down learning formally no break time loads of homework at 6 years old.

"European" children behave better in restaurants, imo, and there is no pandering to children's tastes with kids meals etc. "They love children in Europe" - er, no they don't, at least not horribly behaved ones in restaurants. The sort of kid who shreds bread rolls and crawls under the table will find they have got their parents landed with a large cover charge.

Of course this country is part of Europe, this country has a long history of being heavily involved in European affairs. Take WW1 for example, we entered the war when Germany violated Belgian territory in breach of the Treaty of London.

So Coffee, in your world there is Africa, Asia, the Americas, Australasia, Antarctica, Europe and the UK

Whilst I am very pro EU as a no voter in the Scottish referendum I'm heartened to see the UK has been elevated to separate continental status!

Of course the UK is part of Europe ; politically, geographically and culturally. There is no one monolithic European culture but there was something called the European Enlightenment which had a profound effect on determining western European liberal democracy as it exists today.

you can find efforts to bind the modern political european territories (so by that I mean inc. the UK) into federal European structures as early as I think the C12th - I have an interesting summary type article for German speakers somewhere on the subject if anyone's interested.
think of its role in the wars of the C17th, the original ius publicum europaem, 1815, 1830, 1870.....claiming that the UK has had negligable involvement in European matters (and yes, shared history forms a great deal of what we think of as culture) in the history of both is laughable.

It makes me wonder as well Lass what would have happened had Scotland voted yes. Would it have become the continent of the UK and Scotland?

Also Coffee, Northern Ireland is part of the UK. The Irish Republic is part of Europe and there is no body of water between them! How the fuck does that work then?