To ask overseas folk what British quirks they think are weird/funny?

[Burntmybiscuits]

Us Brits are always on our high horse, making light humour over the habits of other countries (particularly the U.S!), so I thought it would be funny to see what people overseas find 'unique' about us!

Sending Christmas cards to loads of people but without actually writing anything in them!

Being Irish I find funerals the biggest difference. Always open casket here

I'm such an amazing and important person that I'm expecting to be given a state funeral, with an open casket, when my time comes.

Remains to be seen....

An international student once told me she spent a year thinking something was wrong with her because people kept asking if she was ‘alright?’ It took a long discussion in the student bar to realise it was a greeting not a question!

Oh and another thing: no screens on windows to keep out bugs!! How has this not reached the UK yet as a standard feature?

Definitely the two-tiered wedding. Grim AF.

Also isn't your washing up bowl dirty in your mind too, if you're putting it on top of your 'contaminated' sink?
Noooo because only the underside of the bowl touches the grossness in the sink!

@Hagbeth So true, I never understood this either. It means you randomly have window cleaners coming over unexpectedly (we're renting) who would be totally unnecessary if just the windows were more practically designed.

Oh yes, definitely funerals. I’m a Londoner but Irish parents. The first time I went to an English funeral I found it really different. Irish funerals are often huge - everyone who ever knew you attends, and you don’t have to be invited. They happen much more quickly and have much more ritual and loads of food and drink well in to the night. People visit the bereaved and there is pretty much an open house for the whole period of grieving, which I think us Brits find awkward and would rather grieve privately.

There is also all the stuff that happens after in Ireland - the month’s mind, annual memorials, saying mass for the deceased, the patron. So many rituals, whereas British people seem to be left alone to grieve after the funeral, which I always find quite sad.

I am glad I am getting back up on that window thing😂

Speaking of which: the obsession with having to own your home (renting being so precarious and flats left in awful condition by landlords).

Pride in never taking a day off work
That is definitely NOT something I associate with the British. Getting "signed off with stress" is something I do associate with the British.

@Bungobingi
Still don't get it? I wash each item separately, like a conveyer belt.
I'll put dishes in the sink- scrape stuff off one item-> mini rinse item-> use sponge with washing up liquid to clean said item-> rinse item again-> place on rack. Repeat.
Clean the sink when all is done.

I only use the sink as a place to temporarily house dirty dishes.

What is the bowl for? I thought it was used a bath type thing where you let the dishes stew in warm soapy water, like the old fairy adverts?
so why bath if you can use running water?

Irish funerals are often huge - everyone who ever knew you attends, and you don’t have to be invited
Every English funeral I’ve been to has been like this. Honestly people I know would go to anyone’s funeral even if it was their third cousin’s neighbours nephew, they’d be there!

Gravy on everything

"You English will put anything between two pieces of bread and call it a sandwich!"

Surely - this is the definition of a sandwich?

My American friends at uni said they found our tv adverts weird. Apparently in America they’re more “here’s a beautiful person using our product, here are the reasons why it’s great”, whereas we have loads of weird ones like Howard from Halifax

Ours are better

I've never been bitten by a mosquito in the UK once. If I didn't have screens on my house in the US I'd be in A&E pretty quickly with 69372959483 mosquito bites in one night.

I now need all my windows changed... this is genius how has it never occurred to me before?

Yes I found the funeral non attendance a bit strange. Irish funerals are big and any vague connection would be expected to go.
Also people will give their condolences quite openly and enquire how you're doing after you experience a death. British people seem thb I avoid the subject at all costs.

Old people's care homes. Other nationalities look after their own families

Lack of routine large family gatherings for no other reason except to see everyone

Speaking of which: the obsession with having to own your home
I don't think Brits are top in this. There are countries in Europe with much higher owner%. I was also told "save to buy so you don't have to ever rent" by my parents. Now the banks in there require minimum 20% deposit, property prices equal or even supersede UK ones (shame same can't be said about wages) so this "buy, don't rent" has gone out of window

@LoungingInParadise I’m also not a huge fan of gravy but the UK dependence on Bisto and gravy granules makes it even more suspect / revolting.

great thread by the way! :)

I'm Aussie, lived in the UK for a decade a while back...

Washing up bowls are really weird, that's what the sink is for (although I get the need if you've got a really posh porcelain butler's sink that damages everything that comes in contact with it -- ordinary stainless steel not so much)

The aversion to single story homes when there is enough land

How some words are such strong class signifiers -- such as lounge room rather than sitting room. (I can feel a Lady Bracknellesque horror about handbags coming on).

The incapacity to express your feelings about what's bothering you for ever and then going postal to the bemusement of the non Brit who's apparently been offending you and who "must know what they've done". Somewhere along the way you might have let your lip or eyebrow do a slight quiver, but, honestly, most other nations aren't going to pick that up.

Electric trains with live rails (overhead wires here)

Washing machines in kitchens

And many many threads on Mumsnet

The washing bowl was because sinks used to be big massive ceramic things when I was a kid and you'd chip or break dishes if you did them directly in the sink.

I wasn't brought up to rinse, but DH (similar background) was. We use a dishwasher mostly and I do rinse.

The reason windows open outwards here is that it makes more space in the room as you don't have to squeeze past the open window. I think this stems from when houses were particularly small.