Bizarre misconceptions about your home country

[NotQuiteCockney]

As a Canadian, living in the UK, people are always sharing some very strange ideas about Canada:

• It's really cold. No it bloody well isn't, not in the summer. It's hotter than the UK. Really.

• We have loads of beautiful countryside. Well, kinda. It's a long way away from everything, the countryside. We have no right to roam, and no footpaths, so it may well be beautiful, but that doesn't mean you can go see it. And as we have loads of it, we can put up ugly warehouses made out of corregated metal anywhere we like.

• It's very ecological. No, it's not. It's more car-dependant than the UK. Organic food is harder to get. And electricity is cheaper, so we use loads. And it's more of a consumer culture than here - more adverts on the telly, for one thing.

• It's cheaper. Not really. The taxes are quite a bit higher than in the UK. (Yes, really!) And work/life balance isn't great.

Which misconceptions are you tired of dealing with all the time?

tangox3, I am guilty of what you said, except I reckoned I'd gone back thirty years!
I think it's the food, it reminds me of food before we had chefs on tv.
ANyway, lovely country.

I don't know. Someone told me about a headline on the front page of the Wellington Post: "Lost Dog in Petone". Can't imagine anything similar being on the front page of The Times.

I don't think it's to do with consumer frustration, it's just NZ is a country with a small population and that gives it a certain - not unpleasant - feel.

But that's sort of what I mean. It's nothing to do with things that are happening in NZ - it's a feel. I quite like it actually.

Ah yes, annimac. The idea that the UK (insert system here) is the best in the world"

That would be the UK banking system that has JUST discovered PIN numbers 20 years after the rest of the world. I reckon they had to wait till they'd retired all the carrier pigeons they use to transport cheques around.

Or the UK education system that routinely churns out illiterates with degrees.

slug - I was shocked the first time I used a debit card in the UK and they asked me to sign. I told the woman at Tescos it was not a credit card so there was no need to sign, I would just enter my pin no. THen I realised there was nowhere to enter one's pin number and she just looked at me like I was from Mars - well Aus really but you know

(But - I think quite a few Brits are just as nonplussed by things like that, tbh... And more of the British people I know are slightly embarrassed by our clunky post-Empire backwardness [sigh])

Chip and pin all v well in Oz but it hacks me off no end that I can't use my debit card to pay for things over the internet - flights being a prime example. I want to pay in Aussie dollars, I DON'T want to use my credit card not only because I have the cash available but it's a UK one (a year too short to faff around with new credit cards) so I have to go to the travel agent (and pay more because it's not a net transaction) or the bookstore or whatever. Aaargh.

Agree totally about the small town mentality in NZ...I was born and bred in Dargaville and my Aucklander husband takes the mickey out of it all the time!

"I think it's the food, it reminds me of food before we had chefs on tv. "
Don't know about that Pruni...! Maybe in small town NZ but the food scene is pretty great in Auckland (and in other cities too, I believe) I couldn't find one decent brunch place in Surrey!!!, but love the food shows (among others)in the UK. Sorry about Ross Burden, by the way!

Love the UK altogether, and would love to live there permanently if it wasn't for NZ.