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Original poster

Foreigners in the UK: What do you just not "get"?

389 replies

NotQuiteCockney · 07/10/2006 21:12

I've been in the UK for 10 years now, I think. I do not understand:

  • the Archers
  • tea (why? why? why?)
  • cryptic crosswords

Anyone else?

OP posts:
kiskidee · 10/10/2006 20:36

radiators are under the windows because cool air seeps in most at the windows with the hot air rising cool air sinking thing, they 'work' best when placed under windows.

insert smug emoticon [here]

expatinscotland · 10/10/2006 20:39

i remember the central heat in my house outside Denver, w/the registers/vents in the floor. and how the cats loved to sit over them and the hot air blow over them.

sometimes i dream about that place . . .

hana · 10/10/2006 20:54

oh am having a really good time reading this
I so don't get the parking on the side of road in either direction?? makes harder to get out!

and what's with not being able to turn left on a red?
and so many roundabouts! there aer 2, only 2 back from where I come from!!

Redlorry75 · 10/10/2006 21:13

Roundabouts!! have you been to Milton Keynes - you can't go half a mile without encountering at least 2!

Original poster
NotQuiteCockney · 10/10/2006 21:16

Being able to turn on a red light is quite nice.

The roundabouts are easy to explain - they make the country seem larger, what with all the going around in circles.

OP posts:
MrsSchadenfreude · 10/10/2006 22:39

Where did you live in Warsaw, Emmylou? I lived in Ochota, near the airport, then moved near the prison on Rakowiecka (off Pulawska, near the Supersam and Moskva cinema).

In Belgium we could put out "groot huisvuil" every couple of months or so, where you could basically get rid of anything big and the gypsies would come round and get it before the bin men. We called "groot huisvuil" "Gross Hausfrau". We have a childish sense of humour in our house.

How do I dispose of large things in Milton Keynes? I got a box for my glass, and only had to ring three times before it arrived, bit of a record actually, TV licence took 5 calls and 2 letters and then they mis-spelled my name and got the date wrong.

MrsSchadenfreude · 10/10/2006 22:40

Actually, if there are any Dutch speakers or pedants out there, I think it was called Grof Huisvuil, come to think of it.

expatinscotland · 10/10/2006 22:56

F*ckin' hell, I just booked a ticket to Texas for next Easter.

For all of us.

I'm going to eat my way through the whole damn state.

.

eidsvold · 10/10/2006 23:03

here in aus stuff that is broken etc - goes to the dump. Usuable but unwanted - charity shops or garage sale or sell through classifieds.

I am sure if I asked what do foreigners in Aus not get - be the same sort of thing.....

AttilaTheMeerkat · 11/10/2006 07:53

okay here's my list:-

1.Making the speaker of the House of Commons sit on something called the Woolsack
2pork pies with egg in (yummy but my US friend does not understand them at all)

  1. branston pickle (good stuff!)
  2. a game like cricket that seems to have no beginning or end (is the only game I know of where the players stop for a meal)
  3. carpet in bathrooms
  4. beans on toast
  5. milk in bottles
  6. Christmas pudding
  7. Christmas crackers

However, what other nation in the world could have possibly given us William Shakespeare, Gardeners Question time, the chocolate digestive biscuit and Ordnance Survey maps to name but four?. None of course.

Original poster
NotQuiteCockney · 11/10/2006 08:25

Oh, yes, cricket is on my list. They throw v funny.

OP posts:
Mirage · 11/10/2006 09:02

Haven't read most of the thread as have to go to work.
I must live in a paralell universe to most people on here.People in my area always admire babies,chat to you on the bus,in the street ect.

I had to laugh whilst watching CNN on holiday-Daryl Hannah was preaching that we could save the world if we listened to her & air dried laundry instead of tumble drying it!DH was astonished that most people don't own a washing line in the US.

On the Bovril/marmite question,I don't like either.Is the US equivalent 'Beefmato' & 'Clamato'?uRGHHH,clam juice,who thought that one up.

I'm with Saggar,we didn't have an indoor bathroom until about 1974,as there were no sewers in our village.We didn't get mains gas until about 15 years ago.

Amaretto · 11/10/2006 09:08

I will have to go the tap issue in the batroom. I had to fight with H to have a one tap bassin when we redid our bathroom...
Also : chip sandwich
carpet in bathroom
Getting drunk just for the sake out it. I don't mean that been drunk is bad but still don't get the 'Oh, I went out last night. I can't remember a thing so that must have been a good night' type of thing.

All the rest : well I guest I just got used to it!

On the good sides (and why I would go back to France) : politness, the ability to stay in a queue wo trying to go in front of someboddy else, how open people are here.

eidsvold · 11/10/2006 11:12

chip butties - oh yum.....

miss getting milk in bottles delivered by the milkman - now here in Aus - cardboard or plastic cartons/bottles.

eidsvold · 11/10/2006 11:13

bureaucracy

LiliLaTigresse · 11/10/2006 11:18

anyone mentioned pork scratchings yet??
WHY??????? (obviously scarred by dh buying me some in a pub years and years ago)
thread is too long to read now but I don't get the no mixer taps, the 'drinking until you're drunk is fun' mentality, the wearing tiny summer clothes to go out in winter, the love of the lilac colour (puke)............

girlinfrance · 11/10/2006 11:24

I'm a Brit in France and find myself cursing French bathrooms all the time. Why don't they have loos in their bathrooms? What's wrong with a loo in the bathroom, so long as it's not the only loo in the house? There are times when you just need to do everything at once

Oh and we have lived in houses where there was no washbasin in the loo. Yukkety yuk.

LiliLaTigresse · 11/10/2006 11:25

no no no, loos in the bathroom are horrid and not logical hygiene-wise!!!

KTeepee · 11/10/2006 11:38

Has anyone mentioned that when it is your birthday you have to buy the drinks/cakes?

Original poster
NotQuiteCockney · 11/10/2006 11:39

Oh god, that is so weird isn't it. Also you have to buy your own leaving drinks! WTF!

OP posts:
eidsvold · 11/10/2006 11:40

oh yeh that's right - your birthday - you buy the cake.... very strange.

expatinscotland · 11/10/2006 11:40

No indoor toilet till the '70s?

For real?!

LiliLaTigresse · 11/10/2006 11:43

and I'm sorry but proper 'eclair au chocolat' are not filled with cream , they are filled with a chocolate cream ganache type
I should know it's my favourite cake and I cannot get it here
waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Original poster
NotQuiteCockney · 11/10/2006 11:47

I really miss those towering mousse type things, although I shouldn't any more, as there's a Patisserie Valerie, and a Paul, reasonably near me. Oh, and Apostrophe is good for French food, too.

I like loos that aren't in the bathroom, but you really do need a little hand sink in there, don't you?

OP posts:
LiliLaTigresse · 11/10/2006 11:49

We need a good french patisserie in Bristol
the only good thing about living in Guildford was Maison Blanc YUM