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

[NotQuiteCockney]

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?

Attila: it's not the Speaker in the House of Commons who sits on the Woolsack, it's the Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords. Originally (14th century) it was stuffed with English wool to symbolise the main source of England's wealth, but now it is stuffed with wool from all the Commonwealth countries to symbolise unity.

But the House of Lords has no authority over the Commonwealth any more, does it?

Culture of envy.
Culture of resentments (although that's less a tradition now than it used to be).
The racist version of eenie meenie miney moe being the traditional/normal version.
The constant running themselves down (gets tiresome).
The socially deprived underclass/socially excluded.
The subculture that thinks that "paki" is an ordinary word, and tells anyone without the same accent as them to F off back to their own country.

I like or at least don't mind the other stuff people said (I guess that's why I live here). You CAN get screens on windows, it's really funny it's being marketed as this exciting new idea.

Agree with Astrophe about the driving/parking on the wrong side of the road. I think technically Highway code says you shouldn't, but it;s like parking on pavement or driving with a mobile, "everyone" does it even though they shouldn't.

Drivers think they have the right of way to drive over pavement if it's into their home driveway, so dangerous when you have children walking on pavement.

On the whole I think there's even more I don't get about my home culture, though.

nope it doesn't - not here in Aus anyway.

The House of Lords doesn't really have authority over anything, NQC, it's just a symbol.For the Commonwealth countries who still share our Queen, you could say that the Lord Chancellor is a representative of the Queen, as originally he was an official of the King's Court rather than a politician.

Clop, Where do you live? I think your first paragraph is a bit harsh, either that or people where you are, live in a 1970's time warp.

Mixer taps in the bathroom? No thanks - they have them in France and I always hit my head when cleaning my teeth.

Lucy5, I've lived in Midlands and East Anglia.

There was this thing in the Daily Telegraph about 2 years ago about saying that some version of Eenie Meenie Miney Moe in an American movie was PC. I had to have DH explain to me what version he grew up with and the Telegraph readers would all know. I was horrified.

I think culture of envy is still very strong. Maybe the resentment thing (where someone is your best friend but won't say anything directly then it all blows up at you one day and they never speak to you again, either) has gone. That really shocked me.

I had someone tell me just a few weeks ago to F off back to my country, this country is for English people, etc. (I'm white and a native English speaker)... all because I asked him to control his dog who had tried to bite my son in a public park (I was polite and barely said anything, honest; he was a an old man out with his young grand-daughters).

Actually, I could have added to that list the social divisions. It seems to me like people might be more isolated and insulated in their own social class/community in Britain than in most other developed countries.

Yes,Expat,for real.We had no indoor toilet until I was about 6.We had a little shed at the bottom of the garden with a wooden bench seat with a big tin container under it.It was emptied once a week.
We were only 10 miles away from the nearest city,but may as well have been on the moon.We had no mains sewers until 1974,no gas supply until the 1990's & one bus a day.

I moved back here last year & we still have red phoneboxes & our post boxes have King George's initials on them rather than the Queens.

Agree with the poster about the government trying its best to get rid of English traditions.

Class system - totally beyond me. I should be subservient to you because your daddy was rich??? Why???

Over heated houses and air freshners - have you people never heard of windows? Why to you seal your houses during 9 months of the year?

Not talking to strangers - I'm in London so it's probably worse here. I'll talk to anyone on the tube, especially when inebriated.

Throw away consumer culture. - Why don't you hand down and recycle? And why do you have to have everything new every few years?

Being 'proud' of being uneducated. - I can't count the number of people who proudly tell me they 'Can't do maths' As if that was something to be proud of.

Toilets in bathrooms. I can understand the space considerations, but so unhygenic.

Private schooling.- study after study shows it is no better than state education and if anything perpetuates inequality in society and yet there is still hysteria if one can't get Tarquin into the best local school so one will have to privately school him. No you don't. A private tutor is much more cost effective if you are worried about their educational attainment.

Why do people feel the need to get out diaries to book social appointments? Does nobody just drop around in this culture?

Supermarkets - The first time I visited one here I got the giggles. Cans of tuna, can of tuna with sweetcorn, can of tuna with mayonaise, can of tuna with sweetcorn and mayonaise. Can you not mix things for yourself?

Page 3. Why is there no outrage at the blatant portrayal of women as nothing but sexual bimbos?

I could go on......

A couple of new ones:

• Washing Machines with no cold cycle - everything shrinks!
• The archaic banking system! Why does it take 2-3 days for the bank to transfer money even if it's between my own accounts!? This takes around 2-3 seconds in Aus! Also taking hours to print up a bank cheque?

Wow Clop, that's an eye opener. I don't live in England anymore, maybe i'm wearing rose coloured spectacles.

Hmm, a lot of this much be regional. Or (ahem) class-based. I certainly don't hear "paki" or similar words ever.

Also, um, where isn't there a class system? Canada and America are theoretically classless, at least according to some, but they obviously are not.

The sub-culture that considers "Paki" a normal word is probably the Aussies. In Aus "Paki" is considered a nick-name like "Aussie", "Kiwi" or "Pom" and it is even used during cricket commentary!

This has been a really good-natured fun thread until the last few postings (yes clop and slug, I mean you) Do you have some sort of chip on your shoulder? I think Britain's a brill place to live where we can all indulge our idiosyncracies without being jailed and I really like supermarkets, as I'm too lazy to mix my own tuna and sweetcorn

expat, plenty of people didn't have indoor loos/bathrooms in the seventies. There was a big refurb programme on the council houses where I lived, during the 70s, to put bathrooms in upstairs.
when I was a child I lived in a row of tied cottages and we had one shared bathhouse with loos and we did our washing in there too. it was cool actually very friendly.

MrsSchadenfreude - I lived on the top floor of some flats on Waszyngtona, between Saska Kempa and Grochow (had a great view over the park down to the Palace of Culture). But it seems so long ago now and I've just had to consult a map to jog my memory .

The things I missed from/about the UK when living abroad sometimes overlap the things that the non-Brits don't 'get': especially Marmite and baked beans...until you can't get 'em, you just don't know how much you liked them

oh yes and class/poverty/social division/racism are entirely confined to the UK never happens anywhere else, that's for sure

Not all British people 'get' Marmite, though.

Many find it minging.

My Scots husband can't even abide the smell of it.

In Warsaw you were judged by your shoes...

Expat

Marmite - yuk and even worse, Bovril.

harpsi and Tartan, good I thought it was me! Stereotypes and all that! Perhaps we need an a sarcastic emotion, i don't think my post was clear enough. oh well put my rose coloured specs back on

Sorry TartanTeddy if I uset you I didn't mean to. After 12 years in the country I still don't understand why you need so many cans of nearly identical products. It just strikes me as incredibly wasteful.

And as for the class system, it is a real shock not to get a job because it went to some bimbo whose daddy could afford to send her to Rodean, so she added some 'class' to the business. (Managers actual words) Never mind she couldn't spell and spent her whole time on the phone arranging dinner dates with chinless wonders and I ended up doing all her work for her anyway, but without the pay.

I have to agree with clop about the racism. I pass as English until I open my mouth and I'm often shocked by the comments people make at bus stops.

I decided long ago that the English banking system must employ a fleet of carrier pidgeons.