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?

oops that should be queue

"I don't understand why people keep mentioning how the check out people don't pack your bags for you in the supermarket"

I shop by myself with LO and as I'm putting the stuff on the belt, the checkout girl is packing it. I like it because I don't feel I have to rush to do it all as I'm holding up the queue.

Also, my stuff doesn't get squashed waiting to be packed at the bottom of another belt.

I'm sure they have some special training here to pack bags, they all do it so well in my local woolies. Just how I like it.

no probs with the packing - all done well and in correct recyclable bags

I like to do my own packing, but usually they offer to help when I have the kids with me at my local supermarkets.
can I moan for a sec? The poiler is broken. now I have to find a plumber.............

the boiler.

Oooh, we visited some English friends today, and I think they thought I was disapproving of the fact they actually use their balcony (as something other than a makeshift shed). I think they understood eventually.

Then we saw a kayak stored on someone else's balcony while out.

Oh, I also don't "get" the service one gets in restaurants, often. Well, it's improving, but still ...

It must be this global warming thing; balconies, barbecues, eating outside - never ate outside when I was a kid. We had double doors from the living room onto the garden but they were opened about once a decade. Eating at tables outside (those Parisian cafes) was something you saw on the telly.

something else I just don't get

fireworks let off in your backyard....the first ones started on the weekend around us and will now last until the new year, with Halloween, Divali, Guy Fawkes, Christmas, New Year and of course the mostly no reasonjustbecause events

sigh

and cricket, but I suspect that would take up an entire thread

Oh, god, I miss Quebec, where private fireworks were illegal. Between Guy Fawkes/Diwali/Eid, it's fireworks 24/7 around here. Well, not quite 24/7, but people do set them off in the daytime reasonably often! WTF!

And yeah, cricket. They throw like girls, and the game takes all day. I don't really do spectator sports, but if I did the men would have to be a lot more scantily clad, to draw me in.

ok
was walking dd to school today and saw 3 ( THREE!!!!) different people pouring large hot steaming buckets of hot water over their windscreens that had a wee bit of frost on them. Why is this? Is an ice scraper out of the question?
And why do others put a blanket over the windscreen at night, to wrap it up tight so it doesn't get cold through the night?
hmmm

Really? Buckets of hot water? How strange.

Yes, they don't have ice scrapers. I think we got one once from somewhere (car rental?) and it was a tiny pathetic thing, and credit cards worked better.

DH is always boggled by the block heaters (if that's what they're called) back home ...

oh yes, when I first saw my SIL pouring a bottle of water over a frosty windshield I thought she had lost the plot. then I had to try to scrape mine with a hard spatula because there was nary a scraper to be found... one of my co-workers actually cracked her windshield one morning because she thought it would be a good idea to pour a kettle of freshly-boiled water over it!

I get a kick out of telling people that we have to plug our cars in during the winter back home! they never seem to believe me.

I had always heard that hot water could crack your windshield. Wonder what the lack of scrapers is all about?

When I went ice fishing in Minn. I had to plug in my block heater. I felt very "Northern"

On the rare occasion I see people driving about with snow on the roof of their car, I come over all, well, my-dad, and think "fgs, can't they get the snow off the top, it'll just come down over their windscreen". Very odd feeling.