What is British culture?

[SenoraPostrophe]

I've been asked to teach an English course (hooray - programming gets boring sometimes) which includes a section on "British culture".

Obviously I could throw a few ideas together myself, but it is quite an interesting question and I'm sure I'd miss something.

Ideas so far:

dry, Self-depreciating humour
Dinner parties (the Spanish don't do them - they meet up in restaurants, kids and all, instead)
Fish and chips
Toad in the hole
Sticky toffee pudding
Christmas pudding
custard
Kids getting up at 5am christmas day (don't do that here either - me and dd were the only ones awake in the whole street at 8am last year)
pubs
pub quizzes
culturally adventurous (Rock n roll and hip hop only became mainstream in the US after they were in the UK. Don't know if that's because the US is culturally conservative or racist).
Shakespeare
tea
chocolate digestives
Branston (mmm Branston)
Stilton

....that's it so far. Can you tell I haven't had tea yet?

also as an aside, the students will be TV execs who want to be able to talk to their counterparts at British stations. What do TV execs talk about?

The Mabinogion is a collection of folk tales/fairy stories (ladies in lakes, magic swords etc). Many are ancient, but were compiled in the 19th century by Lady Charlotte Guest.

would that be the same as lancelot and merlin or are they the 'english' ones?

The thing about folk tales is that many are broadly similar accross Europe. I might have a look at them just to see though.

Or maybe I'll stick to the Beano!

Adults eating sweets in public (seems a British thing to me);
A 'nice cup of tea' as a solution to most of life's problems;
Boiled eggs and 'soldiers';
Grumbling about the weather;
Having an inflated idea of one's country's importance in the world (though we share this with the French!);
Nostalgia for the War (a Spaniard would find this pretty incomprehensible, I would imagine)
Party games on TV on a Saturday Night

They are not about Arthur, as far as I can remember, but various Princes and Princesses figure.

Oldiemum - actually, now I live abroad, I think that the British are different in that they admit to having an inflated view of their country's importance in the world.

Also a German once pointed out that no other language has a word for "overacheiver"

You're right about nostalgia for the war though - that is a strange one.

'it doesn't matter if you don't win as long as you tried your best.'
a popular phrase.

You might want to tell them that a lot of British children learn more about WWII than about any other topic in history at school. My step dd studied it in primary school, again in lower secondary, at GCSE and at A-level. This is typical and it means that many young people are extremely ignorant about pre-C20 history.

Going for a "swift half" down the pub is a big English thing.. (I once heard it defined as a indeterminate measure of alcoholic liquid of not less than two pints)

And you cant beat a nice cuppa tea ....unless you happen to have a good pint of Dublin Guinness around

Bill Bryson says that the quintessential British phrase is 'Musn't grumble'.

Paul Theroux comments on how British people drive to the seaside and then sit in their cars looking out at the sea

lol@OM. that's sooo true, as is sitting on the beach with an ice cream/ walking along there.

Or sitting on the beach in the rain on August Bank holiday. With a wind break and beach cricket.

lol, and then having to change under your towel on the beach after running in the sea to wash the sand off your feet! he he oh and all the seaweed on your feet.

When I said no idea senora I meant about the broons. The mabinogi is welsh folk tales of which there are four branches which include Arthurian legends and which include tales for the whole of the UK

Forgot to say they were found in the Red Book of Hergest and the White Book of Rhydderch, now stored in Oxford's Bodlein library and the National Library of Wales which date back to between 1375-1425 and 1325-1400

MARMITE, fgs.... and cheddar cheese

And white sliced bread

The looking at the sea from your car one reminds me of that uniquely British "thing" of picnicking in car parks/lay bys. I have never undertood why people will drive to, say, a beautiful National Trust gardens and stately home then sit on the bldy car park all day and have a picnic within 3 feet of their car. What is that about?

Car boot sales
Jumble sales
The WI cake stall
Boarding schools
Buckets and spades on the beach
Sunburn(how do we manage it with so little sun?!)
Saying "sorry" or "excuse me" when it's the other person's fault!

If it includes contemporary British culture, then you will have to do something about non-white culture so they won't be ignorant and tactless when talking to non-white TV execs! The TV execs I know like drinking and partying but are also quite highbrow, so perhaps you should do a brief bit on British literature, film, and theatre? Should we assume the Spanish TV execs will already be familiar with British TV shows? I think a great way to get a snapshot of British culture is to show them all the newspapers for one day, ranging from tabloids through broadsheets to FT!

mince pies and egg custards! my favorite things.

Yes Prime Minister

marmite
radio 4
infact love it The BBC is a cultural institution
beach huts & the seaside 'thing'
gin
multiculture
classic literature & contemporary fiction

meant to write 'love it or loathe it' urgh.. must learn to preview..