Invitation To Americans To Find Fault With The British.. (page 10)

Pleasuredome

Whinging Poms!!!!
My dads side of the family are english, my grandmother and I used to have a great time putting on english accents and having whinging competitions, you know the ones " Me and my sis brothers and sisters lives in a matchbox in the middle of the freeway with only one pair of shoes between us and we had to walk six miles in snow six feet deep to and from school" Was great fun.

i read enough whinging in the ozzie press after the rugby world cup to last me a lifetime!

Sirona

You forgot to mention the famous "Lobby".

Some people call it Corned Beef Hash. The scots call it Stovies. Lovely!! The people in my town eat it so much that we're called "lobby gobblers"

Do they have this in the states? Its corned beef, boiled in a pan with water, potatoes, onions, beef stock and assorted vegetables and then most people put a pastry crust on it. Sort of like stew but not because the proportions have to be right and stew tastes totally different!

Sirona

Special K

Hey Sirona

I thought Corned beef was Jewish or German.. not British?

Special K

Abaddon

Funny thing about this is that the Brits don't appear to give a stuff what people say about Britain - in case anyone wonders, none of my responses are due to offence, although a few do take the piss back...

... and it's a statement of the obvious to say that stereotypes are stereotypes. Does that stop them often being true and sometimes being funny? A stereotype does not neccesarily mean you dislike someone, it means you find the difference worthy of attention, discussion or laughter

Honestly, some people seem to feel finding fault with other countries is a bad thing. WE DO IT WITH OUR OWN. It's a hobby. A group of English people will quite happily discuss how crap England is. If France comes up by mistake, it'll get handbagged too. Or Germany. Or Spain. We are equal opportuinity whingers. There's nothing like a good old moan about something to make you feel better. Thunder Rider's phrase 'political voyerism' is a great one though, however, we do it to ourselves too.

'Talk funny' is a bit rich... American's talk funny, note the subtle clue in the name of the language... ENGlish... ENGland...

Our beer's not flat, it's just we don't put the bubbles there artificially so there's less of them than American Lager (or 'shandy' as we affectionately call it). As we have a temperate climate, we like our beer cool, not cold. On holiday in warm climates we drink cold beer.

Of course, we drive on the left-side of the road as we had roads and traffic even before the internal combustion engine. As most people are right-handed, it was decided to drive on the left so the whips of the coach drivers didn't mangle the hoi-poloi on the pavement.

As England has a minimum wage that, although inadequate, is not an absolute joke, we don't have to heavily subsidise the salaries of staff whose bosses are too mean to pay them a living wage unless they do the job really well. Why pay someone for doing what they are already paid to do? Having said that, American service is outstanding a lot of the time.

We were absolute bastards in our Imperial phase and did indeed set-up scenarios for a whole lot of bad stuff with our meddling. Big Tex, the Treaty of Versaille was a cock-up (not all ours), you're right. If Germany hadn't been held down for so long Hitler may never have got the support he did.

Our Royal Family is an alternative to a head-of-state with power. We tried that years ago and bought our Kings back. Mark you, with a father-son succession in the White House (albeit with Clinton in between) you guys are going the hereditary oligarchy route too... but anyway, Royal Families costs less than a President, can't do anything that actually harms anyone other than themselves, and are great tourist attractions.

czar, the white belt and red jackets were to even the game up a bit. Haven't you heard of sportmanship? Still, in the re-match in '12 we burned Washigton down even if we DID dress funny.

aunt(you DO know what fanny means?), that is one of the best set of observations I've seen in a while...

When they mean to be rude they are freezingly polite.

Yup. I had to translate a three-paragraph letter for an American I met once. It was written by an English person telling him to get stuffed, essentailly, but in a very nice way.

When they want to insult you they are so killingly witty about it that it can be hours or even days before you realise you've been rejected.

Yup.

Even when they really mean to give a compliment they often mix it with an insult, to avoid being thought sycophantic, obsequious, or wet (over-emotional).

Yup

The feel deeply superior (for having won the Empire) and deeply inferior (for having lost the Empire).

Mmmm... don't give a toss personally.

They consider all of America to be basically summed up by the cliche "more money than taste".

Oh, I know the socioeconmic disadvantagement of large numbers of Americans so would never say that... and even the poor ones don't have taste... maybe it's something in the water?

They consider us to be gauche, crass, unsubtle, literal and yet supremely enviable for our money, power and breezy (unwarranted) confidence.

They also don't think about America as much as this board might lead people to believe!

They have a love-hate relationship with their impenetrable class system.

Actually it's a hate-hate relationship. We hate the toffs and the toffs hate us.

They, naturally, are raised with all of this ambivalence and mutual torture and find it highly entertaining, and I don't blame them.
But for an American, it's a social jungle. The only hope is to actually fulfill the American stereotype to perfection. Then you can survive, because if you're confident and literal you really don't notice all the subtle currents, and you can't be hurt by them.

Oh, it's easier than that. All you have to understand is that if an Englishman sees you in a pub, says 'What are you doing here you smelly bastard? I'll have a beer please', it normally means he is delighted to see you.

Random... yeah, but at least Elvis was famous enough to get away with it...

L_A_Big_Dawg

Their love of soc.....errrrr, football. I tried really hard to understand that game, but found that it only ranked above cricket and golf on the tedium scale

Other than that I love my English cousins.

LABD, of the half Welsh, half Mexican, class

Love_Truth

Bad food, bad cars, bad teeth, and that phony accent.

xLaurax

Now Love Truth that was a little harsh wasn't it? I don't know where y'all getting this bad teeth thing from? Personally my teeth are perfect been told by my dentist ive gota 10 outa 10 for teeth alignment and colour! As far as the phony accent goes you've been listening to the queen way too much. There are that many accents over here you can't hate them all surely not!

xLaurax

Love_Truth

10 out of 10 is good for a Brit, but 32 out of 32 teeth is way better!

xLaurax

I have to say your attempt at humour is very amusing Incase you forgot to look at my age you will see that i'm 16 years old.. so actually yeah not only have i 10 outa 10 for teeth alignment i have 32 outa 32 teeth. God what more cud i possibly want? I can safely say not one of the people i know have ghastly teeth... must just be the Americans makin up more rediculous statistics.. as per usual

xLaurax

ApagaLaLuz

No Good Mexican Food ANYWHERE!! And dont let that so-called Tex Mex crap fool ya, it's crap. Warm drinks, no ice in the soda or refills either. Other than that my favorites are the warm hospitible people, and a fabulous transportation program

Invitation To Americans To Find Fault With The British..

Share this