We do dull weather really well.

i was back in the UK a couple of weeks ago for the first time in almost a year.

the things i like about the UK are:

shopping… primarily bargins. why does a pair of Nike trainers cost 45GBP in the UK and 115€ in Germany? the same can be sid for jeans… a decent pair of jeans (i.e. not walking around wearing H&M) in Germany will set me back around 70€. i can buy a pair of jeans from Next that cost me 30GBP and last me years.

NHS… brilliant. ok, some of it is flawed, but from a price/performance ratio it is fantastic. i pay over 120€/month here (and that, everyone tells me, is cheap!) yet i still have to fork up the first 600€ for any treatment i receive. in the UK i was paying N.I. of around 30GBP a month and that covered me for my pension, too.

Pubs and real ale. obvious, really.

Humour.

Tea… oddly Germans drink lots of tea, but usually some kind of fairy tea with strawberry and roohbush or fenchel or some other such crap.

Motorway sliproads. nice and long… no panic. here they are usually 150m long with a sharp 180° turn before throwing you out into 200kmph traffic.

hedge rows and dry stone walls… quintessentially English/British.

cottages… like the ones you see on Midsomer Murders.

creativity… whether it be in fashion, design, music, advertising or media/television. any “trends” will usually turn up here a good 3-6 months here. television programming (despite me thinking “what a load of shite” whilst in the UK) is better than in many countries in the developed world. many ideas developed in the UK are then sold on to other production companies elsewhere. the BBC is brilliant despite BBC1 & 3. BBC radio 4 is a god-send. advertising here in Germany is bland. it has no spark or “ummph” about it. bit naff, like their dress sense.

Money… the fact that 20GBP (although it will only get you 24€) looks like it is worth something. 50GBP…. wow!

Chips… proper chips. not these so-called Fries. not these skinny little feckers full of grease, but big fat chips that go crunch and are nice and fluffy on the inside.

Pies… brilliant. i love pies. need more pies in my life.

Houses… i like the fact that almost everyone has a house. here 95% of the population live in a flat of some kind or another. a house is a home. you own walls with a loft space and a patch of land to do what you want with.

the language… i’m pretty fluent in German, but English is more fun. you can swear properly, nicely even, in English. it isn’t full of stupid rules and clauses. no male, female or neutral nouns. simply, yet beautiful.

am i going back… not anytime soon…. 🙂

bbc
NHS
ale
tea
biscuits
althought not the best we are a very safe nation

Spotted Dick.

Piss-taking most definitely! I remember Reginald D Hunter saying how shocked he was, on moving to Britain, how people spoke to their mates. Someone introduced him to his best mate thus:

“Reggie – this is Paul. He’s a bit of a ****!” 😆

Innuendo. It’s bigger in the UK.

…

and scallies though

To be fair they are world class scallies!

Television
Football
Museums
Pubs

I remember a septic workmate saying how impressed he was by motorway roadsigns in the UK, that they were consistent and reliable and easy-to-read. Which I’d never thought about, they’ve always been there.

Pubs, but not necessarily beer
TV
Bacon
Sunday lunch

Foreign women.

Aw come on……….. why ruin a nice thread with mention of scallies, by scallies I assume you are skirting away from saying chavs, so its ok to talk in positive tones of multiculturalism and tolerance but then bash people you assume are lower down the social order than the social order you presume yourself to be in !

That by law we don’t have to carry any ID, nor when driving.

Health care.
Police.
Light switches.
Crisps.
Sarcasm.
War (winning of).

The nurturing and appreciation of completely bonkers genius like Spike Milligan

I remember a septic workmate saying how impressed he was by motorway roadsigns in the UK, that they were consistent and reliable and easy-to-read. Which I’d never thought about, they’ve always been there.

An American tutor of mine at uni used the British road sign system as an example of a Platonic ideal.

I didn’t really get it until I tried driving round Europe.

http://designmuseum.org/design/jock-kinneir-margaret-calvert

popular music in all its forms
NHS
pubs/drinking establishments
public libraries
good old fashioned free-to-use public conveniences with proper sinks (as opposed to wallgate things)
seaside piers
double decker buses
sausages

Hard to believe if you read some of the threads, but on the whole we’re a pretty tolerant lot in Britain.

The road signs were all designed by one woman. She was interviewed by James May on Top Gear. She’s a genius! That’s another thing actually. We’re bloody brilliant designers!! Look at the underground map. Copied by everyone. The concept was simple, but no-one had done it before. That the actual map didn’t need to pay any respect to actual geographical location for it to work. Inspired!

The road signs were all designed by one woman.

Not according to the design museum link a couple of posts up from yours. 😛

Pretty much everything TBH – including the weather. Whenever I’ve been abroad I can’t wait to get back home.

Also the A-Z maps were written by a women who walked around her local roads mapping each one out by name, brilliant (as I don’t have satnav).

liberalism

War (winning of).

When was the last time Britain managed to win a war all on it’s own?

10 years ago I’d have said grotty little back street pubs that always stank of stale beer and stale fag smoke. Lovely.

Sadly they don’t exist anymore 🙁

I just have to ask – who designed the layout of that design Museum website? It’s about impossible to read. Only in Britain…

Hard to believe if you read some of the threads, but on the whole we’re a pretty tolerant lot in Britain.

It’s a fallacy I once believed, however if you ever drive around the UK in a foreign registered you soon dicover the truth.

Road signs are a good call
I also prefer English beer to the German stuff, sausages too, far to much meat in German sausages.
David Attenbrough? Is there an equivalent media educator anywhere else in the world? I guess the French once had Jacques Cousteau, but still not a patch on our David.
Organised sport, OK we may seem to lose more than we win these days but it does seem to have been our gift to the world, and we are obsessed with it.

Scotland

Humour +1

When was the last time Britain managed to win a war all on it’s own?

Most wars are one with allies to varying degrees

+1s for the following

Beer
Fish n chips
Pies
Embracing world cuisine
NHS
The Atlantic Coast

Mrs Binners has just said “mountain bikers with baldy heads and nice bums” . And who’s going to argue with that? 😀

Public houses. Nobody does the drinking establishment quite like the Brits.

NHS… brilliant. ok, some of it is flawed, but from a price/performance ratio it is fantastic. i pay over 120€/month here (and that, everyone tells me, is cheap!) yet i still have to fork up the first 600€ for any treatment i receive. in the UK i was paying N.I. of around 30GBP a month and that covered me for my pension, too.

To be fair, the beautiful thing about the NHS is that you get it even if you don’t pay anything. That’s a society that really cares about itself.

Ex-pat point of view: pubs and pies. A lot of the other stuff posted (NHS, for example) is available in other countries, Spain has a very similar system with a pretty reasonable level of care.

Road signs, not thought of that but it’s so true. Spain’s not good, but nothing like as bad as Italy.

Sausages? Butifarra is pretty good, the mighty sausage is an international wonder available in many forms.

Maps
Porridge
Ability to put up with cr@p weather!

Other countries obviously do better cured sausages, but I’ve not had owt as good as a nice Cumberland sausage anywhere else.

Music – echo & the bunnymen joy division the chameleons the cure james

The north/south divide – Manchester’s ideas are always ahead of London…

The peaks, moors etc.

The fact that within an hour of my front door I can be on top of kinder or at a ‘shine’ to a WWII bomber left to the elements – anywhere else would have it in a glass box charging money…

Manchester pubs & bars – big hands/temple bar/lass etc

Going to a pub with 1 mate & bumping into half of town.

Breaking the ice at frodsham to go barefoot skiing because the suns out

Making the most of any opportunity.

Whiskey!!!

Hope freehubs..

Child Abuse

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/mar/03/43000-strip-searches-children

and depression in children

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/shortcuts/2012/jun/27/why-british-children-so-unhappy

But hey, our real ale is **** brilliant!

has anyone mentioned stone roses, primal scream, pink floyd, rolling stones or jesus jones yet ..?

Television.

Desserts.

Newspapers.

Popular Music.

Humour.

Acceptance and tolerance.

Healthcare.

Beer.

Misery.

Serial Killers.

Engineering.

Breakfast.