I don't know how or why but apparently it's been 10 years since I first moved to this quaint little island known as Britain and over the past decade I have amassed quite a long list of things that I find strange about the UK and today I want to share some of them with you the sentence you are right is something you will hear all the time here in the UK and My trouble with that sentence when I first moved here was that I thought it was a genuine question. Silly me. I thought people were asking me whether I was or was not okay.
And these are some of the emotions it stirred up within me. Number. Number one, confusion. Do I look like I am physically or mentally not okay? Number two, fear.
Why are strangers going out of their way to ask me this? Are they being nice or are they very concerned either for themselves or for me? And number three, when I do go on to answer that question, why are they no longer listening? Well, if you've ever faced this dilemma, here is the solution. When asked, you are right by a British person.
You just say it back, okay? This is because the question you are right actually has nothing to do with you. It's just a form of greeting similar to the American what's up.
What's up! Point number two is about bathrooms and I frankly don't even know where to begin with this one. The British have managed to conquer most of the known world yet they have somehow not managed to conquer the concept of taps that don't make you feel like you're in purgatory.
I mean it stings, it burns. burns, it's uncomfortable. And for what? Why?
We have invented taps that fulfill all these criteria, yet somehow you are not installing them. And that's all I'm going to say on the matter, but don't worry, we're not done with bathrooms because there are more quirks. Number two, Number two, let me take a breather because this one doesn't get me.
It's so riled up. But number two, why are there no plug sockets in your bathroom? What if I want to charge my electric toothbrush?
I know, I'm a modern woman. What can I do? What if you're a guy and you're trying to use clippers and you want to plug them in?
What happens then? Silly. And number three, and this is going to be my last point on the bathrooms, but my blood pressure is rising again because I'm about to talk about the monstrosity that is carpets in bathrooms. I'm talking thick fluffy carpets in that one room that is full of steam and liquid and odors and just horribleness.
Why would you want to have a fabric in there of any sort really but a fabric that is permanently attached to the floor that I have no idea how you clean. Do you? Does anyone want to argue with me about this by the way?
Because if you do and if you have strong opinions about the benefits of having carpets in bathrooms I would absolutely love to hear them. them. Our next point is queuing and I am completely on the British side here. I think queues are fantastic. I love how orderly and organized they are.
I don't love maybe how plentiful they are, but frankly, at this point, I've been here long enough that if I see a queue, I just go stand at it. Do I know what awaits on the other end of it? No, and I don't need to.
Number four, we've got tutting and this can often go hand in hand with queuing, especially if there is somebody who is breaking the unspoken rules of the system. And what will happen instead of somebody telling you off or saying, oh you're doing it wrong go to the back, whatever they'll go Quite often they won't even make eye contact because for a British person that could be a little too confrontational Another great example that comes to mind here is queuing on escalators The way escalators work here in the UK is you stand on the right hand side and you're stationary on the left hand side however, you're supposed to leave space so people can walk if they're in a rush if somebody were to break the system as people especially tourists often do, tutting would probably be expected and I have myself tutted at tourists and it was incredible because it made me feel like I was finally being accepted by my my adoptive brethren. I want to kick off number five with a fun little number.
Did you know that here in the UK people drink more than 150 million cups of tea every single day? Now to you the term tea might mean many things. You might think of green tea, you might think of black tea, you might think of herbal tea, but here in the UK it really only means one thing and that's English breakfast tea with milk. And there are four main brands that everyone seems to buy and that's PG Tips, Twinings, Tetley and... The other one.
Yorkshire. Yorkshire tea. And I don't think I've ever been to a British household that didn't have one of these on their shelf.
And I think that's beautiful. I like the certainty of knowing what to expect. Sandwiches are just a huge thing in this country.
Most big supermarkets in the UK like Tesco, Asda, or Sainsbury's have something called a meal deal where for somewhere in between three and four pounds you can get a sandwich a snack and a drink which frankly is a very good deal especially if you're going out for a quick lunch or whatever and this selection is astounding. It's amazing. At Christmas time, you will have like stuffing sandwiches with turkey. I mean, I think that's the only time of year when you have special sandwiches, but truly it is incredible. And most people have favorites.
and when they go to buy a meal deal, they will try to get the most value out of it that they possibly can. There is a guy by the name of Max Fosh here on YouTube who does something called ranking people's meal deals and I absolutely love watching them. Point number seven, let's make the oh-so-logical leap from the topic of sandwiches to social class. Now, meal deals can actually be a pretty good predictor of somebody's social standing and background, but an even better predictor is their accent. And thanks.
Here in the UK, it is truly incredible. You can pinpoint where somebody is from or where they were born to the street sometimes. If you've ever heard of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion or My Fair Lady, you already know what I'm talking about.
The way a person speaks, the things they say here in Britain can be used as a pretty reliable predictor of social class. And it's something that is still at the forefront of people's minds today. It's something that people are very aware of.
And I And I know this is the case in every country. People, you know, wonder what another person's background is, but it is just so obvious in many ways here. And there are so many terms for people who belong to different social classes. A person from the upper class might be called posh, very common word.
It might be called a toff or a Sloan, which is a term derived from Sloan Square in, I think it's in Chelsea, where a lot of rich people live. And then on the opposite side of the spectrum, some working class people might be described as. as chavs although this is a special specific subsection of that bigger group or they might be called scallies there's a lot of words um but many of them are derogatory so we're gonna move on to our next point when i first moved here i thought there was breakfast lunch and dinner and it turns out i was completely wrong because here in the uk those names are completely open to interpretation for example you can get school dinner which is actually lunch because you eat it at lunchtime.
There's also the word supper and the word tea, both of which can be used to describe dinner. And frankly, I haven't fully figured out the distinction between these. It really depends on where you come from. So in the north of the country, people might use different words to people in the south and different families and different social classes might use different words as well.
So it is truly a minefield. In number nine, we've got pet names. There is an infinite degree of nuance and so many layers to the way in which these terms of endearment are used.
But here are a few examples. A girl from Essex, somebody from Towie, might use the word babes a lot, right? To refer to another person of a similar age. But then you get an elderly gentleman who might call you love or sweetheart or maybe a dinner lady, school dinner lady who serves lunches. Yeah, exactly.
She might call you darling. And all of these terms I think are very beautiful. although sometimes can come across as a little bit sexist these days if men keep referring to young women as like sweetheart or darling in a slightly patronizing way but overall I am a big fan of this and it just feels so quintessentially British.
Number 10 and I'm sorry I didn't mention this sooner is British politeness. There was a survey done a few years ago of more than a thousand Brits and they came to the conclusion that the average person says the word sorry a total of eight times per day and that one in eight people apologize a total of 20 times per day which i think is wonderful because i have or am quickly becoming one of them at this point i will say sorry to inanimate objects if i bump into a table i will probably apologize the word sorry actually has married uses you can use it to apologize but you can also use it to replace many other sentences for example if the weather is bad you might choose to apologize to say oh I'm sorry the weather's bad even though obviously that is fully out of your hands you may also say something like oh I'm sorry that happened to you although again you weren't the perpetrator of whatever bad thing happened to that person you can use the word to show sympathy you can use it to soften your language you can use it when stopping somebody in the street to oh sorry have you got the time or sorry could you point me to St Paul's my favorite building ...in London, it's so beautiful. On the topic of British politeness, I also want to mention that Brits sometimes have a tendency to be very indirect and even the way I said that was pretty indirect so you can see I'm learning. For example, if you ask somebody for their opinion about say sweater instead of saying no I don't really like it they might say oh it's lovely but it's not really my cup of tea or um it's interesting number 11 the British sense of humor do you know what I just said about Brits being really polite and kind well forget all about that when it comes to close friends because your close friends if they are british are just gonna make fun of you the whole time and it's never gonna stop and at some point hopefully you're gonna just join them because if you don't i direct to think what might happen and yeah it helps with growing thick skin it helps to assess how close you are with someone because if they are not ripping into you you're probably not that close Number 12, let's talk about British fashion.
Obviously the way people dress varies across cultures and the UK is no exception. Now I could mention a few things here like the British love of fake tan and super short shorts, but I'm not going to do that. What I want to focus on instead, well I mean I've just done it, but what I want to focus on instead is the way Brits dress wrong for the weather.
Scenario number one, the first warm day of the year. And by warm I mean we've gotten in two double digits suddenly you look around you and everyone virtually everyone is topless it's it's absolutely astounding especially I would say in Scotland where I lived a few years ago the second the Sun is out the guns are out the just everything's out scenario number two is the opposite it's cold nights and on some exceptionally cold nights I've witnessed things like a group of girls age is irrelevant walking to or from a club, I don't know, and they are literally not wearing tights or a coat, just a really short dress and high heels, and there can be ice on the roads, but that's their uniform, and I just am physically incapable of understanding how they don't perish. It literally makes me feel like I'm David Attenborough observing a different species. Number 13 is Trashy Holidays Abroad, and this one I love.
This is something British teenagers tend to do after finishing their age. A-levels, i.e. graduating from high school, and basically there are only a handful of destinations these British teenagers tend to gravitate to. We've got Magaluf and Ibiza in Spain, we've got Malia, Cabos and Zante in Greece, and Ayia Napa in Cyprus.
I may have left one or two out, but these are the epicenters of what can only be described as mayhem, absolute havoc, utmost hedonism, cheap shots, scat- Scantily clad, everyone. I mean, it is awful and brilliant at the same time. I myself went on one such holiday after graduating from high school. I went to Ibiza or Ibiza, as people like to say.
And yeah, it was exactly what you would expect. If you are unfamiliar with this trend, I would like to point you in the direction of a very special show. The TV show is called Sun, Sex, and Suspicious Parents.
And basically, producers will invite a group of young people and... unbeknownst to them they'll also invite their parents who will then watch their young offspring from afar and judge them silently and in the end not so silently for the various ways in which they've debased themselves. That brings me to my next point which is British TV.
There are some completely outrageous shows on British TV. Let me open the floor with something called Gogglebox. Gogglebox is a show in which you watch people watching TV. TV. Why?
I'm not sure. There's Naked Attraction, where you choose a date based on looking at several people inside transparent boxes that slowly reveal every inch of their naked bodies, including the inches. Need I say more?
Then there's another show called Dogs Might Fly in which they, no, literally teach dogs how to fly a plane. And don't worry, there's more. There's carjackers where people steal their friends'cars and turn them into something else like a giant chicken nugget.
or a miniature space shuttle. And even the normal TV shows are a bit weird, like 8 Out of 10 Cats or Come Dine With Me, which is currently in its 46th season. That's mad.
And when I say weird, by the way, you should know that, yes, I think objectively these are really strange concepts, but I also think they are hugely enjoyable. All right, we've reached point number 15. This is by no means the full list of things I find weird about Britain, but these are the 15 that I chose to open this topic up with. If you would like to hear more, by the way, do let me know. don't forget to like and subscribe, etc.
Now, my final point are those X's that some Brits choose to end text messages with. The X's represent kisses, and as a teenager, I used to hugely overthink this, especially when texting people I was potentially romantically interested in. I would look at the X's and then be confused as to how many I was supposed to send. Was I supposed to send any by sending the wrong message? What does two X's mean vis-a-vis three?
Am I too much of a f- flirt are they too much of a flirt am i not enough of a flirt it was a complete minefield now as an adult i've made the executive decision to just not care because people use them in different ways some people use them to flirt some people use them to send to friends some people use them because they don't know how to finish a text message without them don't forget to subscribe give this a thumbs up and i will see you next friday bye and sorry just for no reason