Hello old chaps. I am British, and would like you to share with me your views on Britain - perhaps over some tea?
>perhaps over some tea
Don't kid yourself. Britain, as we came to know it from novels and old TV series is not anymore.
It has turned into a group of people where division among it's citizens are at extremes. Racist groups, multiculturists, feminists, masculinists, leftists, uhm, more leftists...
in before chavs
THERE IS NO BRITAIN!!!
THERE IS ONLY THE ENGLISH EMPIRE!!!
SCOTLAND WILL BE FREE!!!
British music TV channels beat pretty much all other countries music TV channels, because on their music TV, there is actually, y'know, music, instead of the 165th rerun of Pimp my Ride.
Big Brother is watching you...
That's on MTV UK all the time. But we have to put up with pimp my ride UK! With WESTWOOD! THA BIG WIGGER!
When it comes to fish and chips... England prevails!
I think Britain is cool. Like the USA's little brother than people respect, whether you like it or not!
>>15
indeed. http://4-ch.net/general/kareha.pl/1168827959/12 is much better.
TWO WORLD WARS AND ONE WORLD CUP! DOO DAH, DOO DAH!
"When it comes to fish and chips... England prevails!"
fuck trying to cure cancer then, we have fish and chips.
I am in the US, and I am trying to think of how the UK is portrayed in popular culture here.
People with bad teeth.
All food is overcooked, especially vegetables.
Strange seafood that no one else in the world eats, except perhaps the Japanese, like eels.
Men wearing bowler hats and carrying umbrellas.
Curry at least twice a day.
>>22
How do you portray overcooked food in popular culture?
And I don't relate to the curry thing.
The rest is spot on, ol' chum.
Tbh, I may be British, but without having gone to Wales/Scotland much, I can't talk for them
>>22
Our teeth are OK
LOL at overcooked food. Wrong.
Seafood - what, cod, scampi and the like is foreign to you?
Umbrellas yes, bowler hats no.
Curry for the chavs. Real People here eat nicer foods.
As for me, I hate London. Sucky place, sucky people, etc. Unless you're a tourist. In which case it rocks.
ALL HAIL BRITANNIA!
I'm English, and I was going to say something about stereotypes, but then I thought... I'm a total southerner. I've been to Scotland once, and Yorkshire once, but other than that, I don't really know what it's like in the north. It might all be true, the north-south divide is real. We do have some pretty crapy food (although the popular perception of America's food isn't any better), but I guess so does everywhere. And if we have more of it, I've never really noticed, because I eat good food.
You see, in some ways my family is a good example of the upper middles class stereotype. I don't know how well known that is in other countries. I know there's the idea of the working class, northern type of person, and the tea drinking, well spoken upper class Englishman, but I don't know about in between. The British "upper middles class" is a more well defined idea than in other places, as far as I'm aware.
Cool, so there's a north south divide in britain, too? I would love to know ALL ABOUT IT! I live in the US of A and I'm going to do a report on the UK, and... well that would be great. thanks!
>>26
Very interesting post.
Now that you point it out, I noticed that I indeed have two different stereotypes for brits...
Well in France, from a stereotypical point of view, UK people can be classious, well-cultured tea-drinkers, wasted punks or drunk hooligans.
British food culture is generally seen here as one of the worst offense that could be made to the word "food". They all eat boiled beef and jelly (well, actually I find jelly not that bad and quite funny).
British pop/rock is usually considered the best that can be (I guess that's this way since the Beatles). Actually it looks like most of the french pop/rock group are under heavy british influence these days...
Oh, and on a sidenote, Irish are drunk redheads, and Scots drunk, greedy redheads with a beard and a kilt. Most probably playing bagpipe, and owning a castle. I live in such an open-minded country!
Anyway, the "british humour" and sense of derision is actually quite popular here. Even if I guess not every british is built to be a Monty Python's member.
>>29
The north-south divide, huh. (Warning: This might be a little long, given that this is quite a casual, light hearted thread.)
Well, some people say it doesn't exist, but frankly, it does. It's not as pronounced as the usual stereotype would have you believe, but I think (and I expect most British people would agree with me) that there's more truth in it than you find in a lot of stereotypes. The main issue with it is where the divide actually is. In reality, there's an area called the Midlands, which is... in the middle. Literally, as it's in the middle of the country, and also in the sense that it has traits of both the north and the south. I see it as being more similar to the north, but I'm a southerner. A northerner might see it the other way, but there genuinely are more similarities to the north, so it wouldn't be felt as strongly. The more extreme north and south are always viewed as just that, but otherwise, where you view the "boundary" as being really depends on where you come from.
As for the differences between the north and south, what it boils down to is money. I'll have to use some generalisations, but for the most part they hold true.
The north is the poorer, working class part of the country. This is where the divide actually comes from. I don't think I can explain the history behind it like I can the state of things now, but in the most basic, simple sense, it's because there are far more natural resources (coal, etc.) in the north, so that's where the workers are. There's more heavy industry too, and so on. You get the idea. By contrast, the south is richer, and has a lot more middle and upper class people. (In fact, I think the vast majority of upper class families are southern. The English upper class is something you're born into, it's not so much about money or power, and their aren't as many upper class families up north.) More people have white collar jobs, and so forth.
Then there's the differences in culture. To use stereotypes again, the north is where the lager drinking football hooligans come from, the south is where the cultured, well spoken gentlemen come from. In fact, it is true that people drink more in the north, and generally do things that are less "cultured". Not that I have any links to prove this, you'll have to take my word for it, or track it down yourself. It's also true that there's less oppurtunity for culture in the north; there aren't as many things like museums, galleries, and so on there, again because of the divide: industrial, working, newer cities, compared to the bourgeoisie or aristocratic south with its long history of culture. So far what I've written seems to put the north in a more negative light, but the south has its share of negative stereotypes, too. As well as what you might expect (I already used the word bourgeoisie for the sake of convience, but obviously it tends to be used pejoratively), southerners are viewed as bland, boring and humourless compared to northerners.
So, uh, there you go. Although I'm just touching the surface of all this, like I said, I realise that was somewhat long. Hopefully someone found it interesting, the reason I can go on about it is because it's always fascinated me. I can explain other things if anybody likes, go deeper into one aspect of it or whatever. And I expect I use some words in a slightly different sense to how Americans would, so I can clarify if necessary.
Oh, and I hope I didn't touch any nerves with all the class stuff.
An internet for you sir, i learned something today.