It occurred to me from answering a thread on steakhouses in London that it may be useful to provide some useful "rules" or "guidelines" for tourists visiting England

1. Never ever eat at an Aberdeen Angus Steak house (or anywhere with neon signs saying Steakhouse within half a mile of Leicester Square)

2. Fish and Chips can only be best appreciated from a place where they fry it in front of you and ideally in a town by the seaside.

3. A pub advertising "Good Food" just means food is served!

4. Anywhere with "Ye Olde" or "Shoppe" in the title is best avoided

5. You need to go to the bar of a pub to be served - don't sit for 45 minutes at a table and complain about the service

6. Ice is a luxury - don't expect it on the floor of your hotel or in drinks

7. "High tea" does not involve cucumber sandwiches and porcelain china - that's afternoon tea

8. Avoid anywhere to eat that advises that "coaches are welcome"

9. A round trip is a return ticket - one way is a single

10. Stonehenge is really just a pile of stones that you can't get close to - go to Avebury and enjoy walking amongst them and away from the crowds

I'm sure you other helpful people can come up with some more

Rules is that you should visit Rules restaurant when you are in London. It does great British food there and got an excellent review from the Guardian food critic recently.....:

One good rule to follow is:
"Mind the Gap"

And, never, NEVER, never use the Q word - quaint to describe anything in this ancient land!

I doubt that ice is still a luxury, but it probably is not part of English cultural habits.

yes, the last time we heard about the iced drinks I was summarily told that the reason "Europeans" don;t put ice in drinks is because ice waters the drink dpown.

Sounded plausible enough until I asked why &quot;Europeans&quot; don't drink ice <b>water</b> either.

Avoid anywhere that calls itself an &quot;inne&quot; or &quot;tavern&quot; or that uses the word &quot;fayre&quot;.
I agree that fish and chips should be bought from a shop with steamed-up windows, a deep-fat fryer and a long queue .

I think that most Americans don't realise that ice is frozen water and actually dilutes anything that you put it in.

Water is also pretty cheap, so a large coke for instance as served in the US, contains about a pint of water and half a wine-glass of Coka Cola

1. Most pub food is just mass-bought catering packs of stuff they will microwave out back.

2. We're not unfriendly. We were just brought up to 'never talk to strangers!'

3. If we take the mickey out of you we probably like you. If we really want to insult you we will do it so dryly that you won't even notice.

4. The UK is not the same thing as England.

5. Don't wear big backpacks on the tube.

6. the only course of a restaurant meal it is acceptable to share is the dessert.

If you don't want to get trampled in a stampede of commuters, always stand, single file, on the right side of a Tube escalator.

&quot;LOOK RIGHT&quot; when crossing the street.

Woody

Wow, thanks for the enlightenment:

&quot;I think that most Americans don't realise that ice is frozen water and actually dilutes anything that you put it in.&quot;

I always wondered what that was.

8. Stating the obvious is usually sarcasm

A friend who now lives in England said part of the reason for no ice is the average size of refrigerators. Most apartments/smaller housess in England don;t have 6 feet tall side by sides with automatic ice makers. Many have refrigerators that are 1940's apartment size - or even the undercounter size made for boats. I guess people don;t expect to put a week's shopping in at once - and then have another half for frozen stuff/bags of ice for parties etc.

OTOH, if one orders a Magners brand cider, it probably will be served with ice in it.
And if you are an American and you DON'T like ice in your drinks, be sure to mention it (politely) when ordering because there is a tendency among Europeans (inc. Brits) to assume that all Americans want ice. We don't.

1. Do not stand round the entrance to a tube platform
2. Move down inside all tube trains. Only adolescent male louts (of all ages and sexes) spend the journey standing by the doors.
3. Turn that bloody ipod down.

BTilke
You are right - it is amusing to watch flight attendants on BA when serving drinks. A North American accent will get ice and Brit accent will get no ice or a &quot;Do you want ice with that?&quot; asked in a tone that really means &quot;I can't imagine that you would want to dilute your drink with ice but thought I'd better double check in case you had picked up that disgusting habit&quot;

And on trains feel free to talk as loudly as possible into your cell phone - train rides now invariable are more entertaining listening to the ubiquitous cell phone users, usually talking about drivel or silly business matters - or go to the Quiet Car where phone use is banned.