What makes Britain Great.
 

Being British is about driving in a German car to an Irish pub for a Belgian beer, then travelling home, grabbing an Indian curry or a Turkish kebab on the way, to sit on Swedish furniture and watch American shows on a Japanese TV.
And the most British thing of all? Suspicion of all things foreign!

Only in Britain can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance.

Only in Britain do supermarkets make sick people walk all the way to the back of the shop to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.

Only in Britain do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries and a DIET coke.
Only in Britain do banks leave both doors open and chain the pens to the counters.

Only in Britain do we leave cars worth thousands of pounds on the drive and lock our junk in the garage.

Only in Britain do we use answering machines to screen calls and then have call waiting so we won't miss a call from someone we didn't want to talk to in the first place.

Only in Britain are there disabled parking places in front of a skating rink.

NOT TO MENTION...
- 3 Brits die each year testing if a 9v battery works on their tongue.

- 142 Brits were injured in 1999 by not removing all pins from new shirts.

- 58 Brits are injured each year by using sharp knives instead of screwdrivers.

- 31 Brits have died since 1996 by watering their Christmas tree while the fairy lights were plugged in.

- 19 Brits have died in the last 3 years believing that Christmas decorations were chocolate.

- British hospitals reported four broken arms last year after cracker-pulling accidents.

- 18 Brits had serious burns in 2000 trying on a new jumper with a lit cigarette in their mouth.

- A massive 543 Brits were admitted to A&E in the last two years after trying to open bottles of beer with their teeth.

- 5 Brits were injured last year in accidents involving out-of-control Scalextric cars.

- In 2000, 8 Brits were admitted to hospital with fractured skulls incurred while throwing up into the toilet.

Isn't it great to be British?

<<< - 142 Brits were injured in 1999 by not removing all pins from new shirts. >>>

Only 142 - given the skill at which shirt packers hide pins I'm not surprised it's not 142 deaths

BUT WHY do mens shirt's come all neatly done up? Women's blouses just come on a hanger

<<< Only in Britain are there disabled parking places in front of a skating rink. >>>

the people with the disabled person may not be disabled - or the disabled person may be suffering from something that doesn't affect their ability to walk or skate

Hmmm...every one of your "only in Britains" is true in the US...and I'd wager in most other countries, as well.

On the double cheeseburger issue, I once saw a man in an In'n'Out in California who was eating fries and a double-double while periodically checking the heart monitor strapped to his chest...he probably was drinking a diet coke though, so no worries.

JR, are ambulances just very slow or are pizza deliveries that fast?

Only in the US do 5,000 women a year go to emergency rooms for poking themselves in the eye with a mascara brush while driving.

I didn't think you had christmas crackers (?)

"Only in the US do 5,000 women a year go to emergency rooms for poking themselves in the eye with a mascara brush while driving."

There was a case in the UK where a woman was caught driving while using her laptop while on the phone while smoking a cigarette.

:-) I bet you see some people doing things like that in Silicon Valley. Well, not smoking obviously. But lots of Blackberry action while driving.

Thanks J R for confirming suspicions that i have long held about 'Great' Britain

and many drink water supplied by a French utility

And it is so cheap to live there, too...what a deal and such fab weather.

Even HM QEII is German extraction

The Germans of which she is extracted were extracted from Scots.

Christmas Crackers are readily available at specialty stores but not used near as much as in the UK. That probably explains why there are so many injuries, since the average yank hasn't the foggiest idea what they are or how to use one!

:)

<<< There was a case in the UK where a woman was caught driving while using her laptop while on the phone while smoking a cigarette. >>>

Women can multi-task

What is the difference between a pound and a quid. This isn't a joke I just wanted to know. TY

Once when our brother in law picked us up at the airport in Los Angeles and then whisked us off at 80 mph or so in bumper to bumper traffic to their suburb, I was horrified to see the woman in the next car appling mascara while driving and looking at herself in the sunvisor mirror. Probably does it all the time.

But she might have been British, for all I know.

A quid is a slang term for a pound in money.

You have to know the occasion to use the word, but that is part of the subtlety of the English language as she is spoken on these sublime shores.

If you're going to eat the burger and fries anyway, the diet Coke is a good idea. No use adding a pile of sugar and empty calories to what is already a poor dietary choice.

Nobody knows how the word "quid" came to mean a pound.

so it's not from quid pro quo?

Slightly off the subject, but when did it change from half crowns, guineas and shillings to the boringly sensible current system?

1971

When will they abolish the monarchy?

did I dream hearing about some bloke who died in an eating contest from trying to consume too many fairy cakes?

think it was in Wales. does that count?

regards, ann

He choked on fairy cakes. I think I read he had 5 in his mouth & they couldn't clear his airway. It was a buffet & they all decided not to let the food go to waste so there was a contest. He lost. :(

xxx

Carrybean, I was wondering about that story! What are fairy cakes BTW?

I think the US equivalent is called cup cakes.

Google is your friend - have a look at this:http://www.businessballs.com/moneyslanghistory.htm.

It's a good summary of what all the slang names mean, and more besides. Those of us with a memory pre-1971 will be quite at home with tanners, crowns, farthings and the joys of having 240 pence to a pound. I still get puzzled looks from my offspring if I refer to something as 'tuppenny-ha'penny', ie cheap and worthless.

What makes Britain Great? What we've given to the world. Democratic Government, our Press, what is becoming the world's universal language and being able to say what you damned well like without being marched off to prison, even if you might be watched fairly carefully afterwards. And not being French.

And another thing - fairy cakes. They are sickly sweet sponge things that elderly aunts seem to think children like, and that school children make early on in cookery lessons. What I understand to be cup cakes are in a paper or foil case and have thick icing (frosting? - what a versatile language) on top. Equally vile.

i think this proves that the U. S. is a close relative of Britain, 'cause almost all of those are also true about the U.S. no wonder I feel so at home when I'm in Britain. :)

a fairy cake-

make a standard sponge mixture.

half fill small cake cases x n

bake at 160C for approx. 15 mins til well-risen and golden brown.

leave to cool.

decorate top with icing, hundreds and thousands ["sprinkles" to you], choc vermicelli, etc.etc.

consume singly unless you want end up like the dead bloke.

to make the above into a "butterfly cake" - after cooling, cut off the top of the cake level with the case, cover the cut surface of the cake with icing, cut the top in two and replace on the icing so that they form wings.

consume singly as above.

regards, ann

Ann, thanks for the fairy receipt. I esp. like the "choc vermicelli" bit. stfc, the "not being French" is quite funny.

bk

And there's a "trendy retro" market for them too - these people sell in the chic-er bit of Brick Lane:

http://www.crumbsanddoilies.co.uk/scrapbook.html

On the pizza faster than an ambulance thing. When I worked on the White City we did an experiment.

We called a police response call car, a pizza delivery service and a crack dealer. The arrival times:

Crack: Three minutes (and he had quite a suprise)

Pizza: ten minutes.

Plod: Twenty minutes.

Other things that make Britain great:

We have a Royal society to protect animals and just a national society to protect children.

we refer to that place on the other side of he channel as "Europe" and we don't think we're part of it.

We think that london to birmingham is a very long way indeed.

We can't make pizza - I think we boil it.

"We can't make pizza - I think we boil it"

Surely the best pizza should be fried, no? Ask any Scot.

Also, we are responsible for most of the worlds greatest inventions and discoveries:-

The jet engine.

Penicillin.

Light bulbs.

The Creme Egg.

J R Hartley -

I would love to know where these things originate. I was e-mailed on the 12 May 2006 the same 'Being British'. The reason the date is so accurate is that I kept the e-mail just to give me a chuckle every now and then so thanks for the laugh.

It just reminds me how stupid us 'humans' can be not just the 'British'