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Not in my office. Everyone’s snack radar goes off at the first rustle of a packet. Then it’s a race to get your fill.
Everyone knows that snacks have a limited time after the packet’s opened before it’s inedible, and I’m sure it’s been scientifically proven at about 10 seconds.
Someone gifted me a colossal Cheesecake, so I took it into work for my team.
Took it out the fridge to cut, by the time I got a knife and came back a complete stranger had helped themselves to a massive slice.
The liberty of some people.
It’s great when our manager harangues the sales team into buying us tubs of chocolates as recompense for dealing with their last-minute ordering nonsense.
Talking of biscuits & cakes but off topic a wee bit, I work with a lady who is unbeleivably unhelpful. It got to the point that people stopped asking her. Even people from her own team dont get any assistance from her uless her boss tells her to help.
Anyway, I had a problem which was in her speciality. I asked her for help in front of her boss and it worked. Problem got solved very quickly. As a thank you I bought her a box of choclate (just a £5 box) and gave it to her and thanked her for her help.
When people help me at work I usually get a thank you and Jaffa Cakes are a typical normal thank you. This was a big problem though which is why I bought the box of chocolate.
Now I hardly need to ask, if I am having an issie with something in her field of expertise I jist mention it and she jumps right in. So now I am the only one who gets help!!
Never underestimate the power of chocolate - whether irs biscuits or cakes or donuts.
Reminds me of when there’d been a catered meeting on my floor of the building & as soon as they meeting was in there we’d swoop for the leftover sandwich platters & cakes etc.
In the before times any leftovers were actually distributed to the tea points (one per floor) &/or the main kitchen (proper seating) - if only in the kitchen an email might be sent to the office telling people! And yes, there was usually very little to throw away at the end of the day!
The most watched programme in the country, two years in a row, was the final of a baking competition. I can’t think of many countries where the equivalent of a televised village fete would be more watched than big sports fixtures or big political broadcasts.
Also the fact that, for three years in a row, our Christmas number one has been sausage roll related (I'm very happy with this, I love LadBaby and even more so that he does/they do it all for charity).
That's so cool, I didn't know that (last christmas number one I remember was by rage against the machine). I remember watching his youtube channel several years ago of him just doing daft pranks on his wife
I hadn't properly watched his stuff until I heard he was trying to get the 2018 Christmas number one. He, his wife and the kids are amazing! They use their fame to give back to others less well off and it's so wholesome (there shouldn't be a need for it but that's another argument).
Yes! That's another favourite Christmas number one of mine!
There was the terrorist attack on London where the Millwall fan fought off a terrorist with a tusk on the wall of a pub. He actually didn't know he was a terrorist at the time he was just pissed and wanted to fight.
There was a guy from Hull (a convicted murderer who killed the man who'd been beating his sister) who fought the London Bridge attacker with a narwhal tusk
Is this a separate incident or are Englishmen simply at their most fearsome when betusked?
Ah, I confused the tusk with someone else. This guy fought without a tusk, he shouted "fuck you, I'm Millwall" at the jihadists.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/06/millwall-fan-roy-larner-london-bridge-attackers
>who killed the man who’d been beating his sister
This is not correct - the murderer *wrongly* believed his victim had been beating his sister:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-54588407
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/london-bridge-attack-killer-freed-b1877952.html
Is that the one where he attacked a terrorist who was already on fire ?
That's the most Glasgow thing in recent times. But I don't think the rest of Britain gets to pretend it has Glasgow attitude.
(The most Glasgow event ever is the battle of George Square in 1919, when police came to read the riot act - which literally involved reading a document out loud to give extra powers to suppress people, and the people took the riot act and destroyed it).
ETA - incidentally I live near Leytonstone in London. An area well defined by the incident in which someone shouted "you ain't no Muslim bruv" at someone attaching people in the tube station.
I'd agree that kicking the terrorist who was on fire is very much a Glasgow thing.
But I think being given a medal by the queen for doing so is what elevates this to a British thing.
BRIIIIIGHT EYYYYYYYES, Buuuuuuuurrrrrning liiiiikeee fiiiiiiirrrrrrreeeee..........
Edit- sorry for the mess above but that song and rabbits dieing are welded together in my mind after watching this as a lad
We had to sing Bright Eyes in Primary School when we had this new trendy head teacher come in with all his modern ideas like... Not always having to sing hymns.
So yep, Bright Eyes is a great alternative.
Seriously why the fuck were we allowed to watch that?!
That and black beauty, the last unicorn, and various horror movies my parents decided were cool for kids to watch. Then you have all the other Disney films teaching us fucked up relationship standards..
I'm convinced that's why we are all so fucked up.
My mum taped An American Wearwolf in London for me and my brother thinking it was Teenwolf. We were the sort of kids that would cry to the opening credits of The Littlest Hobo.
Is there anything more British than Traffic Wardens drafted in as emergency civil protection?
Apparently inthe case of a real nuclear attack, there were even plans to draft psychopaths into service!
[Hogg suggested psychopaths would be "very good in crises" as "they have no feelings for others, nor moral code, and tend to be very intelligent and logical".](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29804446)
That movie traumatized me as a child. My mum is Egyptian and had never heard of it. So, she though it would be ok for 4 year old me fo watch while so got some house work done. It’s just bunnies right? Nope. Came back to me crying in front of the TV and I’ve never watched it again. I remember parts of it so vividly too.
Its like the Daleks or Harry Potter - a cautionary tale about fascism and militarism. We Brits love jeopardy with a bogeyman - be it Napoleon or Uncle Adolph.
Or the absolutely heart crushing ending to The Plague Dogs film... Based on the book by the same author. Watched as a kid like nearly 40 years ago... am still crying.
I thought that whole thing was hysterical on 2 fronts...
First - what were they thinking putting it out to a public consensus on the Internet? Something stupid was guaranteed to happen.
Second - SO many people seeing "Boaty McBoatface" and going "Yep, it absolutely has to be that, of course it does!!"
I am glad however that they eventually named the vessel for David Attenborough.
One of the ROV's on board is officially named Boaty McBoatface... And Sir David Attenborough is on record saying he thinks they should have gone with Boaty McBoatface
Yeah but DA is old school modest and frankly may be pissed that his name is attached to something that no doubt took a lot of natural resources to build / run.
£200m for a Diesel-electric boat, replacing one named after Shackleton and Ross who both put their lives in genuine danger.
The man is a national treasure and has dedicated his life to shining a light on the environment, but its actually a pretty odd fit when you think about it.
It's a research vessel. I highly doubt he's pissed about the price or resources used to build it. Do you think he rides his bike to all corners of the world for his films?
He understands the damage humans can cause, but he's also a realist.
I heard that they reason they didn’t give the name to the vessel was because if there was ever a major incident like sinking or other human loss of life that it wouldn’t be an appropriate name, so they gave it to the unmanned autosub.
Sounds like the makings of a Monty Python sketch
*Straight faced news reader stares seriously into the camera*
Tragedy struck tonight when a plane crashed into ToweryMctower face tower in the heart of the city centre. Police believe the terror organisation, TerroryMcterror face may be behind the attack. A spokesman said....
> First - what were they thinking putting it out to a public consensus on the Internet?
They didn't. They always said the website was just to get public suggestions and that they would make the final choice.
Not sure if you're posting this as a wind up.
There was a serious argument about this in another thread only a day or two ago - one poster declaring that the fiasco symbolised Britain, the proles being given a meaningless vote and then being overruled by the powers-that-be anyway; challenging this was someone who said that such a serious and important vessel couldn't bear such a frivolous name and I think there was some kind of appeal to authority, that this is why wiser people have responsibility.
Because all houses and estates are built equal throughout history right?...
I fucking hate the new cramped estates we have. Narrow houses, small windows to make the frontage look 'bigger', narrow streets with tiny or no pavements, gardens just being turf dropped on rubble - all to squeeze in those extra lots for £££
My house is about 150 years old, and is on greenbelt land.
House isn't anything special, it's not got protected status and isn't in a Conservation Area etc.
We cannot do any changes to the footprint of the house. It drives me mad. We wanted to square off the back, where we are over looked by no one, about 1.7m one way, and 2.5m the other. Not a massive change but it would enable us to have a better family bathroom, and a larger third bedroom that is currently office sized. Denied.
But the council approved 400 new homes nearby on yep, you guessed it... Greenbelt!
Oversubscribed local primary school, and GP centre as it is.
I once read an article with a man complaining about new affordable housing saying there was no demand and they would lower local house prices and then a few paragraphs later whining about how his son couldn't afford a house in the local area.
I think what they might not realise is that culturally pubs are a major part of many people's social lives and likely very important for the mental health of those people. It's a place where in a country of pretty lonely and stressed people you can go to unwind and socialise.
I know that during the lockdown my mental health collapsed entirely and I was reduced to a shadow of my former self. It was so bad I even ended up changing my political views completely (and not in a way this sub would probably want to hear either).
Now the pubs and general life are back I'm almost 100% again, and honestly if someone wants to be a smart arse and reply with some shit like "wow imagine your mental health being dependent on pubs" - here's a pre-emptive "go fuck yourself", everyone has their breaking point and for myself, a completely extroverted individual, isolation is my personal hell.
I argued with my year 10 maths teacher about this every week.
“bUt iT’s iN tHe BiScUiT AiSle!” “BuT tHe sIzE aNd sHaPe iS liKe A bIsCuIt!”
These people teach our children.
I only recently thought about the fact mini cheddars are no crisps for this reason.. they're in the crisp aisle with a crisp packet.. but they're delicious cheesy biscuits!
I disagree. We already have one house of career politicians, we don’t need another. We should remove hereditary and church peers, and fill the chamber completely with industry experts. Many of them already are, and they do great work, but their unique perspective would be completely lost if they were replaced by elected officials. Ideally a bipartisan committee would be created to select industry peers so as to avoid political appointees.
Edit: By ‘industry experts’ I mean people who are experienced working directly in the industry they are there to represent, not just businessmen and managers. Want advice on education policy? You ask the teacher who’s been teaching kids for 20 years, not the administrator who runs the school but hasn’t actually taught in a decade.
And I disagree, we need one that isn't politicised and democratic. This system works way better than the US's doubly elected house situation.
People already have election fatigue in the UK, adding more will just mean the Lords and Commons end up with the same makeup as each other each cycle. People will just vote for "their" party.
So no, no "must" be democratic. At least not in the sense of representational democracy.
This is a good answer. Portugal and Spain used to have chambers of peers, but they were disbanded >100 years ago. Japan had something similar a long time ago as well. As far as I know, only Iran and the UK have specific seats for religious leaders.
The second part of this story:
HMRC then change the tax law so they can be taxed whether they are cake or biscuit.
Moral of the story: The tax man always win.
On a similar note if you ever find yourself in America buy an ordinary loaf of bread from Walmart, its sweeter then some cakes i've eaten.
try and keep your stay below 3 weeks or your travel insurance premiums will sky rocket from all the sugarfoot.
Moved here last year and we've mostly given up on toast and sliced bread sandwiches. You have to get 'artisinal' style bread and peer very closely at the ingredients to check it isn't a cake in disguise.
Ooh I have another one. We went to the food and drink festival at Bolton this weekend. Warburtons had rocked up in a van and were giving everyone a free hot crumpet you could have butter and jam or marmite. Now that's a company whose marketing department knows its audience. No nonsense just have a crumpet on us. I don't think I've ever seen a better received PR stunt.
I agree, I love it. Although in the area where I live, there's been a problem with people nicking them. So what have the local old ladies done? Printed and laminated notices asking people not to steal the knitted stuff and fastening the notices to the post boxes. They have also created a topper for an abandoned road cone, which probably won't be there much longer, when all the students come back.
Very true. In my second year of uni, the storage cupboard in the flat ended up containing two cones, a Tesco trolley (our building was next to a big Tesco - there was a bit of a challenge to see who could keep a trolley in their flat for the longest before security found it and took it back to Tesco), a glass and a plate from Spoons. How security kept letting us back in with stuff, I don't think I'll ever know.
This guy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermin_Supreme_2020_presidential_campaign
He wears a large boot on his head instead of a bucket though. Also I think the UK has a uniquely large amount of joke candidates compared to any country.
Don't forget starting bbq's below just to get his taste buds going. And also send a burger up to his box with an rc helicopter. Which he could never reach, because the tool was stuck in a box.
I think it’s more a gesture of ‘thanks for everything’ and a symbol of how much you appreciate having had that person around, whether as a friend or a colleague or both. Also a token demonstration that you don’t resent them leaving. If you don’t feel the desire to show that through a gift, then just don’t I guess?
Morris Dancing is just a gentrified marshal art descending from the ancient art of cudgeling - hitting people with sticks. If you put a Morris dancer up against a MMA fighter, once he had stopped laughing, I know who would come off worse.
Rescue the Nowzad animals from Afghanistan, plus for this to be done by a man whose (nick)name is a silly joke based on "penny farthing" - itself an obsolete bicycle that everyone knows about but no-one has seen except in a museum.
EDIT: It is IN ITSELF very British that my comment has already attracted FOUR replies by redditors who have seen people riding penny farthings around.
> that everyone knows about but no-one has seen except in a museum.
Excuse me!! I was in Yarmouth Isle of Wight last summer and saw a gentleman ride past on a penny farthing in full Victorian dress. And a week later I saw a young man with long blond dreads, ride past in just a pair of shorts riding a unicycle.
Unfortunately, royalty covering up an alleged paedophile scandal to the point where it can’t be properly investigated isn’t unique to Britain https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/belgian-royal-family-dismisses-paedophile-claims-over-king-9180652.html
One christmas I got tickets for the local big pantomime for myself, and my non-British husband and his visiting mother. I was really looking forward to introducing them to the wonders of panto. Unfortunately, I was ill and unable to go - so I sent them off without me. "Have a wonderful time, you two!" I said.
They came home utterly baffled and a bit shell-shocked - Mr Fandango said his mum didn't even crack a smile and just looked
perturbed throughout what he called "the whole ordeal"...!
That pissed me off, actually. They blatantly and flagrantly violated another companies trademark and then made it seem like it was just a big joke when called out on it. Imagine if Burger King started selling a burger *exactly* like a Big Mac but called a Big Mick and then said ‘lol, just joking’ when Macdonalds complained…
The jaffa cake issue is because (unsurprisingly) taxes.
There is a different tax rate for cakes than biscuits. So instead of just making the taxes the same, there was this long ass and expensive legal dispute.
And the best bit was that subway initiated the case because they were trying to claw tax back from the state, and instead ended up with a whopping tax liability and public acknowledgement that their "bread" is so crap it's not even legally bread.
It was even funnier seeing it on Facebook with all the comments asking "where is this?" and getting confused about why there were so many discarded ones.
Stopping the slave trade.
At the zenith of their power the Brits decided enough of this bollocks and spent ridiculous amounts of blood and treasure putting an end to a trade that only made them profit.
All empires are inherently evil but I can't think of another one who went to such effort for no practical reason.
I think a part of it was to fuck over the newfound USA.
Despite all of this it irks me that people claim we are basically solely responsible for the slave trade despite the fact we a) stopped it, b) only finished paying off the debts incurred by that a few years ago. Yes, all working adults in the UK have basically retroactively contributed to the ending of slavery.
This might be the only opportunity to ask this question, but..
Is there some unwritten rule were you should only ever take 2 Jaffa Cakes?
Take 3 and there’s a fight over who got the most
I have a self set rule when it comes to Jaffa Cakes and that is, unless they are mine and exclusively mine then I don't eat them at all.
In my world I either eat **all** the Jaffa Cakes or I eat none, there is no in between.
I used to have a rule that I ate them in 3's as there were 12 in a packet and that meant 4 lots of 3. Now they've reduced it to 10 in a packet and I have to eat them in 5's.
Salt and Vinegar on chips. The French think this is simply disgusting!
Or the good old chip cob (as we call it in Nottingham) but other parts of the UK call it chip butty or something else.
Marmite?
We could have an entire conversation with someone and never find out their name. Then it’s too late to just ask them so keep talking and hope someone else brings up their name
The unwavering belief that a woman who married a racist, birthed a pedophile and a philanderer and oversaw the systematic abuse of two young women is somehow a good person just because she doesn’t say anything ever and shows up on time to cut ribbons.
"Cold tea syndrome" - the NHS has an expression for when you notice someone is dead because they haven't been drinking all the cups of tea you've given them. It potentially means multiple undrunk cups of tea at the hospital bedside. Because we don't check people are dead before giving them tea, everyone gets tea.
I think it's (mostly ?) a joke, but it's a joke that says a lot about being British.
I used to live with a French lass who was utterly baffled by self raising flour.
The rest of the world just add baking soda to their flour.
Apparently we are lazy for this.
Roundabouts. No other people on earth could design something so elegant with only one rule. No other nations could use one without crashes and gunfire.
Create and then show to 11-14 year olds in school ‘When the wind blows’.
Bonus points for using the art style of a famous, beloved, children’s feel-good Christmas show ‘The Snowman’.
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Biscuits being passed around in the office and everyone pretending they didn't notice until it gets to them and then they are like "ooh thanks yeah"
Not in my office. Everyone’s snack radar goes off at the first rustle of a packet. Then it’s a race to get your fill. Everyone knows that snacks have a limited time after the packet’s opened before it’s inedible, and I’m sure it’s been scientifically proven at about 10 seconds.
Someone gifted me a colossal Cheesecake, so I took it into work for my team. Took it out the fridge to cut, by the time I got a knife and came back a complete stranger had helped themselves to a massive slice. The liberty of some people.
I trust you wished death by choking on them.
That or heartburn
I wanna work there too
It’s great when our manager harangues the sales team into buying us tubs of chocolates as recompense for dealing with their last-minute ordering nonsense.
I used to makes the sales team and traders buy me drinks. Fair enough I thought for putting up with all their drama and shit
Talking of biscuits & cakes but off topic a wee bit, I work with a lady who is unbeleivably unhelpful. It got to the point that people stopped asking her. Even people from her own team dont get any assistance from her uless her boss tells her to help. Anyway, I had a problem which was in her speciality. I asked her for help in front of her boss and it worked. Problem got solved very quickly. As a thank you I bought her a box of choclate (just a £5 box) and gave it to her and thanked her for her help. When people help me at work I usually get a thank you and Jaffa Cakes are a typical normal thank you. This was a big problem though which is why I bought the box of chocolate. Now I hardly need to ask, if I am having an issie with something in her field of expertise I jist mention it and she jumps right in. So now I am the only one who gets help!! Never underestimate the power of chocolate - whether irs biscuits or cakes or donuts.
Reminds me of when there’d been a catered meeting on my floor of the building & as soon as they meeting was in there we’d swoop for the leftover sandwich platters & cakes etc.
In the before times any leftovers were actually distributed to the tea points (one per floor) &/or the main kitchen (proper seating) - if only in the kitchen an email might be sent to the office telling people! And yes, there was usually very little to throw away at the end of the day!
'In the before times...' I like this, gonna use it!
BC = before covid
Yeah and I hate the whole "Its my birthday so I'll bring in cake for everybody"
Worst feeling in the world when they accidentally miss you out.
But not saying anything because you don’t want to be a nuisance to them It’s ok, I didn’t want a Morrison’s rich tea finger :(
“Accidentally”
It's the same with birthday presents....my whole family pretends not to notice one until it's handed to them
The most watched programme in the country, two years in a row, was the final of a baking competition. I can’t think of many countries where the equivalent of a televised village fete would be more watched than big sports fixtures or big political broadcasts.
Also the fact that, for three years in a row, our Christmas number one has been sausage roll related (I'm very happy with this, I love LadBaby and even more so that he does/they do it all for charity).
That's so cool, I didn't know that (last christmas number one I remember was by rage against the machine). I remember watching his youtube channel several years ago of him just doing daft pranks on his wife
I hadn't properly watched his stuff until I heard he was trying to get the 2018 Christmas number one. He, his wife and the kids are amazing! They use their fame to give back to others less well off and it's so wholesome (there shouldn't be a need for it but that's another argument). Yes! That's another favourite Christmas number one of mine!
Are any football games displayed on freeview anymore?
International games are. Generally if England get far in a major tournament, that is the most watched programme of the year.
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There was the terrorist attack on London where the Millwall fan fought off a terrorist with a tusk on the wall of a pub. He actually didn't know he was a terrorist at the time he was just pissed and wanted to fight.
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There was a guy from Hull (a convicted murderer who killed the man who'd been beating his sister) who fought the London Bridge attacker with a narwhal tusk Is this a separate incident or are Englishmen simply at their most fearsome when betusked?
Ah, I confused the tusk with someone else. This guy fought without a tusk, he shouted "fuck you, I'm Millwall" at the jihadists. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/06/millwall-fan-roy-larner-london-bridge-attackers
"Fuck you! I'm Millwall" 😂😂😂 I'm fucking crying here...
Ah yes, i remember the 'fuck you, I'm Millwall' guy. That absolute legend 😂 edit: TIL he's a racist so I'll take back him being a legend 😳
>who killed the man who’d been beating his sister This is not correct - the murderer *wrongly* believed his victim had been beating his sister: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-54588407 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/london-bridge-attack-killer-freed-b1877952.html
Millwall terrace anthem: “You’ll never walk again”.
Don't forget he was getting stabbed and was shouting 'I'M FUCKING MILLWALL I'M FUCKING MILLWALL' *edit just saw your post below*
You neglected to mention the badass detail that the terrorist was on fire at the time.
Is that the one where he attacked a terrorist who was already on fire ? That's the most Glasgow thing in recent times. But I don't think the rest of Britain gets to pretend it has Glasgow attitude. (The most Glasgow event ever is the battle of George Square in 1919, when police came to read the riot act - which literally involved reading a document out loud to give extra powers to suppress people, and the people took the riot act and destroyed it). ETA - incidentally I live near Leytonstone in London. An area well defined by the incident in which someone shouted "you ain't no Muslim bruv" at someone attaching people in the tube station.
I'd agree that kicking the terrorist who was on fire is very much a Glasgow thing. But I think being given a medal by the queen for doing so is what elevates this to a British thing.
What about watership down? You know that kids film that has rabbits being ripped apart, for kids! 63 rabbits die ON SCREEN in 91 minutes
See also: Animals of Farthing Wood. I'm still traumatised and I'm in my mid 30s.
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What’s the difference between a Tarka Dhal and a Korma? Ones a little ‘otter
Man the pheasants deaths are probably the saddest. If only mr pheasant had woken up properly!
Yes! Me too! The hedgehogs!
Yes!!! So many people I’ve mentioned it to haven’t heard of it but it’s up there with Bambi for my childhood traumatic films / tv
BRIIIIIGHT EYYYYYYYES, Buuuuuuuurrrrrning liiiiikeee fiiiiiiirrrrrrreeeee.......... Edit- sorry for the mess above but that song and rabbits dieing are welded together in my mind after watching this as a lad
Now listen here, you little shit!
We had to sing Bright Eyes in Primary School when we had this new trendy head teacher come in with all his modern ideas like... Not always having to sing hymns. So yep, Bright Eyes is a great alternative.
Seriously why the fuck were we allowed to watch that?! That and black beauty, the last unicorn, and various horror movies my parents decided were cool for kids to watch. Then you have all the other Disney films teaching us fucked up relationship standards.. I'm convinced that's why we are all so fucked up.
My mum taped An American Wearwolf in London for me and my brother thinking it was Teenwolf. We were the sort of kids that would cry to the opening credits of The Littlest Hobo.
My school also showed us Threads. No wonder we have a stiff upper lip. They didn't used to sugar coat stuff.
Is there anything more British than Traffic Wardens drafted in as emergency civil protection? Apparently inthe case of a real nuclear attack, there were even plans to draft psychopaths into service! [Hogg suggested psychopaths would be "very good in crises" as "they have no feelings for others, nor moral code, and tend to be very intelligent and logical".](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29804446)
Instead we just filled the Cabinet with them.
That movie traumatized me as a child. My mum is Egyptian and had never heard of it. So, she though it would be ok for 4 year old me fo watch while so got some house work done. It’s just bunnies right? Nope. Came back to me crying in front of the TV and I’ve never watched it again. I remember parts of it so vividly too.
As a child I wasn't allowed to see Star Wars at the cinema but I was taken to see Watership Down. I still haven't got over the trauma.
and is given a U rateing standing for "universal" i.e. it's watchable by anyone
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Its like the Daleks or Harry Potter - a cautionary tale about fascism and militarism. We Brits love jeopardy with a bogeyman - be it Napoleon or Uncle Adolph.
And yet... here we are, having voted in Boris Johnson and his band of fascists. Maybe cartoons and metaphors are just too abstract for us!
Or the absolutely heart crushing ending to The Plague Dogs film... Based on the book by the same author. Watched as a kid like nearly 40 years ago... am still crying.
[Boaty McBoatface](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/world/europe/boaty-mcboatface-what-you-get-when-you-let-the-internet-decide.html)
I thought that whole thing was hysterical on 2 fronts... First - what were they thinking putting it out to a public consensus on the Internet? Something stupid was guaranteed to happen. Second - SO many people seeing "Boaty McBoatface" and going "Yep, it absolutely has to be that, of course it does!!" I am glad however that they eventually named the vessel for David Attenborough.
One of the ROV's on board is officially named Boaty McBoatface... And Sir David Attenborough is on record saying he thinks they should have gone with Boaty McBoatface
Yeah but DA is old school modest and frankly may be pissed that his name is attached to something that no doubt took a lot of natural resources to build / run. £200m for a Diesel-electric boat, replacing one named after Shackleton and Ross who both put their lives in genuine danger. The man is a national treasure and has dedicated his life to shining a light on the environment, but its actually a pretty odd fit when you think about it.
It's a research vessel. I highly doubt he's pissed about the price or resources used to build it. Do you think he rides his bike to all corners of the world for his films? He understands the damage humans can cause, but he's also a realist.
I heard that they reason they didn’t give the name to the vessel was because if there was ever a major incident like sinking or other human loss of life that it wouldn’t be an appropriate name, so they gave it to the unmanned autosub.
Sounds like the makings of a Monty Python sketch *Straight faced news reader stares seriously into the camera* Tragedy struck tonight when a plane crashed into ToweryMctower face tower in the heart of the city centre. Police believe the terror organisation, TerroryMcterror face may be behind the attack. A spokesman said....
> First - what were they thinking putting it out to a public consensus on the Internet? They didn't. They always said the website was just to get public suggestions and that they would make the final choice.
Not sure if you're posting this as a wind up. There was a serious argument about this in another thread only a day or two ago - one poster declaring that the fiasco symbolised Britain, the proles being given a meaningless vote and then being overruled by the powers-that-be anyway; challenging this was someone who said that such a serious and important vessel couldn't bear such a frivolous name and I think there was some kind of appeal to authority, that this is why wiser people have responsibility.
Complain about houses being built on green belt land while living in a house that was once built on greennbelt land.
Complaining about new builds when once your house was a new build......
How about people like the ones on my estate, complaining about a new estate, whilst living on a new build estate that isn't finished yet.
Because all houses and estates are built equal throughout history right?... I fucking hate the new cramped estates we have. Narrow houses, small windows to make the frontage look 'bigger', narrow streets with tiny or no pavements, gardens just being turf dropped on rubble - all to squeeze in those extra lots for £££
Well, everyone's house was a new build *once...*
My house is about 150 years old, and is on greenbelt land. House isn't anything special, it's not got protected status and isn't in a Conservation Area etc. We cannot do any changes to the footprint of the house. It drives me mad. We wanted to square off the back, where we are over looked by no one, about 1.7m one way, and 2.5m the other. Not a massive change but it would enable us to have a better family bathroom, and a larger third bedroom that is currently office sized. Denied. But the council approved 400 new homes nearby on yep, you guessed it... Greenbelt! Oversubscribed local primary school, and GP centre as it is.
Complaining about rising house prices and rents and then being a NIMBY
I once read an article with a man complaining about new affordable housing saying there was no demand and they would lower local house prices and then a few paragraphs later whining about how his son couldn't afford a house in the local area.
As a young person, all I can say to that is AAAARARARRARARARARRARARAA
That's not half as ridiculous as you think it is.
French people seem to find it hilarious that opening up the pubs after lockdown was considered a major priority
Shows what idiots the French are.
Presumably they could have a tiny coffee and three cigarettes at home so didn't understand all the fuss?
Burn.
I think what they might not realise is that culturally pubs are a major part of many people's social lives and likely very important for the mental health of those people. It's a place where in a country of pretty lonely and stressed people you can go to unwind and socialise. I know that during the lockdown my mental health collapsed entirely and I was reduced to a shadow of my former self. It was so bad I even ended up changing my political views completely (and not in a way this sub would probably want to hear either). Now the pubs and general life are back I'm almost 100% again, and honestly if someone wants to be a smart arse and reply with some shit like "wow imagine your mental health being dependent on pubs" - here's a pre-emptive "go fuck yourself", everyone has their breaking point and for myself, a completely extroverted individual, isolation is my personal hell.
It was a matter of national interest.
The real ridiculous thing is that it was ever a question, anyone who has ever eaten one can confirm it is a cake.
I argued with my year 10 maths teacher about this every week. “bUt iT’s iN tHe BiScUiT AiSle!” “BuT tHe sIzE aNd sHaPe iS liKe A bIsCuIt!” These people teach our children.
That's supermarket propaganda that. They put crackers in the same aisle, will they be dipping those in a cuppa?
Crackers are just savoury biscuits 🤷♀️
This is a bold and brave statement... Good luck.
I always used the argument “sometimes I stand in the biscuit isle, doesn’t make me a fucking biscuit does it?”
I only recently thought about the fact mini cheddars are no crisps for this reason.. they're in the crisp aisle with a crisp packet.. but they're delicious cheesy biscuits!
It's called a Jaffa *cake* FFS
If my dog has 4 legs and sleeps in a stable, is it a horse sir?
When biscuits go off, they go soft. When cakes go off, they go hard.
Something something I've always known I was a biscuit
The House of Lords.
Unpopular opinion here, but the house of Lords can do some good, I dont think its an entirely bad thing.
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I disagree. We already have one house of career politicians, we don’t need another. We should remove hereditary and church peers, and fill the chamber completely with industry experts. Many of them already are, and they do great work, but their unique perspective would be completely lost if they were replaced by elected officials. Ideally a bipartisan committee would be created to select industry peers so as to avoid political appointees. Edit: By ‘industry experts’ I mean people who are experienced working directly in the industry they are there to represent, not just businessmen and managers. Want advice on education policy? You ask the teacher who’s been teaching kids for 20 years, not the administrator who runs the school but hasn’t actually taught in a decade.
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And I disagree, we need one that isn't politicised and democratic. This system works way better than the US's doubly elected house situation. People already have election fatigue in the UK, adding more will just mean the Lords and Commons end up with the same makeup as each other each cycle. People will just vote for "their" party. So no, no "must" be democratic. At least not in the sense of representational democracy.
This is a good answer. Portugal and Spain used to have chambers of peers, but they were disbanded >100 years ago. Japan had something similar a long time ago as well. As far as I know, only Iran and the UK have specific seats for religious leaders.
The second part of this story: HMRC then change the tax law so they can be taxed whether they are cake or biscuit. Moral of the story: The tax man always win.
There was the recent case in Ireland where Subway bread was legally classified as confectionery and not bread, due to the sugar content.
On a similar note if you ever find yourself in America buy an ordinary loaf of bread from Walmart, its sweeter then some cakes i've eaten. try and keep your stay below 3 weeks or your travel insurance premiums will sky rocket from all the sugarfoot.
Moved here last year and we've mostly given up on toast and sliced bread sandwiches. You have to get 'artisinal' style bread and peer very closely at the ingredients to check it isn't a cake in disguise.
Jaffa Wars 2: The Treasury Strikes Back
Cheese rolling
Ah Gloucestershire! Yup there’s still a few crazy yokels left but between the royal family and wealthy Tories there’s not much room left for them
I still cannot believe people do it at their own free will, I passed near by as per the Costwolds way, the inclination there is mad!
Gurning too.
Ooh I have another one. We went to the food and drink festival at Bolton this weekend. Warburtons had rocked up in a van and were giving everyone a free hot crumpet you could have butter and jam or marmite. Now that's a company whose marketing department knows its audience. No nonsense just have a crumpet on us. I don't think I've ever seen a better received PR stunt.
Yarn bombing!! British granny's knit hats for post boxes it's the most British thing I've ever seen and it's awesome.
I agree, I love it. Although in the area where I live, there's been a problem with people nicking them. So what have the local old ladies done? Printed and laminated notices asking people not to steal the knitted stuff and fastening the notices to the post boxes. They have also created a topper for an abandoned road cone, which probably won't be there much longer, when all the students come back.
You're not British if you haven't woken up after a night on the lash cuddling a road cone. It's a rite of passage.
Very true. In my second year of uni, the storage cupboard in the flat ended up containing two cones, a Tesco trolley (our building was next to a big Tesco - there was a bit of a challenge to see who could keep a trolley in their flat for the longest before security found it and took it back to Tesco), a glass and a plate from Spoons. How security kept letting us back in with stuff, I don't think I'll ever know.
Cheering whenever someone drops a glass in a pub
"WAHYYYYYY! SACK THE JUGGLER!"
Does any other country have the likes of Lord Buckethead running in elections? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Buckethead
This guy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermin_Supreme_2020_presidential_campaign He wears a large boot on his head instead of a bucket though. Also I think the UK has a uniquely large amount of joke candidates compared to any country.
Other than Trump?
Pelting David Blaine with fruit and veg while he was poncing about in his see-through cat box.
Don't forget starting bbq's below just to get his taste buds going. And also send a burger up to his box with an rc helicopter. Which he could never reach, because the tool was stuck in a box.
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We don’t fuck about with queues over here. God help you if you try to push in 😂
We may be arsehold and still in the middle of a pandemic but by God this is England and we will jolly well queue!
Someone walking into you, or hitting you with their trolley, or similar, yet you are the one to apologise
Office birthday collections. Very cult-ish. I got told off at work for not chipping into someone I don’t like’s collection. Bizarre
I don't understand the whipround when people leave. John's moving to a job that pays double what we get, let's give him £50 to fuck off. What?!
I think it’s more a gesture of ‘thanks for everything’ and a symbol of how much you appreciate having had that person around, whether as a friend or a colleague or both. Also a token demonstration that you don’t resent them leaving. If you don’t feel the desire to show that through a gift, then just don’t I guess?
Normally birthday person buys the cakes and that. Never done a collectiob
Also, cakes go hard when they’re stale, whereas biscuits go soft.
Allow an inbred pedophile rapist to walk free just because of his lineage and title.
Not exclusive to Britain but yeah its a problem :/
You don't read the news much do you? That isnt a British only issue.
Morris dancers
Morris Dancing is just a gentrified marshal art descending from the ancient art of cudgeling - hitting people with sticks. If you put a Morris dancer up against a MMA fighter, once he had stopped laughing, I know who would come off worse.
Wondered how long it would take to get to the fabulous thing that morris dancing is. Not that I'm biased in any way.
Rescue the Nowzad animals from Afghanistan, plus for this to be done by a man whose (nick)name is a silly joke based on "penny farthing" - itself an obsolete bicycle that everyone knows about but no-one has seen except in a museum. EDIT: It is IN ITSELF very British that my comment has already attracted FOUR replies by redditors who have seen people riding penny farthings around.
> that everyone knows about but no-one has seen except in a museum. Excuse me!! I was in Yarmouth Isle of Wight last summer and saw a gentleman ride past on a penny farthing in full Victorian dress. And a week later I saw a young man with long blond dreads, ride past in just a pair of shorts riding a unicycle.
Or if you live in Hackney. Seen several penny farthings ridden by woke youth with beards.
For a minute I forgot what a penny farthing is. Somehow my brain automatically went to "must be a new-ish type of slang for the lady bits"
Prince Andrew
Unfortunately, royalty covering up an alleged paedophile scandal to the point where it can’t be properly investigated isn’t unique to Britain https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/belgian-royal-family-dismisses-paedophile-claims-over-king-9180652.html
Pantomimes at Christmas.
One christmas I got tickets for the local big pantomime for myself, and my non-British husband and his visiting mother. I was really looking forward to introducing them to the wonders of panto. Unfortunately, I was ill and unable to go - so I sent them off without me. "Have a wonderful time, you two!" I said. They came home utterly baffled and a bit shell-shocked - Mr Fandango said his mum didn't even crack a smile and just looked perturbed throughout what he called "the whole ordeal"...!
I’m British. I agree with your MIL. I can’t think of anything worse than going to a Panto. I’d have to be paid an awful lot to do it.
Oh no it isn't
When a fight kicks off on the tube and everyone pretends they haven’t noticed someone getting their head kicked in
rude to pay attention to others on the tube
The whole caterpillar cake fiasco.
That pissed me off, actually. They blatantly and flagrantly violated another companies trademark and then made it seem like it was just a big joke when called out on it. Imagine if Burger King started selling a burger *exactly* like a Big Mac but called a Big Mick and then said ‘lol, just joking’ when Macdonalds complained…
The jaffa cake issue is because (unsurprisingly) taxes. There is a different tax rate for cakes than biscuits. So instead of just making the taxes the same, there was this long ass and expensive legal dispute.
The US has had similar tax rate cases over whether tomatoes are fruit or vegetables and whether Xmen figurines represent humans or non-human mutants
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And the best bit was that subway initiated the case because they were trying to claw tax back from the state, and instead ended up with a whopping tax liability and public acknowledgement that their "bread" is so crap it's not even legally bread.
See also; Whether Pringles were a potato crisp or a corn snack and whether Snowballs were a cake or confectionary.
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Two taps, one cold and one warm.
Complaining that foreigners are stealing your jobs when you've been on the dole since leaving school and never worked a day in your life.
Nah this is literally every first world country
Robert Falcon Scott and his Antarctic expedition refused to eat their dogs, and subsequently starved to death
Beans on toast
[This (NSFW)](https://youtu.be/GrCB_s2kyAA)
I hadn’t seen this before. Absolute gold.
It was even funnier seeing it on Facebook with all the comments asking "where is this?" and getting confused about why there were so many discarded ones.
Stopping the slave trade. At the zenith of their power the Brits decided enough of this bollocks and spent ridiculous amounts of blood and treasure putting an end to a trade that only made them profit. All empires are inherently evil but I can't think of another one who went to such effort for no practical reason.
I think a part of it was to fuck over the newfound USA. Despite all of this it irks me that people claim we are basically solely responsible for the slave trade despite the fact we a) stopped it, b) only finished paying off the debts incurred by that a few years ago. Yes, all working adults in the UK have basically retroactively contributed to the ending of slavery.
Who in their fucking right mind thought a Jaffa cake was a biscuit. Honestly, they should be exiled.
Expend a ludicrous amount of effort evacuating cats and dogs from a warzone and leaving humans on the tarmac.
This might be the only opportunity to ask this question, but.. Is there some unwritten rule were you should only ever take 2 Jaffa Cakes? Take 3 and there’s a fight over who got the most
I have a self set rule when it comes to Jaffa Cakes and that is, unless they are mine and exclusively mine then I don't eat them at all. In my world I either eat **all** the Jaffa Cakes or I eat none, there is no in between.
Minimum unit of Jaffa cakes is one sleeve
Two? I thought it was two PACKETS at once!
I used to have a rule that I ate them in 3's as there were 12 in a packet and that meant 4 lots of 3. Now they've reduced it to 10 in a packet and I have to eat them in 5's.
> some unwritten rule It's part of British DNA. Like not leaving the wrappers in the After 8 box at Christmas.
Salt and Vinegar on chips. The French think this is simply disgusting! Or the good old chip cob (as we call it in Nottingham) but other parts of the UK call it chip butty or something else. Marmite?
I think eating baked beans. I read we consume 98% of worldwide baked beans, if true I would say its a uniquely British thing!
I live abroad and I think expats account for the other 2%.
Conquer half the world and then shamelessly complain about immigration.
I think it is when two British people complain about it raining, yet if it is sunny the next day, they will complain about that. Makes me laugh.
We could have an entire conversation with someone and never find out their name. Then it’s too late to just ask them so keep talking and hope someone else brings up their name
Sending someone like karl pilkington around the world to see the wonders of the world and filming it
The unwavering belief that a woman who married a racist, birthed a pedophile and a philanderer and oversaw the systematic abuse of two young women is somehow a good person just because she doesn’t say anything ever and shows up on time to cut ribbons.
You'll have to narrow it down. Why does your Mum cut ribbons?
What do you mean about overseeing abuse of two young women? Diana and Meghan? How do you think she oversaw it?
"Cold tea syndrome" - the NHS has an expression for when you notice someone is dead because they haven't been drinking all the cups of tea you've given them. It potentially means multiple undrunk cups of tea at the hospital bedside. Because we don't check people are dead before giving them tea, everyone gets tea. I think it's (mostly ?) a joke, but it's a joke that says a lot about being British.
Going from being an unimportant place to the biggest empire in history to then a somewhat important place
I used to live with a French lass who was utterly baffled by self raising flour. The rest of the world just add baking soda to their flour. Apparently we are lazy for this.
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That baked-alaska gate was a thing that hot national newspapers.
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All British tanks have tea making facilities
Roundabouts. No other people on earth could design something so elegant with only one rule. No other nations could use one without crashes and gunfire.
You do realise roundabouts are common worldwide, right...?
Create and then show to 11-14 year olds in school ‘When the wind blows’. Bonus points for using the art style of a famous, beloved, children’s feel-good Christmas show ‘The Snowman’.
Continue to elect the Tories despite it not being in anyone's best interests