Questioning authority (British and American differences)

I remember back in the 1980s when I shared a house with the American poet, Lyman Andrews, who worked as an American Studies lecturer at Leicester University at the time.  He used to really make fun of what he saw as the British tendency to obey authority without question.  He saw it as virtually a form of instinctive sheepishness.  His theory was that you only had to behave like a figure of authority and British people would obey you without question. 

Part of Lyman’s attitude came from his own rebellious personality (he was a raving alcoholic, openly bisexual, and loved to behave outrageously) but mostly it was cultural, I’d say.  His assertion that Americans are far more likely to question authority figures is almost certainly true.

British people are brought up from a young age to respect authority and there is a reverence for rules and laws that can mystify many other cultures.  (There is, of course, the British yob/hooligan subculture which delights in deliberately breaking rules, but they are the exception that proves the rule).

The advantage of such conformity, of course, is that Britain is essentially a very stable society and hasn’t had as many destructive upheavals as our European neighbours in the past two hundred years, or extremist governments, for that matter.  If you want something changing in Britain, you are supposed to go through all the proper channels and at some point in the future, it might or might not happen – in the meantime you are supposed to endure things as they are – which can be somewhat frustrating to say the least!  Another criticism of the British attitude (that even Brits themselves will often acknowledge), is that there is a general reluctance to complain about anything, a fear of “kicking up a fuss”, even when people are treated in an obviously rude, or poor manner – such as getting a bad service in a restaurant. 

American’s value their freedom, which is a good thing.  But the American attitude towards authority isn’t always entirely healthy either, in my opinion.  At the extreme, many Americans can seem distrustful to the point of paranoia at times, when viewed from a British perspective.  Conspiracy theories (many of them positively outlandish) about the government and other public bodies abound in the US.  There is also a tendency sometimes for rants about the Bill of Rights and the US Constitution to be invoked for trivial matters like getting a parking ticket.

My American wife doesn’t quite agree with me on this next point, but I would say that generally speaking, the US authorities allow more freedom, but if you cross the line, they come down on you much heavier and in a more pedantic way than in the UK.  In Britain, there is a tighter overview of things, but there is a more pragmatic approach taken by people such as the police and other officials and much of the time you can be let off for transgressions, even when you have clearly broken the rules.   In some ways, the overall net effect of the US and British systems are the same, but how they go about things can be quite different.

I would also say that although joking around with officials such as customs officials and the police can often be a tricky game to play, I personally suspect that you can get away with an awful lot more in the UK.  US officialdom doesn’t take any crap, basically.  As American writer, Bill Bryson says: “I had also got used to the idea that here (in Britain) you can make quips all the time and in America that can be very dangerous. I wrote about it in one of the books. Once I was going through customs and immigration in Boston, and the guy said as I went past "Any fruit or vegetables?" and I said "OK, I'll have four pounds of potatoes if they are fresh" and it was like he was going to take me off and pin me to the floor.”

If my wife is anything to go by, Americans tend to be troubled by things such as the number of CCTV cameras that exist in the UK, which are seen as an infringement of privacy (I don’t like them much myself either, but I am generally outnumbered by other Brits who tend to see them as deterring crime).

There is also a big fuss here in the US at the moment about airport security checks – although I do suspect that part of the difference in attitude is that in the UK, where domestic terrorism has been a major problem for longer, the security has been incrementally increasing over decades, so we have got gradually accustomed to it - whereas the US had very little internal security before 9/11 and then lots after, so many people resent suddenly being searched after traveling more or less unhindered for years.

Brits, on the other hand (well, certainly me), are disturbed by what seems like an extraordinarily high amount of people who are incarcerated in the US.  7% of all Americans are locked up in a jail at any one time, which is the highest documented rate for any country in the world according to Wikipedia.  I know that the US has lots of problems with violent crime, but it just doesn’t seem right for a democracy to lock up so many of its own people (even if there is popular support for it).

I guess my overall view would be that the US can seem paradoxically both a bit more anarchic and a bit more authoritarian than the UK, if that sounds possible?  Maybe “authoritarian” is bad word usage, maybe it’s better to say that the authorities just seem harsher.  I guess it’s also worth noting that Britain is fairly extreme in that the police aren’t evenly routinely armed, so that is the kind of “norm” that I come from!  (Of course, many in the US and some on the rightwing in the UK would just say that Britain was just too soft and a “nanny state”).

Understatement and overstatement (British and American differences)

One area that is a particular source for cultural misunderstandings in relation to British and American differences, that I’ve noticed as an expat living in Florida, is in regard to understatement and overstatement.  Most countries of the world tend to say things pretty much as they are, but people in the UK and USA tend to distort reality in different directions by the way that they express themselves.

In the UK the tendency is to understate, with the implicit understanding being that the real importance or gravity of what is said is implied by what you’re saying, rather than it being explicitly stated.  For example: “I’m feeling a little under the weather” can actually mean: “I am totally suicidal” in the UK, and “We had a very nice day” can mean “That was the most amazing and wonderful experience of my entire life”.

Americans, on the other hand, go the complete opposite way, using large amounts of superlatives and hyperbole, even in what can seem to a Brit like very trivial and mundane situations. 

There are differences in body language and gestures too.  I remember watching Bill Bryson on British TV talking about the difficulties he had as an American moving to Yorkshire, England.  How at first he thought people were being offish with him and he felt like an outsider, until he realized that, as an American, he was looking for much more showy and demonstrative signals, whereas British communication is more reserved and subtle.  An enthusiastic American wave, for instance, translates as a few fingers of a hand being tilted up slightly from the steering wheel of a passing neighbour in their car, or a slight nod of the head.

My problems are entirely the opposite, of course.  Americans often don’t appreciate when I am complimenting them, because I do it in an understated way – in fact, they can wrongly get the impression that I am being lukewarm or averse, when the opposite is true and I’m actually enthusiastic.   On the other hand, when an American comes out with lots of superlatives and hyperbole, I suspect them of being sarcastic, when it is actually a genuine expression of their thoughts and emotions (even if a little exaggerated to my British ear).

It’s a matter of conjecture, of course, but I suspect that most human beings are actually pretty similar beneath their cultural dressing and the negative stereotypes that the British are “cold and aloof” and that Americans are “false” are largely based on misread signals.  It can be difficult to tell if a British person likes you because they don’t tend to be demonstrative.  On the other hand, an American can appear very warm and friendly, but it really doesn’t mean anything serious.

British Expat Blogger Reflections

Looking back over the past six months, I think I was a little naïve when I began this British expat blog.  I just thought it would be a bit of fun and that I might get some views and interesting comments from around the world, as well as keep in contact and report back to friends in the UK about living in the USA.  It has been fun, of course, but after a while you also realize that the topic area can be a bit of minefield.  That’s because you are dealing with issues of national identity and people can get very passionate about that stuff – hell, people have fought wars over it throughout the ages!

I have at times been accused of making sweeping generalizations, getting my facts wrong and being deliberately provocative– all of which are probably true to some degree.  I will admit that there is a streak in my character that makes me want to poke things with a big stick sometimes, just to see what happens, even if I risk getting bitten.  My priority has always been to try and make my blog engaging, however, even if I risk ruffling feathers on occasion, as the thing that I always fear the most is my blog being bland.  I do love getting comments from different corners of the world and hearing other experiences and viewpoints and see the comments as being integral to the blog’s success, as they can often be as or more interesting than the actual original blog post!

I have generally tried to skirt around politics and race, so far, though, which has probably helped me to avoid any serious controversy.  I was genuinely taken aback by the depth of anger expressed against African Expat Wife in her post: Busman’s Holiday Travel Writing.  Sure, I know that there is a negative legacy from British colonialism and I am in no way qualified to talk about the rights and wrongs of Kenyan issues, but it did all seem a little harsh.  Anyway, African Expat Wife wrote a second post clarifying her position and that seemed to clear the air.

Returning to my own expat experiences.  I do have American friends that I know, or have known over the years back in the UK who have experienced a similar thing to me in reverse – dealing with the British visa bureaucracy, moving to Britain, adapting to British culture etc. and, of course, I do read American expat blogs about their experiences of the UK.  British expat experiences in the USA and the American expat experiences in the UK are like strange mirror images.  I thought the American comedian and expat, Reginald D Hunter gave some pretty astute and hilarious interpretations of British and American differences in his Live at the Apollo stint.

You can pretty much reverse the experiences of Reginald D Hunter, if you want to know what it’s like to be a Brit in the USA.  As he points out, English people have a tendency to say one thing, but mean something completely different, which can certainly cause misunderstandings.  I am fairly confident that the people who know me well, such as my wife, usually have a grasp of what I am getting at and can distinguish when I am joking and when I am serious - but I sometimes wonder if Americans who don’t know me so well walk away from our conversations with a completely different impression of what we’ve just been talking about to my own.

American Family Values (British and American differences)

Everybody knows the clichés and stereotypes when it comes to British and American differences: Americans are individualistic, the British are old-fashioned and resistant to change, Americans don’t do international travel, the British have bad teeth, etc. and sometimes there is a degree of truth in them.  But now and again you come across differences that do not feature in the cliché handbook, which, despite being subtle, are no less powerful.  One thing that is a bit of a shock to the system is that, generally speaking, there is a different concept of family in the US to the UK, which comes as a bit of a surprise, as you somehow expect that it is going to be in a similar Anglo-Saxon mould.

This is going to be a tough one to explain and put into words, but I will do my best.  In general terms, the USA is much more family orientated than the UK and their family values are different.  Families really are the building block of this young, immigrant country.  There are lots more family-orientated things to do and members of families are more interlinked and interdependent in the US.  The bonds also carry on throughout adulthood to a stronger degree. 

The obvious explanation for this from a British point of view is that the family thing is there for purely practical and sociological reasons: firstly the US is more religious and traditional in some ways and the churches emphasize family values and family life, and secondly, there isn’t much of a social safety net, or government help generally, so if someone gets sick or loses their job, they are dependent on their family much more than they are in the UK.  The “obvious” answer falls short, however, in my opinion and the true answer I suspect is a lot more complex and goes deeper, as many Americans relish the family structure and interdependence - in short I would say that the idea of family is a cherished part of American culture, as well as it having practical benefits.

British family values are different, I’ve realized.  British culture generally places a lot more emphasis on the idea of being “emotionally independent” (rather than the “practical independence” promoted in American culture).  In generalized terms, the Brits place more importance on individuals being able to cope emotionally on their own.  It is easy to buy into the stereotype of Americans being individualistic, but in terms of families, they are certainly not, methinks – certainly if you compare them to Brits.

My wife has talked to me a bit about British culture from an American perspective.  One thing that she mentioned was how alien the British public schools system seem to an American (confusingly, the term, “public school” in the UK refers to the elite fee-paying private schools), where the environment is influenced by ancient Spartan style deprivations that are meant to be character building.  I did explain to my wife that in the British class system, the public school culture is a minority one and seems alien to most Brits too – as most of us are educated differently.  But her point was still valid, I realized.  The public schools system is really just the extreme end of stream of thought that runs right through British culture.

I guess this is probably one reason why the Brits can seem aloof and reserved to other cultures and why Americans can seem a little schmaltzy to Brits (I probably shouldn’t mix metaphors by throwing in a Yiddish term, but there you go!). 

I don’t pretend to fully understand all this to be frank.  I cannot get inside an American head, at the end of the day, and most Americans have a limited experience of British culture firsthand, so they don’t necessarily know exactly where I am coming from either (my wife being an exception).  I could say that the American concept of family seems more akin to the Southern European one (e.g. Italian) than the protestant Northern European, but that wouldn’t be quite true either.  I guess the only thing that I know for certain is that the concept of family is not quite the same here to what it is back in Blighty and that came as a slight surprise to me.

Freedom of speech in the USA (compared to the UK)

Here are some of my thoughts and impressions on freedom of speech after living in the USA as a British expat for a time (note that although there are many similarities, for the sake of comparison, I am focusing on British and American differences).

Anyway, generally speaking, I would say that freedom of speech in the USA is seen pretty much as an absolute and the vast majority of Americans are proud of it.  They are also scared of losing it, however, and many, if not most, Americans across the political spectrum appear to believe that freedom of speech is under constant threat and has to be defended.  Were freedom of speech to be compromised in any way, according to many Americans, it would be the beginning of the end of it. 

In the UK, on the other hand, people are genuinely proud of freedom of speech, but is seen as a slightly more relative idea and generally dealt with in a more pragmatic way.  British people also tend to just take their freedom of speech much more for granted than Americans do and there is no particular fear of losing free speech generally, certainly not in the way that Americans appear to fear its loss.  The idea that it is a free country and you can say what you like is deeply ingrained in the British psyche, I would say, but there isn’t a great deal of passion in relation to it generally - in fact the British attitude seems virtually apathetic compared to the USA. 

Metaphorically, I would say that Americans see freedom of speech as a very solid thing, rather like a canon ball (or maybe a brittle canon ball that can be broken if roughly treated?), and the Brits see it as something a bit more squashy, like a bean bag.

Hate Speech

One of the main ways that freedom of speech is perceived in a subtly different way in Europe, compared to the US, is in regard to extremist politics.  Pretty much all European countries have laws against stirring up religious, or racial hatred and people generally  perceive this as a necessary evil, rather than an infringement on their rights.  The reasons why these laws are there are fairly obvious, when you consider that historically so many European states were ruled by Nazi or fascist governments during the 1930s and 40s.  This means that there is an underlying fear of rabble rousers stirring up hatred against minority groups and causing social disorder or worse, especially in countries like Germany and Austria.  Britain has relatively mild laws on hate speech, but they are still there.

America was founded by people who had either experienced religious or political persecution, or wanted to do their own thing.  So American ideas on free speech are more shaped by that experience.  World War II also had a different impact on the USA to Europe. 

It is also true to say that the American constitution was a positive assertion of freedom of speech as a value, whereas in Britain it was an historical development, with freedom of speech being achieved by default through restrictions being gradually removed.  (Until the European Human Rights Bill was sealed into UK law recently).

Koran burning

Out of all the places that I could have chosen to live in the USA, by chance I happened to end up in Gainesville, Florida, where the notorious Koran burner, Terry Jones and his church, the Dove World Outreach Center are based (the group are actually atypical of Gainesville, which is a liberal college town).  It was interesting to see how the Americans handled the situation.  The first time round the media blew up a storm and top American officials ended up almost pleaded with them not to burn the Koran, with top army officers and even the president trying to persuade them of their folly and the potential damage they could do to US troops and US’s image abroad.  In the end, Terry Jones called off his first book burning.  The second time around, however, the media and officials more or less ignored the book burning and it went ahead with limited publicity. 

In the UK, on the other hand, when there was a similar book burning by extremists and film of it put on Youtube, the people who did it were arrested and charged with inciting racial hatred.  The differences in approach are pretty stark.

Summary

Overall, although I respect absolute free speech, I am probably still more at home with the pragmatic and relativist Brit approach at the end of the day.  Some parts of US culture are difficult for me to understand.  For instance, why the US allows publicity seeking hate groups like the Westboro Baptist Church to operate directly at funerals of young soldiers who have died.  I accept that they should be allowed to express their view of the bible, no matter how distorted and disturbing they may appear, but why it is so essential that they have to do it so close to a funeral is difficult for me to grasp.  I mean if they were forced to demonstrate two miles away, rather than under grieving relative’s noses, would it really signal the death of free speech?  (Having said that, Britain has had its own problems with radical Muslims launching demonstrations at funeral homecoming parades held for British troops who have died in conflicts abroad.)

I guess the strength of the American approach to free speech is that because it is very nearly absolute, there is little room for it to be chipped away or reinterpreted in a way that reduces it.  The weakness of it might be (at least from a Britisher’s viewpoint) that it can appear to pander to extremist elements and publicity seekers at times.

Playing tennis in the USA - British and American differences

I’ve started playing tennis in the USA recently.  Back in the UK, I played a lot of badminton.  Badminton is a great game for northern Europe as it is an indoor game, meaning that you avoid the cold and rain in the Winter months, unlike with rugby and football where you get very muddy and freeze your balls off, at least in my experience.  It took me a while to get my badminton game back together after many years of not playing seriously, but I got better and for a time I was captain of the Headingley C Team, which sounds almost grand, but in practice means doing an awful lot of phone texting to remind team members where the next match is and what time they should show up.  Now that I am over here, however, I have packed in badminton and I am playing tennis in Florida.  With Wimbledon underway back in the UK, I thought it might be fun to compare British and American differences when it comes to tennis.

Playing tennis in Florida is obviously a much hotter experience than anything you get in the UK.  I’ve bought a baseball cap to protect my eyes and head from the sun and have considered getting sweatbands.  Basically, you have to play tennis either in the evening or the morning here, unless you want to sweat to death.  The chances of play getting rained off are lower, however.

There is more high fiving and fist bumping in American culture and less hand shaking.  In England things are more formal and reserved in this respect and the only physical contact is usually a bit of hand shaking and maybe a gentle pat on the back.  I don’t really mind the American way, as I can get fed up with the stiffness and formality of British culture sometimes, but I am still adapting and trying to work out what is appropriate here!

Badminton takes a heavy toll on the knees, as you are moving fast and constantly changing direction.  Tennis means less stress on the knees and legs generally, but more strain on the elbow and shoulder of your racket arm.

I still find some of the pronunciations amusing.  “Deuce” virtually rhymes with “juice” in England but the vowell sound is more like “moose” in the US.  I am going to stick to my English pronunciations, however, having resolved before I began living in the USA to follow the maxim of my hero, Quentin Crisp and to: “On no account learn the language, the more English you sound, the more likely you are to be believed.”  This is somewhat undermined, however, by many Americans mistaking me for an Australian!  (Some people don’t get the Northern English accent, apparently!)

(Another American expression that has caused me confusion is "I'm good".  In the UK "I'm good" usually means "I'm ready" or "I'm up for it", whereas in the US, it more often means the opposite: "I'm done" or "I've had enough".)

I would like to play some matches for the local club, but I need to get a lot better and I am still trying to remember how to play some of the shots.  My service still needs lots of work, for instance.  I am getting there, however.

As well as playing with a local club once a week, I also play with my wife once or twice a week.  We go to a local court, which hasn’t been properly maintained, but is within walking distance.  It is cracked and overgrown, but it has a net and you can just about work out the markings, so it is okay for a knockabout.  (Sometimes we follow up with a dip in the pool, which is rather nice!)

As far as the professional game goes, there are numerous British and American differences that I could name, but the main one, as Rob at The Inconsequential Opinion pointed out, is that unlike with the Americans, the Brits never win at Wimbledon!  Well at least, we haven’t had a winner since Virginia Wade back in 1977, an event that I only vaguely remember from my childhood!

Bacon Butties and Brown Sauce (Funny British and American English Differences Part Seven and a Half)

You may have noticed that I avoided blogging about the Royal Wedding.  I did actually get up at 5am to watch it on the day and found it great fun, despite me being a royal skeptic!  I do by nature have a strong contrarian streak in me and in many ways I felt averse to joining the general throng and chattering about Kate’s dress and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s eyebrows immediately after the union.  However, now that things have moved on and everyone in the blogosphere is talking about where and when they were when they heard that Bin Laden was killed, I feel it is safe to return to the Royal Wedding, albeit in an indirect way, and talk about some funny British and American English differences that cropped up on the day of the big occasion.

95% of British and American language and culture is pretty much the same in my estimation.  However, from time to time, misunderstandings can and do occur.  The afternoon after the Royal Wedding was one such funny example.  It started when my wife was confused by a particular English custom and that led on to an extended bout of bafflement that went from types of condiment to terms for arterial roads.

“What’s a bacon butty?” she asked me first.

When I enquired why she was asking, she explained to me that the BBC news had just reported that some British Royal Wedding partiers living abroad were eating ‘bacon butties’ to celebrate the royal betrothal.

“It’s basically just a bacon sandwich,” I said.  “Fried streaky bacon served between two slices of bread.”

“So why is it called a butty?”

“All sandwiches can be called butties in Britain.  I guess it’s because of the butter that goes on the bread.”

She looked shocked.  “You put butter on your bread in a sandwich!”

“Yes, why?  What’s wrong with that?  Don’t you do that in the States?”

“No, we use mayonnaise.”  She paused for a moment and frowned.  “So, what’s ‘brown sauce’?  The BBC said that people were putting it in their bacon butties to celebrate the Royal Wedding?”

“Brown sauce is, urm, brown and sort of spicy.  The most popular brand is called HP.  It’s named after the Houses of Parliament for some reason.”

“Is it like A1 sauce?”

“What’s A1 sauce?”

“It’s what some people put in their burgers here.  A1 means ‘top class’ - you must have the same expression in England?”

“Yes, we do,” I said.  “But when English people say ‘A1’, they are usually referring to a big road that runs from London to Leeds.”

British and American differences part 4: Driving in Florida

Everybody knows that Brits drive on the left hand side of the road and everybody else drives on the right.  Let’s get that one out of the way before we even start.  Having said that, not a lot of Americans know that there are many major countries where they also drive on the left, places like, urm, Nepal, Trinidad and Tobago.  Okay, I admit it, driving on the left is just plain strange.  But regardless, I intend to continue my theme of British and American differences with a blog post about driving in the Land of the Free (aka the USA), specifically, driving in Florida.

Disappointingly, apart from some old people, certain black people, and a few weirdos, nobody drives those enormous American cars that the world became familiar with in tv programmes such as “Starsky and Hutch”, “The Dukes of Hazzard” and “Dallas”, which, if you were a Briton born in the mid sixties like myself, were your main source of information about American culture.  Americans generally drive pretty similar cars to the Europeans nowadays (many Japanese models especially), which is kind of a let down.  I suspect that one reason is because the American car industry rivaled the British one in terms of producing poor quality vehicles, so most of their cars were in reality more crap than classic, and they fell apart years ago.  Plus those American cars needed 10 gallons of fuel just to get started and travel to the end of the driveway, which isn’t much use in the modern world. 

Despite all the similarities however, there are a several areas where there are British and American differences, certainly here in Florida.  For one thing, Americans are particularly fond of their trucks.  Especially their pick ups.  Big open backed things.  I am not convinced that all their owners need them for work purposes, they seem to be as much an expression of manhood and lifestyle, but you will see many of them on the roads.

Americans are fond of their bumper stickers too, which indicate everything from religious and political affiliations, to places where the car owner likes to eat, their favourite sports teams, and sometimes just jokes or plain silliness.   

To be a true Floridian, however, you need to forget four wheels altogether and buy a motorcycle, preferably a Harley with chopper handlebars and a dropped seat.  As you’re not legally obliged to wear a helmet down here, you might as well just dispense with long trousers too, and a jacket – heck, I saw a guy riding a motorcycle the other day who wasn’t even wearing shoes!  He was barefoot, in his shorts and cut-off t-shirt, cruising beside us on two wheels, indifferent to all the skin and brains that he might lose should he be unlucky enough to be parted from his machine while in motion. 

I am still waiting for my first sighting of a start naked motorcycle rider, it is probably only a matter of time… 

(ps If you like this British expat in the USA blog and you are a facebooker, please consider going to its new facebook page and clicking the ‘like button’.  Ta.)

British Pests vs Florida Pests

British pests and Florida pests are very different beasts, yet curiously they also share some similarities, so let us see how they shape up if we put them head to head.  This will be a 3 bout contest with no biting or gouging, let the best critter win!

Foxes vs Raccoons

In Britain, if a dustbin (trash can) gets rifled, the number one suspect is usually an urban fox (unless you are unfortunate enough to live in a seaside town like Brighton, where giant seagulls fight over the pizza crusts).  The fox is a resourceful animal with a legendary reputation gained from numerous fairytales, although in reality he is just a little dog with a big tail.  In Florida, the raccoon is the chief trash can raider.  With a reputation for possessing cunning and even supernatural powers by Native Americans, he sports a stripy tail and bandit mask eye markings, which seem somehow appropriate given his thieving tendencies.

Winner: the fox.  He is more clever, cooler and sexier, and that’s why we have the term: “foxy”.  I mean nobody ever says an attractive lady is “raccoony”, do they?

Hedgehogs vs Armadillos            

These foragers would appear to be completely worlds apart on the surface, but they do have one similarity that I’ll tell you about, once I’ve introduced them.  In the UK, we have the hedgehog, the cute spiky mammal, who really wouldn’t be a pest at all, if he wasn’t a walking breeding colony of fleas and lice.  Having said that, the hedgehog does probably eat many more bugs than he carries around.  Florida, on the other hand,  has the armadillo, this fellow comes out at night when you’re asleep and f**ks up all your flower beds, digging around for grubs and making lots of messy holes in the process.  So what do they have in common?  They are both virtually suicidal when it comes to crossing the road and hence can commonly be found flattened by the side of the highway.

Winner: the armadillo.  Hedgehogs are cute but their spines are no match for the armadillo’s folds of leathery armor.



Slugs vs Cockroaches



Slugs just love the damp UK climate (somebody’s got to!).  Their favorite pastime is munching holes in people’s lettuces and leaving slimy silver trails everywhere they go.  The only way to kill them without using heavy duty chemicals is to put out saucers of beer.  The slugs drink the beer, fall into the saucer and drown.  (The same technique would probably work with some of my friends, if you could find a big enough saucer!)  Florida Cockroaches, on the other hand, prefer a diet of meat and cake, but will slum it if they need to.  They thrive in the sub-tropical Florida heat and fight a constant war of attrition with mankind, their main weapons being excessive breeding and hiding in dark corners.



The only language that
a cockroach understands!

Winner: the cockroaches.  They can beat pretty much anything with their sheer resilience.  I never used to believe what people said about them being capable of surviving a nuclear war, but the other day I discovered one that had crept into the microwave oven when I wasn’t looking.  After being blasted with microwaves for over ten minutes, the little blighter came out of there looking even more lively than ever, it was like the microwaves had actually invigorated him!  I swear that he was even doing a little dance right up to the moment that I crushed him with a paper towel.

Result

I declare Florida pests to be the overall victors!

3 big British and American differences (funny)

Okay, this is just for fun, so nobody get upset or anything, here are my 3 big British and American differences (funny):

1.  Us Brits love to moan.  If it is raining, we moan because it is too wet.  If the sun comes out, we moan because it is too hot.  In short, we carp about everything.  We don’t expect any solutions, we just like to whine on about how crap everything is.  Moan in the presence an American, however, and they will immediately attempt to find a solution to the perceived problem.  In the can-do, optimistic culture of the US, problems are there to be solved.  They really don’t grasp that in the UK, complaining for the sake of it is accepted as a subtle art form and the idea of all our troubles being solved actually slightly horrifies us.

2.  Customer service is highly developed in the US, but almost non-existent in the UK, where supermarket checkout assistants will usually only smile at Christmas time and adopt miserable expressions for the rest of the year.   Although it is great to have such a friendly and attentive service in the US, American customers do take advantage sometimes (at least by British standards) especially in restaurants where they sometimes request so many changes to the dish that’s being offered on the menu, you do wonder whether it’s worth having a menu at all?  I mean if you ask for a chicken dish without the chicken, or that the chef substitutes blue cheese for bacon, it does kind of make it into a completely different meal, doesn’t it?  If you did that in the UK, they’d probably tell you to eff off!

3.  Brits love to swear, or “cuss” as they call it in the US.  It is tough for a Brit to utter an entire paragraph without at least one f-word in it.  Women, children and older people will all participate, given half a chance.  Swearwords/cuss words are treated more seriously in the USA and censored from most TV programmes, this means that watching Gordon Ramsay in the US is just a series of bleeping sounds.  Sex is another thing that Americans are generally uptight about (though not so much down here in Florida where everyone walks around half naked).  As Brits, we are used to being castigated for our “sexual repression” by our more adventureful neighbours, the French and Dutch, but over here in the US, Brit culture seems relatively liberated.  Americans are much more tolerant of violence and guns however and you are free to watch people being shot to death on TV at any time of night or day.  Unless the gunman or victim happens to be making love or uttering an f-word at the time of the shooting, in which case the scene will be censored.

10 Things that a Brit in the USA should never forget! (funny British and American differences written from experience!)

Being a Brit who has visited the USA many times and who now finds himself to be a US immigrant living here, I’ve learnt from experience that despite many similarities, there are a number of funny British and American differences, both with British and American culture, as well as British and American English.  So here are my 10 things that a Brit in the USA should never forget!

1.  Don’t forget that there are alligators, snakes and giant insects roaming loose in the neighbourhood.  Even if the Floridians think this is normal, it is not.

2.  Remember that under no circumstances should you say: “smoking a fag”, as it means something very different in the USA to what it does in England.  Remember  that to the American ear, you are not referring to “puffing on a cigarette”, you are talking about “shooting a gay person”, or doing something more graphic to him.

3.  Don’t forget that you can eat pancakes all year round in the USA and not just on Shrove Tuesday.  Yum yum.

4.  Don’t forget that the weather is predictably sunny in Florida.  You do not need to take a jacket or a jumper out with you, just in case the weather turns bad.  They do not have rain, sunshine, hail, wind, sleet, snow, and fog all in one day, like they do in Britain. 

5.  Don’t spend two weeks searching for coriander in the supermarkets.  There is no herb of that name in the USA.  If you want to make a curry, look for something called cilantro.  It looks and smells like coriander and is in fact, coriander, but it is called by a completely different name.  Do not attempt to pronounce oregano the way that the Americans do.

6.  Don’t forget that when an American in the Deep South says that he’s been saved, it doesn’t mean that someone has stopped him from drowning, or prevented him from scoring a goal at football – he means that he has found the Lord.

7.  Don’t forget to leave a tip every time you go to the bar and buy a beer.  Remember that the USA is the most generous tipping culture in the world and that they thrust dollars at people just for looking in their general direction – okay that’s a slight exaggeration. 

8.  Remember that Americans usually drink out of small beer bottles and European 500cl bottles are relatively rare.  Do not imply that American men are less manly because of this. 

9.  Don’t forget that the day after Christmas is just another day in the USA and the term, “Boxing Day” does not exist.

10.  Do not attempt to use the phrases: “in a strop”, “dustbin men”, or refer to a “yard” as a “garden”, as you will get blank or funny looks.

Trash can or dustbin?