So whats it like living in the UK?

Man, remember when you used to have to wear dress shirts and shoes to nightclubs or you wouldn't get in? It seems weird that that's how it used to work at one point.

@jaytow: Well why don't you explain it better then?

Here comes the rain.......this is the UK

One side has Stephen Fry, Russell Brand, and sexy lady accents, The other side is where I live. Laaaame.

The thing is, if you needed to wear dress shirts and shoes to get into a place, you knew it was going to be full of dickheads like that, just dressed up. Makes it easy to know which places to avoid.

What do people think about the blatant censorship that will be happening soon?

How do you, like, do anything. We don't have air conditioning, so we just have to sit this out, our everything sticking to our everything, no one having sex because you'd just slip off of each other. Our only solace?

@matti00 said:

@thepickle said:

@omegapirate said:

Right now?

Too fucking hot

Just how hot? We had a mini-heat wave on the East coast a few weeks ago and it was like 97 F (36 C).

How do you, like, do anything. We don't have air conditioning, so we just have to sit this out, our everything sticking to our everything, no one having sex because you'd just slip off of each other. Our only solace?

The East Coast in the US is thankfully equipped with AC. But, I did have to spend two days walking around Philadelphia in the heat for college orientation. It was rough. But the feeling of being in 100 degree weather then going into AC is awesome.

@gunstarred: Yep that's pretty much how it is, a bit overrated really.

@deadlydog: Remember the U-turn on Alcohol prices? Yeah i give it a few weeks. Plus The Tories are fighting among themselves over it but you can always rely on the daily mail to have an article like "VICTORY FOR THE MAIL!"

@otakugamer: I could kiss ya! XD

I think i may finally be forced to vote so that i can get the people who thought up that stupid idea and keep them out >:(

Depends on which part of the UK. But ye, the current heatwave just fucks up the whole infrastructure really, I have to spend 20 minutes everyday on a packed train, feels like a fucking oven. Some train companies have aircon but not all of them, and when the temperature is 30 degrees outside and you are about to step on a non airconditioned train with hundreds of people and twice as many armpits then you know you will experience hell with all of your senses.

And when compared to most countries I would definitely not call UK expensive gaming-wise, especially when you don't mind shopping around for offers and buying mostly online.

Depends what part of the UK your talking about, it is made up of 4 countries

@matti00: True. In my town, the 'legit' going out nights were Thursday and Saturday, meaning on Wednesdays and Fridays you got the relaxed dress code and better music, so I went out on those. Then Wednesdays got inexplicably popular without the ruleset changing, Thursdays died, and I realised I was better off going clubbing in Sheffield instead.

There's a thread for that.

In short, I don't think it's going to achieve what they're hoping for, but it's going ahead and I'll be curious to see how well it works to be honest. If it works too well, then I'll be calling my ISP and telling them to open the porngates. Simple, for now.

It's OK. I mean, I've been to plenty of other countries in the world, but I've never lived anywhere else than London, so I can't even tell you about the UK in general (I've never even been to Ireland, Northern or Republic of).

The government is depressingly, gawpingly terrible, but most are, so that's not too surprising. The media and newspapers are total garbage, with a few exceptions, but you can't actually read any of the good newspapers without being called an arsehole or an elitist. We're a secular, metropolitan society, and generally more open to foreign ideas and cultures than we give ourselves credit; far-right extreme groups like the BNP do exist, but they're basically just laughed at, and no one takes them seriously. Our education system is slightly less terrible than the United States, and our police and justice system is much less terrible than Italy, but we trail the Germans in most important metrics, which people old enough to remember the War aren't too happy about (I'm very un-British in that I really like Germany - had a fantastic holiday in Berlin last summer). We're simultaneously very good at snobbery and even better at self-deprecation, which partly contributes to our fine comedic heritage. And the English hate everybody, but not as much as everybody hates the English. We even hate ourselves; for just a brief example, Northerners hate Southerners, people from Yorkshire hate people from Lancashire, we all hate the Scousers, people from the Southwest hate Londoners, and North Londoners hate South Londoners - we basically drew as many battle lines as was possible in a nation that covers an area slightly smaller than the US state of Louisiana. But since we don't all have guns, we just moan about each other in an impotent harmless way, occasionally stabbing each other but mostly pouring our regional rivalries into our fanatical support of our local/favourite football club.

@evilnights: Change Sheffield to Birmingham, and you've had the same experience as me. Wolverhampton is now dead for nights out, the whole centre is a bit depressing really.

If you're going to Holiday/Vacate in the UK, go rural, or the West Country (my personal pick). London is a completely different world.

Watch an episode of Game of Thrones. It's exactly like that. Kings, castles, tits, swords n' shit.

I was actually thinking about visiting the UK, once I get my life straighten out I might check it out.

@gruff182 said:

You're not far off. Warwick Castle do day events with the staff in costume. There's jousting, firing trebuchets, weapon demos and a dungeon. No tits though, unless you fancy the Princess Tower, or one of the ladies of the joust.

It would be wise to do some homework about where you want to go, We're pretty much catered for on the historical heritage side nationally if that's your thing. London is pretty much home to the grandest of museums, galleries and general sightseeing. My home town is home to Cadbury's, and that's about that, I live close to Shakespeare's hometown, don't go there on Bank Holidays, it becomes biker / international tourist central. The Peak District is beautiful in the summer, as is Cornwall in the deep SW, great history surrounding the Arthurian legend and Piracy / smuggling.

I'll stop waffling now XD. We are a great place really, just not run properly :/. Judge this country by the everyday people you meet and you'll be fine.

The country isn't as fucked as everyone is saying it is.

@thepickle: England obviously.

All I know is that Australia is far better than both!

Also, our national animal is the lion despite none living here out of captivity. Weird, no?

Alitte bit, but every country is different.

We should have claimed hedgehogs. Ah, the road not taken...

Having a golden hedgehog would be cool.

Thinking about It, I got to ask a quick question. When people say 2 stones or 3 stones how much is that?

14lbs per stone. Although I measure in kilos, because stones are laaaaame.

Thanks for the info..

They're actually prohibited in trade now (i.e. you can't measure food or other goods that way), so people use them almost exclusively for body weight. Generally, you can assume that anyone 14st or over is a fat POS.

We drive on the left hand side of the road. We drive small cars. We drive small cars with manual gearboxes. There are roundabouts.

We're not very religious, and religion seems to have far less of an influence over the country's politics than it does in America--despite us not having official separation of Church and State. Abortion is a non-issue--provided you don't live in Northern Ireland.

We're very left-wing by American standards.

Our chocolate is good.

Lemonade is fizzy.

We call 'cookies' 'biscuits'.

It's four in the morning here right now, explaining the dull, monotone nature of this post.

Pickup trucks exist, but have never been particularly popular.

Ford isn't the same Ford.

We drive a lot of French cars.

The portion sizes at eating establishments, McDonalds and other fast food places are far smaller than their American equivalents.

I'm from the South, so I ought to be posh - a word that's rather tough to translate into American - but I'm from the coast, near Dover, and as such am not really all that posh.

Oregano is pronounced OR-EH-GAH-NO.

Cilantro is Coriander.

Arugula is Rocket.

Eggplant is Aubergine.

Cell phones are mobile phones, and not as expensive to own.

The driving test is significantly harder than that of the average American state.

24-hour shops are relatively rare, though they do exist.

We get more time off.

...

I'm going to bed.

Never been to Canada or America have you?

That was informative, I'm surprise they call cookies biscuits.

What do they call biscuits then?

Also, how is English food? I mean my impression is that it's pretty similar to American food, and I never hear anyone mention any unique English dishes.

Is it just me or do the Brits hate their government?

How is your bacon different from the bacon in America? I'm not one of those bacon obsessed people, but I'm legitimately curious about this

@you_died: We tend to have back bacon ('Canadian' if you will), which is a different cut.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Bacon.JPG

I always find the problem with this question is that to give any kind of real answer, you need another place to compare the UK to. In comparison to most countries we're doing pretty well; there are of course major political, social, and economic problems here, and I think justified grievances with the current government, but in relative times we have quite a lot of money and freedom, and a pretty good education system. I think in modern times we've been more influenced by the US than some might think or admit; we often seem to have more in common with them than we do with Europe, which we don't seem to want much to do with, but Christianity doesn't play anywhere as near as large a role in society and politics as it seems to in the US, even if we're not technically disestablished from the Church. Our right-wing is much less extreme than the US right-wing, but on a personal level I think that sometimes leaves it feeling like there's not an enormous difference between political candidates, and you're often left sifting through their doublespeak and meaningless rhetoric to find something meaningful. TV is less flashy and corporate than it is in the US, I'm actually pretty glad we have BBC News and lots of tasteful documentaries and things.

One of our biggest issues in recent years has been to do with immigration and culture clash, particularly with those from the Middle East, it's a bit of a dividing thing. The NHS (National Health Service) is also a kind of big thing over here; people seem to generally be very appreciative of having healthcare, but their ability to properly treat the number of patients they get has been repeatedly called into question. There's welfare here for people who have a lot of kids or are having difficulty finding jobs, and people get mad at a perceived advantage being taken of that money by some. We have a monarchy but they don't really play a political role, they're kind of just celebrities. We're traditionally supposed to be reserved, cynical, and dryly witty in our attitudes and there's probably some truth to that. Our prevailing south-westerly wind gives us some degree of rain and that's meant to be a famous thing about the country, although I don't think we get as much as some would have you believe. We also have lots of tea, British English, the metric system, pubs, and football. People in the US always seem to be mistaking the UK, Great Britain, and England for being the same thing or thinking there's one shared accent. A fair amount of cultural stuff, including the words people use also vary by region.

I like how most people are generally very reasonable and level headed, that the university education is generally very good (and cheap, relative to quality) and that you can go 10-15 miles down the road and the people there talk different and have different attitudes.

It's a pretty diverse place. If you don't like one area it's usually pretty easy to find a place that you do. And since everything is so close it's pretty easy to move.

And if you don't like it? It's generally pretty easy to get work visas for a lot of countries with a British passport.

It's also nice the level to which the government helps you out if you lose your job or your life has a small set back. I think a lot of people brought up here don't realise quite how extensive that help is compared to the majority of places in the world. But it is good that people always aspire for it to get better.

Does the average person in the UK worship the "royal" family as much as our shitty media here in America seems to?

Hell no. They're just a tourist attraction at this point.

LOL! In America they make them look like saviors.

@mcghee: I think it's down to being humble that we have a non elected head of state and that the most patriotic British events happen with the Queen and the royal family, something we're proud of but wouldn't go apeshit over seeing them in public. Some really don't care and others are undecided.

I'm fond that we have own unique aspect of our culture that we have and all for it, though my generation is that of William, Harry, Eugenie and Beatrice as they're all my age. The media's glossy coverage of events in the last couple of years though is overbearing to say the least, i switch off when they go too far. The US are probably all over it because they don't have an equivalent, or treat it as something romantic and fantastical at the same time.

What is "hot" for the UK? I imagine it's not too bad since its normally like 60 degrees Fahrenheit, at least when I've been there.

Recently we've been getting anywhere between 25-30°C, which is unpleasant.

It depends what you want to know really. If anyone has any specific questions, just post them and I'm sure we'll clear it up :)