So whats it like living in the UK?

If you like freely using the internet then it sucks, our government is in the process of trying censor and block everything they can like China.

That's pretty messed up that they're trying to censor then internet, seems like the government wants to have as much control as possible.

It's like the US but turned down to about 6

I'll be honest, the whole "government is making it difficult to do things that are blatantly illegal" line of complaint has the potential to get really annoying.

Yeah, its only a matter of time before things gets out of hand. Though in the future it seems we aren't gong to have as much privacy, and even more government restrictions from what I've been seeing lately.

Expensive, and we aren't scared of boobs.

Yeah..i had to stop using my PC and PS3 because they keep overheating! If this laptop dies on me ill be left with nothing....

The UK is shit. When I go on holiday It's like coming home to something approaching a localized version of silent hill. I live near London and while it can be fun its a soulless and shitty place that saps the life out of the best of us.
Don't get me wrong I love English culture film, art, comedy etc but the governments a joke, greedy cunty corporations, zero jobs, the daily mail, dipping back into censorship laws of the 50's WTF!!!! fuck the UK.

It's like most other major countries. A few people run the show, they are very rich, the rest of us do what we can to get by, have a laugh, and drink beer. Lots of finger pointing as to what/who is doing things wrong etc etc, a new political party comes in and the cycle starts all over again. All rather tiresome.

We don't really have Ice Hockey though, which continues to vex me.

We do, but the league has about 10 teams in it, who each play 3-4 games a week, the latter of which strikes me as kinda crazy.

Here's something that sums up our last PM fairly well:

Actually, pretty much all the music is like this:

Holy shit you guys measure temperature by celsius? Daaaammnnn, that was the part I hated most about chemistry class.

I did know about the Brits using the metric system though; which is kind of ironic to me considering we got our measuring system from you.

Celsius is the ONLY system that makes sense... I mean you'll freeze below zero and you basically won't survive near 50, it's the only sensible system.

It's alright, had it's up and downs. Been a bit of a downer since the current government came in.

It's all over the place. We typically use Celsius because it's a more logical scale of measurement (water freezes at 0°C, and boils at 100°C), but occasionally tabloids will use Fahrenheit in warm weather to sensationalise. Food is supposed to be given metric measurements by law, but we still get served fluids in pints and people freak out about our national identity whenever someone proposes changes to it. And people generally measure distances in miles and shorter lengths in inches and feet because having units that are divisible by 10 would be too difficult, apparently.

Not that its a constant thing. But living in London for the Olympics was fucking awesome. I like sports that don't generally get a lot of airplay, so that was fun.

Visiting America as a Brit is always fun too. The accent gets a lot of attention

Yeah I follow the Guildford Flames. And it's cool and all, but it's just not the same. I guess people in the US may think the same about football.

@falserelic:

I used to work with a British guy who told me that everyone seemed very rude to him in America at first, because they were very nosey, and they asked a lot of questions. He told me that it took him a while to realize that it was just a cultural difference. I agreed, and told him that people in the US often like talking about themselves, so it's normally thought of as a nice thing to ask people to tell you about themselves.

He told me that in the UK people would wonder about the new guy, and they would be happy if you went up to them and started telling them about yourself, but they would think of it as rude to ask. I told him that in the US, going up to someone and just talking about yourself would be more likely to be seen as boastful.

I found that to be an interesting difference. Do you Giant Bomb members from the UK feel that the above sounds accurate?

In all honesty, this is a pretty fair assessment!

So... never going to the UK... without a 2TB external...

This seems like the opposite of reality to me... I dunno, I feel like British people (generally) are overly polite and will ask you about yourself, how your week has been, what's new etc over talking about themselves. Talking about yourself is definitely seen as self-centered and boastful. Weird. I guess wherever you are in the world, you're going to get different people with different perceptions of what's socially acceptable? It's certainly not a British thing to talk about yourself. The opposite.

WE DRIVE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROOOOOOAADDDDDDWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAOAOAOAOAOAOAOAOAOAOAO!

I wasn't suggesting that it's a British thing to talk about yourself, I was suggesting that it's a British thing NOT to ask others somewhat personal questions when you're just getting to know them.

You sound British. What part of the UK are you from? What made you want to come to America? What do you think of it so far? Are you married? Do you have any children? What did you do for a living before you came here? And so on. That sort of thing.

Of course, the British guy I knew doesn't speak for all of the UK, so it could have been more opinion than fact.

no what they plan is even worse than in China. Here is the stuff the "program" will be blocking automatically;:

Porn, internet dating, drugs, alcohol tobacco file-sharing, gambling , video games, social networks, suicide, self-harming, violence and weapons.

@lovespuds: I like your outlook on things. Much of what you write is the same for germany.

Weren't "esoteric websites" included too?

England are leading the Ashes 2-0 and a whitewash is very much on the cards, so I'd say things are pretty good.

Edit: also this article seems relevant here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23501423

"The UK ranked tenth for life satisfaction out of 27 EU countries, according to the European Quality of Life Survey, with an average rating of 7.3 out of 10 in 2011.

The Office for National Statistics said the UK's rating was unchanged between 2007 and 2011, showing a "picture of stability" in contrast to a decline in happiness in many EU countries."

aajf makes a very good point. As to the privacy/asking questions thing, if anyone came up to me and automatically started talking about themselves I would think them a bit of a prick. Whatever country they came from. I could be in the minority though. Generally in the UK we seem to be a more reserved bunch than over in the USA though.

Unemployment, an insane government that wants us to all hate each other to control us, shit weather, idiots fawning over the monarchy, ridiculous living costs, free but mostly piss-poor healthcare, and sadness.

BUT, I'd still rather live here than there.

We don't go in for extremes here in the UK which has its positives and negatives. Its great because it means loony right wingers and fascists just get laughed at. It also means that although religion is established no-one takes it seriously as opposed to the US where you have separation of church and state but you can't get anywhere in public life without expressing your faith.

However it also means that we can be quite an apathetic lot and it can take a great deal to get people worked up, which tends to us just muddling through in a lot of ways.

We are a polite nation but I think someone coming here might feel that we are difficult to get close to as we are quite reserved as a nation, although I think this is changing somewhat.

Our systems, ways of thinking and infrastructure are still carrying lot of hangovers from being such a pioneering and powerful nation in the 18th and 19th century.

We have an amazing sense of humour based on an ability to laugh at ourselves and a good sense of our ridiculousness and failings.

We talk endlessly about the weather even though we don't really have any to talk about when compared to other countries. viz all the people complaining about the heat at the moment - if they had to live through one New York summer they would never shut up. If it snows here everything shuts down and we all have a good grumble.

We like to grumble.

We have an inbuilt sense of the fairness of the queue, and will try and destroy any queue jumpers by staring powerfully and harshly into the back of their necks. But we probably won't make a fuss.

Read 'The English People,' by Orwell. It was written in the 1940's but a great deal of it holds true today.

EDIT: I like the joke about the British version of Breaking Bad. The whole series lasts 30 secs.

Scene: Walter White enters the doctors office

Doctor: I have some bad news for you Mr White

Walter White: Oh No! What is it?

Doctor: You have cancer.

Walter White: That's terrible, what now?

Doctor: Your treatment starts next week, best of luck.

End Scene

@darji: This isn't a list of things that will be blocked, is it? I though it was just a list of things which a piece of software currently being used by talk talk (I think) allows you to block, which David Cameron praised as an effective model.

This is the stuff they will automatically bloock and I think you have to activate the rest somehow? I just saw that on a German news site^^

@thomasnash: Basically he wants to make it so that when you get your internet connection, these things are all blocked as a default, you have the option to remove them but all your searches and stuff will go through this filter, run by a Chinese company, so everything you do on the net is basically routed through this company Huawei. I might be wrong and correct me if I am.

Also missing from that list posted above is 'forums' forums are on the list as well.

It's a hole. I hate it here. And David Cameron can suck all the dicks. And George Osborne.

(I get a little bit angry when I think about this country. I just really dislike it.)

@branwulf: Yeah, that Huawei thing wasn't about what he is doing (the details of which are sketchy at best), Huawei made the filter which TalkTalk has been offering customers since 2011. The PM just praised it as a model for the sort of thing he wants to do in the next year with pornographic content (although I think I read somewhere that this will go hand in hand with flat out bans on certain types of pornographic content?). More here.

Although to be clear, I'm not defending this because I am pro the move. All of the things you are worried are happening are still, to my mind, a risk with this kind of move; Cameron's decision to single them out for praise certainly suggests that they would be up for the contract to do this if it were every implemented at a national level. Currently I believe it is all going to be done at an ISP level (much like the block on the pirate bay), and I suppose ISPs might be nudged towards Huawei. For me it's the fact that they've essentially bypassed the legislative process to set this up which is most worrying to me.

Was pretty happy with visiting London for a week or so a year ago, agreed that if the heat there is as rough as it is in the southern US, must be bloody hell for all in the UK. Definitely want to go back not only for more time spent in London but also farther north to Scotland where some of my family is from (lowlands near the border). Definitely would recommend people visit the UK for a while before exploring more of Europe, quite fun.

l live in Scotland and all l can say is stay away from Dundee and Glasgow

crap, terrible country. Most annoying fuckin sounding people in the world.

Shit.

LOL!

It's not bad, aside from the government.

Here's an example of how fucking idiotic the student loans stuff is, we get an amount of loan to pay our living costs (accommodation, food, etc) and it is based on your parents income, which is fine IF your parents are going to help you pay for the cost of living, as the more your parents earn the lower you get, an once you get past £35,000 a year of combined income ($60,000 ish) you start to get hardly any loan money, so if your parents earn a fair amount like me, and also refuse to give you any money to help, you're fucked. Oh, and if you plan to go to university in 2013 you'll be coming out with around £60,000 of debt, guaranteed. ($100k)

On the brightside, I get to live in Oxford which is beautiful, London has its nice parts (where most of the tourism is focused) but a lot of shitty parts, nobody can deny that Thames view, though.

ARMAGEDDON IS NIGH.

Okay, so we're just having a thunderstorm. But it's the first time in days I've been able to shut the windows. It's wonderful.

Sometimes lightning can be cool to witness and creepy, but its always a majestic site to see.