# What it's like to be British



## Northerner (May 28, 2019)

I can tick most of these!  


 • Worrying you’ve accidentally packed 3 kilos of cocaine and a dead goat as you stroll through “Nothing to declare”

• Being unable to stand and leave without first saying “right”

• Not hearing someone for the third time, so just laughing and hoping for the best

• Saying “anywhere here’s fine” when the taxi’s directly outside your front door

• Being sure to start touching your bag 15 minutes before your station, so the person in the aisle seat is fully prepared for your exit

• Repeatedly pressing the door button on the train before it’s illuminated, to assure your fellow commuters you have the situation in hand

• Having someone sit next to you on the train, meaning you’ll have to eat your crisps at home 
• The huge sense of relief after your perfectly valid train ticket is accepted by the inspector

• The horror of someone you only half know saying: “Oh I’m getting that train too”

• “Sorry, is anyone sitting here?” – Translation: Unless this is a person who looks remarkably like a bag, I suggest you move it

• Loudly tapping your fingers at the cashpoint, to assure the queue that you’ve asked for money and the wait is out of your hands

• Looking away so violently as someone nearby enters their PIN that you accidentally dislocate your neck

• Waiting for permission to leave after paying for something with the exact change

• Saying hello to a friend in the supermarket, then creeping around like a burglar to avoid seeing them again

• Watching with quiet sorrow as you receive a different haircut to the one you requested

• Being unable to pay for something with the exact change without saying “I think that’s right”

• Overtaking someone on foot and having to keep up the uncomfortably fast pace until safely over the horizon

• Being unable to turn and walk in the opposite direction without first taking out your phone and frowning at it

• Deeming it necessary to do a little jog over zebra crossings, while throwing in an apologetic mini wave

• Punishing people who don’t say thank you by saying “you’re welcome” as quietly as possible

• The overwhelming sorrow of finding a cup of tea you forgot about

• Turning down a cup of tea for no reason and instantly knowing you’ve made a terrible, terrible mistake

• Suddenly remembering your tea and necking it like a massive, lukewarm shot

• Realising you’ve got about fifty grand’s worth of plastic bags under your kitchen sink

• “You’ll have to excuse the mess” – Translation: I’ve spent seven hours tidying in preparation for your visit

• Indicating that you want the last roast potato by trying to force everyone else to take it

• “I’m off to bed” – Translation: “I’m off to stare at my phone in another part of the house”

• Mishearing somebody’s name on the second time of asking, meaning you must now avoid them forever

• Leaving it too late to correct someone, meaning you must live with your new name forever

• Running out of ways to say thanks when a succession of doors are held for you, having already deployed ‘cheers’, ‘ta’ and ‘nice one’

• Changing from ‘kind regards’ to just ‘regards’, to indicate that you’re rapidly reaching the end of your tether

• Staring at your phone in silent horror until the unknown number stops ringing

• Hearing a recording of your own voice and deciding it’s perhaps best never to speak again

• The relief when someone doesn’t answer their phone within three rings and you can hang up

• Filming an entire fireworks display on your phone, knowing full well you’ll never, ever watch it again


----------



## Robin (May 28, 2019)

Yup, me to!
Hovering by the front door until the delivery man has rung the bell, even though you heard the van come up the drive, so you don’t open the door just as his arm is stretched out and make him jump out of his skin.


----------



## Andy HB (May 28, 2019)

Yep, pretty much all of them for me!!!


----------



## trophywench (May 28, 2019)

The 'misheard name' made me laugh cos it made me remember when I was a beach on holiday with my first husband Barry near Dubrovnik with a gang of people we'd been there with before. when an American couple greeted us two because they had spoke no other language and were a bit fed up with no-one else to have a conversation with - so we introduced them to some of the gang.  They had quite a long chat with one lady who was the editor of an English magazine re something that interested them.  They'd hired a car and were touring around the area a fair bit - so left before our group did.

Back at home a few weeks later we received a note from the editor of the mag saying she'd received an overseas subscription from the couple who asked to be remembered to 'Randy(?) & Janet who introduced us to you'.  We both guffawed as we read that. I rang her pdq and said I could understand how Jan & Jen would be confused - but how the hell had they sussed Baz (as everyone called him) out so correctly in that short a space of time?


----------



## Flower (May 28, 2019)

Heehee!

I do the "you're very welcome" when people push through doors I'm opening without a thank you, also drumming my fingers and talking to the cash point saying "come on, come on" to show I'm not just having a rest.

A neighbour calls me Morag and I answer to it - it's not my name- they've done it for years and I've given up correcting them.


----------



## C&E Guy (May 29, 2019)

Pushing a lift button again and again in the hope that it will arrive faster.

Watching the 10 O'clock News expecting it to be totally different from the 6 O'clock News.

And the daddy of them all - Moaning about the weather as it's always too hot or too cold, never just right.


----------



## eggyg (May 29, 2019)

Me too! Especially the one about overtaking someone on foot! I always walked to work, nearly three miles, and would spot someone in the distance walking slowly and plan to overtake them, of course when I did they would speed up and I would be a sweaty wreck by the time I got to work!  My next door neighbour but one was talking to me over our garden walls the other day, bearing in mind we live on the main arterial road into our town,  I didn’t hear what she said, she repeated it and I still didn’t, so I just smiled and nodded my head, she might have been telling me an ax murderer was hanging around for all I know! There’s nowt funnier than folk!


----------



## Pine Marten (May 29, 2019)

Me three! I do the 'you're welcome' one and the overtaking on foot. I'm also a bit mutton on occasion so find it hard to hear accurately when surrounded by other noises, so like eggyg have smiled and nodded more than once


----------



## nonethewiser (May 29, 2019)

Can so relate to most of those.

Missing is saying ''sorry'' for the slightest thing, we british are obsessed with the word, sorry for this, sorry for that, sorry for for being sorry and sorry for not being sorry enough


----------



## TheClockworkDodo (May 29, 2019)

nonethewiser said:


> Missing is saying ''sorry'' for the slightest thing, we british are obsessed with the word, sorry for this, sorry for that, sorry for for being sorry and sorry for not being sorry enough



Yes, I automatically say sorry if someone bumps into me, even when it's obviously their fault.


----------



## Matt Cycle (May 29, 2019)

Almost all of these.  Especially the supermarket one where I can spend a while talking to someone, say goodbye and then furtively looking around aisles to make sure they're not there.  If you do bump into them again there's the slightly embarrassed forced laugh without saying anything and praying it doesn't happen again.

I walk quickly so I'm usually okay with the overtaking on foot.  Occasionally it'll be someone who's almost up to my pace but not quite so there's an uncomfortable while where I'm only just in front before pulling away.

Bus seats.  All window seats taken who do you sit next to?  Everyone staring ahead hoping you don't sit next to them.  You choose one but if a window seat on the other side or in front then becomes vacant do you jump up and sit in it?  How soon do you do it.  I don't know.  Dilemmas!


----------



## mikeyB (May 31, 2019)

With me, it’s a question of which woman has parked her huge pushchair in the wheelchair space. Happens on buses and trains. I always win after a truly British argument. Unveiling my Broadmoor T Shirt.


----------



## HOBIE (Jun 15, 2019)

Its life


----------



## KARNAK (Jun 15, 2019)

Lidl`s buy their under sink carrier bags from me.


----------



## Ditto (Jun 15, 2019)

My ribs are hurting after reading that; guilty of every one of them. 

I never move seats though on a bus if another seat comes up because the person I had to sit next to might be offended. 

On the zebra which is just near our bungalow and I go across it daily, I do all that and then also mouth 'thank you' at the windscreens of the lead cars. Once a fella wound down his window and shouted a derogatory remark at me.  Probably Geroudovit!


----------



## HOBIE (Jun 15, 2019)

Some good tales


----------

