The Danish Crown still reigns over Greenland, and Madeira and th Canaries are a fair way away from Portugal and Spain.
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TRIVIA: Practices that are peculiar to the UK
- Thread starter AY1975
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The Danish Crown still reigns over Greenland, and Madeira and th Canaries are a fair way away from Portugal and Spain.
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Yes, and it has long been the norm at many bars in Italy - although I seem to recall that there, when you pay they normally give you a ticket and then bring your drinks to your table rather than serving them to you then and there.
Yes, I think I've seen them in some places in Germany, although as in the UK the system varies from city to city and from region to region.
Bantamzen
Established Member
To be honest not being in any way religious I find the notion that we designed our own version of a Middle Eastern derived religion to "stick two fingers up at the Pope and most of Europe" quite ridiculous. And frankly if you know your history you'll know the real reason why the Church of England was formed, and it was nothing to do with the above.
Aside from that, is there actually anything you can cite as making us unique from the rest of our neighbours?
telstarbox
Established Member
Our ridiculous attachment to imperial units.
The Americans are more ridiculously attached to those. You’d think that when they secured independence they would have wanted to remove all traces of imperialism.
Indeed - Wynd is missing, for one.
My first two flats in Dundee had pull cords in the bathroom.
The UK is possibly unique in attempting some weird hybrid carbuncle of the two. We buy petrol on litres, but cars always do "miles per gallon", for example.
Never understood why we're so frightemed of going the whole hog to metric.
Because older people don’t like it.
However many times I tell her they are effectively the same as yards my mum still has no idea what distances in metres are. I have no idea how fat someone is if told in kg.
There would be major resistance to getting rid of pints, especially as a metric ‘pint’ would be stealing beer from us! Though to be fair milk is in litres now.
On the roads changing signs to km and km/h would be an epic job, and speed signs would need doing all in one go.
Agreed!
Ireland managed it in 2009....must we really never bite the bullet because of what some whining older people think....?
However, doing a quick Google, some European countries made the switch wayyyyy back in the 19th century.
In any case, it won't be long before everybody of working age in the UK is fully conversant with metric (having been taught it in school), so perhaps soon the time will be ripe...
Not sure the Irish Road Network is comparatively to the UK one!
I was taught metric at school (though lots of the textbooks were still imperial!) but still don’t think in metric - I can’t visualise the metric equivalents of feet length or kg weight.
I would need a new speedo - had real trouble seeing the km/h when in Europe!
I was taught metric at school (though lots of the textbooks were still imperial!) but still don’t think in metric - I can’t visualise the metric equivalents of feet length or kg weight.
I would need a new speedo - had real trouble seeing the km/h when in Europe!
transmanche
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No need to change that. Ireland still has pints.
Plenty of supermarkets sell milk in pints and multiples of pints. E.g. Tesco sells milk in 2 pint/1.13 litre and 4 pint/2.27 litre bottles.
Ireland managed it. Distance signs were gradually changed to km in the 1970s. Speed limit signs were changed over a weekend in January 2005 - with the new signs displaying km/h underneath the number as confirmation (and a reminder).
AlterEgo
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I never said that the *reason* the CofE was founded was to stick two fingers up at the Pope. It was however the net result of what happened, and if you know your history you should be able to let me know how the religious schisms between Protestant and Catholic defined England and latterly the UK.
Britain is an island which fundamentally defines the outlook of the people who live there. It is inconceivable that Britain would be as it is were it connected to France by a 100 mile land border for example. Our avoidance of invasion and relative geographical security ensured our foreign policy for hundreds of years was simply to undermine whichever continental power we thought was getting too uppity, rather than work with allies properly.
Britain is also distinctly post-imperial and has not dealt with this in a way most former empires have, which gives way to a delusion of independence and grandeur. Today, that feeling that Britain can do anything it wants is misplaced; the nation lost its ability to act unilaterally over the course of two world wars (in neither of which we were invaded, unlike many of our European cousins). Britain has an unhealthy attachment to both world wars; frequently we overstate our contribution and we continue to allow WWII and its outcomes to unreasonably define our identity.
I could go on and on about various differences but the key ones to my mind are our geography and the whiff of two world wars which haven’t ever left the national psyche.
At the end of the day, nationhood and national psyche are esoteric things which exist and matter but which can’t always be pinned to a wall for everyone to inspect. It should be obvious that our national psyche is quite different to nations on the continent - after all, most of the people who voted in 2016 chose to leave the EU, in an election which was defined by nativism and identitarian politics. Explaining why is not so easy.
We have been controlled by our own governments, with gradual change, for centuries. Lots of European countries haven’t managed 100 years of independence in their current form, and/or had multiple revolutions, occupations and major regime changes
Speaking about the pope it has been theorised that this is a major factor in the attachment to independence - for hundreds of years the sovereign of Britain has been the supreme power whereas the Catholics had the pope sitting above their kings and queens.
Speaking about the pope it has been theorised that this is a major factor in the attachment to independence - for hundreds of years the sovereign of Britain has been the supreme power whereas the Catholics had the pope sitting above their kings and queens.
DaleCooper
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I'd be quite happy to go fully metric in fact I'm in favour of it but I'm 66, do I count as an older person?
Clearly a spring chicken at heart!
Belperpete
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England wasn't the only country to embrace Protestantism. The English protestant movement was very heavily influenced by what was going on at the same time on the continent. And the Scottish protestant movement of course took a very different direction to England.
Oh yes we were!
In reality, Britain is not one homogenous country. There are very distinct geographical and regional differences. The geography, culture and language of the Orkneys bears little resemblance to that of Kent, for example. However, there does seem to be an assumption by many English that their national psyche and identity applies throughout Britain. It doesn't take much travelling to realise that the differences between us and mainland Europe are no greater than the differences that you will find between different parts of the UK.
I just can’t agree with that. Customs and laws are very similar across the UK, but significantly different abroad. Small things show different attitudes - attitudes to ID cards and arming the police, following the rules/laws, and where are all the fences when you go abroad!! They eat lunch for breakfast too!
Until Brexit pushed people to extremes how many people would ever identify as European? Town, county, region, country, British. And of course the use of the phrase ‘going to Europe’.
AlterEgo
Veteran Member
That's like saying Love Me Do and Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band are so different that it serves no purpose in saying the Beatles were different to the Rolling Stones. It's also like saying the Beatles weren't a uniquely British phenomenon that could only happen in Britain, because after all, most of their influences came from overseas; they're practically American, right? This is a myopic analysis.
Perhaps I should travel more; I don't get out very much.
DaleCooper
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More like an autumn turkey.
Springs Branch
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PG
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My teenage daughter uses feet and inches for height (especially since she passed my height!)
Even if the councils had the new signs erected but covered up I doubt they'd be able to get round in a single weekend ripping the covers off and spraying out the old mph signs - unless they didn't have any tea breaks
transmanche
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Doubt all you wish. But they did exactly that!
58,000 signs in total. If you had a team of 500 people working, they'd only need to do 116 signs each over the weekend.
Belperpete
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There are some very different laws in Scotland. The attitude to following the law is very different in northern Europe (Germanic countries) and southern Europe (latin countries). And as for what times people eat - you try getting a group of Swedes and Spaniards to agree what time to have lunch! The idea that Europe is one homogenous group is even more laughable than thinking Britain is one homogenous group.
Only! You have obviously never dealt with refurbishing rusty old kit. It took me half a morning replacing a TV aerial on a mast (not including getting it down from the chimney, some roofers did that), and I had an angle grinder.
SHD
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The Swedes (or the Brits, or the Dutch) need less time to unpack and eat their “lunch” than the Spaniards (or French, or Italians) to casually walk to the place where they will enjoy their meal. Problem solved.
transmanche
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According to the Irish Times, it cost €5milion for the change, plus an additional €2.5million in publicity.
Irish people never made the mile part of their national identity, as some have done in the UK. So there were no 'metric martyrs' making a fuss. The motorway speed limit changed from 70mph to 120km/h (74mph) which seemed to be pretty popular.
Is there any 'advantage' in keeping miles? Only the UK, the US, a handful of former UK colonies in the Caribbean and a few UK/US overseas territories are left using miles...
They didn't have to 'refurbish any old kit'. The new signs were put up in advance. All they had to do on the changeover weekend was to uncover the new signs and cover up the old signs.
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