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TRIVIA: Practices that are peculiar to the UK

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AY1975

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How many ways of doing things can you think of that are peculiar to the UK and not found in any other countries as far as you know?

Here's one to start you off: having a door-mounted letter box so that as soon as an item of mail or a leaflet or circular is delivered, you can pick it up without having to leave your house or flat.

AFAIK in most other countries in Europe and elsewhere the norm is to have a separate external mail box, either on the wall of your house, in the entrance foyer of your apartment block, or next to the road (and I believe that in some countries, such as France and the USA, mail boxes have to be of an approved type). Some homes in the UK have an external mail box instead of a door-mounted one, though.
 
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telstarbox

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Do other countries have individual waste and recycling bins like we do? In Europe I've seen more than once that each street will have some large wheelie bins and everyone takes their waste to these (this is also used in blocks of flats here of course).
 

nlogax

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Are we talking bathroom weirdness like carpets around the loo or separate hot and cold taps? Or maybe plastic washing up bowls in kitchen sinks?
 

PG

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Greeting/acknowledging people unknown to the enquirer with 'Alrite bud how's it going/how you doing?' when they've absolutely no interest in the answer... basically a rhetorical non-question.
 

transmanche

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Do other countries have individual waste and recycling bins like we do? In Europe I've seen more than once that each street will have some large wheelie bins and everyone takes their waste to these (this is also used in blocks of flats here of course).
Newcastle City Council has been trialling the use of communal bins in back lanes in a couple of areas.
 

scotrail158713

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There are plenty of those in Dublin and Berlin.
Ok. I’ve been in Denmark, France, Italy, and China in the last couple of years and hadn’t noticed any there.
It was a bit of a presumption from me to then assume they were a British thing though.
 

AlterEgo

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Separate hot and cold taps - most European countries and many places elsewhere have mixer taps. The US seems to have a mishmash of both types.
 

transmanche

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How is it working? I've long supported this idea, particularly if the bins are "underground" i.e. "Moloks".
Nothing as fancy as that. Just the same large bins that are used for flats and businesses. The council says that feedback has been positive and they plan to extend the system further. (I assume this will only be in areas where properties have back lanes.)

sharedbins.jpg

Source: https://www.newcastle.gov.uk/services/environment-and-waste/recycling-rubbish-and-waste/shared-bins
 

Cowley

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Cats eyes on roads, especially motorways...
I’ve driven abroad a fair bit over the years, and driving along a foreign motorway with faded road markings in the dark as the rain hammers down so hard that the wipers are struggling to clear it from the screen even at full speed, I always wish that they’d fitted cats eyes like we have over here.
 

175mph

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How many ways of doing things can you think of that are peculiar to the UK and not found in any other countries as far as you know?

Here's one to start you off: having a door-mounted letter box so that as soon as an item of mail or a leaflet or circular is delivered, you can pick it up without having to leave your house or flat.

AFAIK in most other countries in Europe and elsewhere the norm is to have a separate external mail box, either on the wall of your house, in the entrance foyer of your apartment block, or next to the road (and I believe that in some countries, such as France and the USA, mail boxes have to be of an approved type). Some homes in the UK have an external mail box instead of a door-mounted one, though.
From what I've noticed in my home town, when I've walked down streets with luxury large detached houses, there will be a gated driveway and the external mail box will be built into the wall pillar the gate is attached to.
 

Belperpete

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Here's one to start you off: having a door-mounted letter box so that as soon as an item of mail or a leaflet or circular is delivered, you can pick it up without having to leave your house or flat.
The Netherlands seem to have letter-boxes like we do, although they are often mounted in the wall next to the door rather than in the door.

Do other countries have individual waste and recycling bins like we do? In Europe I've seen more than once that each street will have some large wheelie bins and everyone takes their waste to these (this is also used in blocks of flats here of course).
Continental cities seem to have a lot more communal buildings than we seem to in the UK, a bit like the tenement buildings in Glasgow and some other Scottish cities. These buildings tend to have communal facilities for washing and rubbish. I think having a lot more communal housing sets the thinking even for other areas. However, I am certain that we imported the idea for wheely bins from the Continent, from Germany I think. I have also seen them in the Netherlands.

Cookers and immersion heaters get their own circuits, don't they?
Cookers should do, because of the high load they can draw if everything is switched on (particularly if you also plug an electric kettle into the 13A socket on the same switch unit!). Immersion heaters draw less load than a 3kW electric heater, and it is not unusual to find immersion heaters fed off the ring main in older houses. Washing machines and tumble driers are fitted with standard 13A plugs and can be plugged into the ring main. Again, they draw no more current than a 3kW electric heater.

Incidentally, you will have a hard job finding a 3kW electric heater in many continental countries, and increasingly in this country too. When I started working and living in Stockholm many years ago, there were problems with the communal heating system, so I bought an electric heater as a temporary solution. At home I had just bought a 3kW heater, but the best I could find anywhere over there was 2kW. I guess 3KW is a bit problematic on a 15A radial circuit.
 

DaleCooper

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Cats eyes on roads, especially motorways...
I’ve driven abroad a fair bit over the years, and driving along a foreign motorway with faded road markings in the dark as the rain hammers down so hard that the wipers are struggling to clear it from the screen even at full speed, I always wish that they’d fitted cats eyes like we have over here.

They keep their cats indoors at night (It's always puzzled me, what becomes of the rest of the cat?)
 

geoffk

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Houses in the Netherlands have a pulley on the outside so that furniture can be got in and out. Staircases are often narrow and large objects need to go through the window. I've seen this in Amsterdam but don't know how widespread it is.
 

Springs Branch

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Traffic lights that sequence Red > Red+Yellow > Green, rather than going straight from Red to Green (maybe not unique as a few ex-British Empire places still do this)

My Italian wife, on her first visit to my family's home in the UK, was a bit perplexed by the plastic washing-up bowl in the kitchen sink and the carpet in the bathroom.

Speaking of bathroom weirdness, lucky this thread is restricted to British uniqueness, so we don't drift onto the Germans and their Flachspuler toilets.
 

Cowley

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They keep their cats indoors at night (It's always puzzled me, what becomes of the rest of the cat?)
Not sure. I mean it’s all chats eyes over there so maybe they’ve got a different system?
 

Bald Rick

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Traffic lights that sequence Red > Red+Yellow > Green, rather than going straight from Red to Green (maybe not unique as a few ex-British Empire places still do this)

I’m fairly sure this sequence is used in Sweden, although it’s been a while since I’ve been.

My entry: that thinking that removing your country from the world’s largest trading block is a good thing to do.
 

Billy A

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Traffic lights that sequence Red > Red+Yellow > Green, rather than going straight from Red to Green (maybe not unique as a few ex-British Empire places still do this)


Speaking of bathroom weirdness, lucky this thread is restricted to British uniqueness, so we don't drift onto the Germans and their Flachspuler toilets.

I was in Sweden last week and yes, they have the same sequence, as does Germany. Interestingly, in the old days the DDR used to have an extra combination in their traffic light sequence so they went green, orange+green, orange, red.
German toilets and their peculiar arrangements are a thing best not discussed.
 

Devonian

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German toilets and their peculiar arrangements are a thing best not discussed.
So I will merely note that those strange loos became the standard British design when Twyfords were first to manufacture them - we just moved on quite quickly!

Having worked with overseas tourists for many years, and dealt with their complaints, the lack of full-power sockets in the bathroom seems to be a (fairly sensible) British oddity. And given the number of times I have been inadvertently sworn at, making a hand gesture indicating the number two with the palm facing outwards is unusual too.

It's clicheed, but our insistance on saying 'please' and 'thank you' for even the most trifling request or action (such as being given a till receipt or moving slightly aside on the pavement) caused amusement and bafflement in equal measure, as did saying 'sorry' when it is not your fault.

One device that is, and could only be, extremely British is the Teasmade. Our visitors assumed that they were some sort of joke.
 

Springs Branch

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Probably not so much a thing in the era of Travelodges & Premier Inns, but at one time no hotel catering to the "commercial gentleman" would be without a Corby Trouser Press in every room.

I've travelled all over the world on business and never come across this piece of apparatus anywhere outside mainland Britain.
 

Howardh

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Paying for your drink/food at the bar rather than after you have drunk/eaten it.

For once, I think our system is better than continental as, sometimes, when you have finished you need to get away (for a bus/train etc) and you can be hanging around waiting for someone to take your money (and return your change) and even if you go back to the bar to pay - the barman may have gone missing.
 
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