50 Weird & Confusing Facts About British Life & Culture

[Music] hello everyone and welcome back to english with lucy today I am very hot and it's only 19 degrees we're gonna talk about that later today I'm going to talk to you about 50 weird and random facts about British culture now this lessons more of a fun one it's going to be great for your listening practice and if you want to improve your pronunciation alongside your listening I highly recommend audible it's an online database of audiobooks and I've got loads of recommendations in the description box basically if you listen to an audiobook narrated by a native speaker at the same time as reading the actual book it's basically the key to learning perfect pronunciation you can claim your free audiobook and 30-day free trial by clicking on the link in the description box where I've also put loads of recommendations for great audiobooks to help you improve your English right let's get started with the video fact number one T is by far the most popular drink drunk by Brits maybe you knew this but apparently we drink 165 million cups of tea every single day bananas I've drunk no tea today it's not my favorite I don't hate it I'll have it if I'm offered yeah number two on our main TV channels that's channel one and two and quite a few others they're run by the BBC and we don't have any adverts this is because we pay a license fee and I think it's over 100 pounds a year but basically we have to pay if we have a TV we have to pay it even if we don't want to watch the BBC now I kind of like it because I like ad-free TV but I also don't want the BBC to tell me whether I can have a TV or not number three queues are incredibly important to us if you push into a queue if you queue jump you will be universally hated in Britain doesn't make that comment below if queues are important in your country because I went to Spain and I lived there for a while and people did not expect cues when I lived in Spain I remember being in a bank and some lady thought that her problem was more important than my problem and she just pushed in and was like sorry this is an emergency I was like in Britain I would never happen number four please sorry and thank you basically dominate all of our social interactions it's so engrained into our brains that we often bump into things and then apologize to the inanimate object like I have whacked my shoulder on a door and said oh sorry and then felt really stupid and British at the same time but yeah just a simple task like passing the salt at a dinner table sorry please could you pass the salt thank you sorry sorry excuse me please honestly we say about eight times number five when you greet a friend in the UK you don't normally shake their hand you don't normally shake their hand normally you give them one kiss on the cheek if you've recently been in the rest of Europe then you might give two kisses by mistake and say oh sorry I just got back from France and if you're feeling very masculine and you are with another very masculine person then even though you know them very well you might still shake their hand but that's only a feel very very masculine number six when the Sun comes out because it doesn't come out so often we make the most of it in 15 degree heat we will wear sandals miniskirts strappy tops bikinis and we will get very very sunburned as well the day after a sunny day everyone is red it's terrible also our houses are not designed to cope with the heat as I'm experiencing right now it's 19 degrees outside and I am absolutely dying number seven British cuisine well our most known dish is probably the Sunday roast or beef and Yorkshire puddings however we actually voted for our national dish and we voted for a chicken tikka masala which is an Indian dish number eight if you are on public transport it is highly expected that you give up your seat for an elderly person or a disabled person and if you don't do it people were taught at you this is a very British thing we'll just go but we don't like to be too direct sometimes we muster up enough courage to say excuse me that person needs that seat but we're not going to be too confrontational about it and if we are ever confrontational with someone on public transport we spend the next week coming down from the adrenaline and replaying the situation in our head telling our mates about it it's a big deal number nine our humor can be quite difficult to understand we love sarcasm we have quite dark sense of humor we can be quite dry so we can say things about smiling I love the British sense of humor but it can offend people sometimes to be them number 10 the majority of museums in London are free and we do actually use them quite a lot there has been a big increase in Brits trying to do cultural things which i think is great hasn't quite reached me yet but I did go to the museum in my village last year so that was great number 11 if you are invited to the home of a British person if they are providing a meal or a party for you then you are sort of expected to bring some sort of gift normally a bottle of wine some flowers or chocolates if you don't bring a gift we wouldn't say anything about it but we would silently judge you number 12 we are absolutely obsessed with our animals here but animals I mean pets we put our pets before our own children sometimes we are dog and cat crazy number 13 as soon as the Sun comes out we leave work when it's a good time to leave work normally five o'clock and we go straight to a pub garden we don't go inside the pub we go straight to the pub garden or if there's no direct route to the garden and then we will march through the pub directly to the garden we love a pub garden in fact when I finish this video I'm going straight there with my neighbor 14 that brings me on to our drinking culture it's quite bad but it's getting better it's very normal to see some very very drunk people on Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday nights if it's a bank holiday which means we have the Monday off work but Millennials are younger Jenner our drinking less which is a very good thing and binge drinking cases are going down number 15 if we hold open a door for you which we probably will we expect to thank you however if somebody holds a door open for us and it's actually a really awkward distance so we have to kind of walk faster and they have to wait for ages holding the door both parties hate this situation but we still say thank you and we still do it because I don't know why it's polite number 16 we are this is divided some of us are very polite drivers and some of us are very rude the polite drivers will probably let you through but they will expect to thank you we live for that thank you wave sometimes people just lift a finger and that's enough I just like the acknowledgement I'm a polite driver polite drivers also love to tut and shake their head at impolite drivers who have not thanked you for letting them pass number 17 in many cultures around the globe women want to have lighter skin but in the UK we want to have darker skin well not all of us but a lot of us like to use fake tanning products to make our skin darker I must admit I've got someone today I'm a very light shade of orange on my knees particularly and yeah we don't have much Sun we don't get much chance to tan and having a tanned complexion I think is always a sign of wealth like you've been on holiday recently I just think I look healthier with a bit of a tan but you might not agree number 18 we are very divided over the royal family some people think it brings in loads of tourism and money some people think that they spend way too much money and there's never really been a study to show whether they bring a profit or loss to the country so it's a funny one we just don't know number 19 the weather in summer can never be guaranteed so we don't actually go on holiday in our own that much we do but we can't guarantee it's going to be a sunny beach holiday a couple of years ago my family and I went away to Cornwall to a beach resort and there was not a single day of sunshine it poured it down the entire time and we just said never again we will always go abroad now number 21 we like to thank the bus driver when we get off the bus in London on the school bus anywhere it's pretty normal to say thank you as we get off my school bus driver was absolutely amazing he actually used to buy us all Easter eggs a whole school bus of children he was lovely his name was Roger I hope I get to see him again number 22 dinner is often our biggest meal of the day I'm talking about evening dinner we have a fairly heavy breakfast a light lunch and then a heavy dinner and we normally have breakfast between 7:00 and 8:00 lunch between 12:00 and 1:00 and dinner between 6:00 and 7:00 normally number 23 how are you and your right are not genuine questions if we say hi you're right I don't actually expect you to answer saying well actually no I'm not my goldfish died I just expect you to say yeah yeah you're right and that's it top quality interaction number 24 our population is incredibly diverse in London for example in 2011 when they did the census that they do every ten years forty four point nine percent of the population were white British that means London as a city is so diverse and it's something that a lot of us are really proud of however if you got to the northeast ninety three point six percent of the population were white British so it's not evenly distributed number twenty-five we care a lot about where you stand on an escalator and we will touch and shake our heads if you stand in the wrong place and I always see tourists do this you have to stand on the right and you have to leave enough room for busy rushy people to overtake you otherwise they won't say anything but they'll stand there and Tut and maybe even say excuse me excuse me be just be prepared 26 we drink beer and cider in pipes sometimes we drink a half pint and our beer is sometimes served warm not lagers but our British Isles we serve them at room temperature and that can be shocking for some people 27 we are terrified of wasps the most serious straight-laced person is likely to cause a massive flap ago if a wasp comes I was in a church watching a wedding ceremony the other day and a wasp came and it was absolute carnage and of course all the women had flower decorations in their hair which just made it all the more hilarious I just observed and thought I'm gonna purpose in a video number 28 our winters are really dark in the peak of winter the Sun doesn't come up till past 9:00 and it goes and it goes down just after 3:00 it means that you can go into the office and leave the office without seeing sunlight it is really quite intense 29 carpets are a key feature in our houses and I'm not sure how I feel about this carpets in a bedroom okay but in a lot of old-fashioned houses we have carpets in the bathroom which I don't think is hygienic and it shocks quite a lot of people when they come over here we also have carpets on the stairs which are really really hard to clean I know that when I design my own house I won't be having so much carpet in it number 30 our plugs are different we have a three-pronged plug which is different to the European plugs so make sure you bring an adaptor with you let me see if I have a plug what I'm saying oh yeah this is our plug it's a three-pronged plug and this is an earth prong Tom Scott has got a really good video on this this is going to be this one of two times that I recommend his videos in this video I think he's got a video explaining that and it's a really good one so I'll link it down below I am gonna mention another of his videos later on thirty-one our society really doesn't prioritize religion church attendance and membership numbers have been falling drastically in the 1930s church membership was at 30% and now it is at 10% or lower a lot of people just go to church on really important events like weddings Christmas and maybe Easter number 32 we often have separate taps or faucets as you might call them for hot and cold water especially in old-fashioned houses this is where I talked about Scott Scott this is where I talked about Tom Scott's video he's got a really really good video explaining why this is because I've always wondered because I've always grown up with having to choose between boiling hot water on my face or freezing cold water on my face and just thinking why part we just mix them we do have mixer taps now but it was something to do with the tanks that stored hot water they couldn't legally be mixed with drinking water hence why hot in one cold drinking water in another again it's something I have in my house right now but when I move into my own house I will be making sure that all taps are mixed taps number 33 we drive on the left but we walk on the right so you must drive on the left-hand side of the road but you must got the escalator on the right number 34 when something is in fashion all women end up wearing the same thing even if it doesn't suit them I've had so many friends come over from abroad and say oh my god everyone is wearing the same thing and I hadn't noticed it before but it is true I remember there was a fashion of like quite see-through black leggings and they just they didn't look good on anyone but everyone seemed to wear them with the wrong colour and underwear underneath number 35 when we're 18 we all sort of expect by our parents to move out and start our lives in a lot of countries people will stay with their parents till they're well in their 30s here we just want to get out as soon as possible and our parents want us out as soon as possible if we go to university we go at 18 and we normally go to a university that's quite far from our own home however if we're going to start a job straight away then yes we might stay with our parents a bit longer it is becoming more common to move back in with your parents after you finish University that is something that I did for six ish months when I was starting my business after graduating number 36 our university fees are high very very high for UK residents nine grand a year grandis pounds thousand pounds nine thousand pounds a year and for international students it can be much much higher number 37 we have ice cream trucks that drive around our villages playing a tune like a little dingy belching and it's the most exciting sound as a child I never had X I lived in a rural village but when I went to the park or to see friends I remember hearing this noise comparing like oh the ice-cream man I think my friends mum told her that the ice-cream man only played this tune when he'd run out of ice-cream which i think is the meanest thing ever number 38 we don't use our car horns that often they are for angry emergencies or just emergencies not necessarily angry ones I went to Bali last year or the year before and they just use them all the time to say hello and nudge people no over here car horns are quite a big deal and if someone beats their horn at you you spend the rest of the car too and you're getting hope I've had one car horn ruin my entire day 39 car drivers hate cyclists and cyclists hate car drivers it's a war on the road at the moment cycling has increased massively in popularity and car drivers are not happy about it 40 our supermarkets are very big and they have a huge range of pre-prepared food so ready meals to cook in the microwave I've been to lots of other trees and I've never seen the range that we have apart from perhaps in America 41 if we live in a city we tend to totally mind our own business we don't talk to our neighbors we may be stretched to a Hello sometimes and you really don't get to know people outside of your own friend group and you know your social activities and work in a village however it's completely different and you have quite a hard time protecting your business if you tell a secret to someone the whole village will know I kind of like it though number 42 we find it incredibly rude if somebody talks on their phone loudly on public transport and the best example of this is the train going to and from Luton Airport and Gatwick Airport you can see before it arrives to Gatwick everyone's just sitting in silence and then as soon as you come past it it's just filled with tourists that don't know you know our society rules just talking really really loudly to their mum say that they've arrived safely and all of the British people looking like talking loudly on public transport what do we do forty-three our tabloid gossip newspapers are disgusting they are terrible they lie so much but we all secretly read them I can't say all of us but many of us will secretly read the Daily Mail 44 in the countryside especially we have milk delivered to our doorstep in bottles and it's something that I'm very passionate about I'm really passionate about supporting our local milkman and supporting our local dairy farmers I get my milk delivered on Monday and Thursday and I love it it's amazing we always have fresh milk at the door 45 we generally tip 10% in restaurants and we prefer to tip it in cash because then we know it goes directly to the waiter or waitress however some restaurants especially London restaurants or chain restaurants will already add a service charge to your bill which is normally a 12.5 percent and some of us will get very angry about this and we'll ask for that to be taken off and will instead give cash directly to the waiter or waitress because we know that they are not on the best wages and those tips form a big part of what they earn and yes yes I do that 46 we're very indirect instead of saying I don't like it we would say well I don't hate it or it's not my cup of tea yeah we just hate being straight to the point we don't like funding people but it can be very very confusing for people who aren't from here 47 most Sundays we have a meal called a Sunday roast we normally have it in a pub or our mum will cook it for us and ah it's the best meal in the world and everyone's favourite Sunday roast is their mum Sunday roast and that mum Sunday roast is supposedly better than any other Sunday roast everyone says that but my mum's genuinely is the best 48 although fish and chips are really famous here I would say that chart going out for Chinese and going out for a curry are way more popular we do that way more often fish and chips I probably have it once every two years fish and chip shops have declined in quality number 49 we will do literally everything in our power to avoid the most minor awkward situation I was walking with my friend the other day she is quite awkward and she had a plastic bag full of shopping she saw someone she knew the bag broke and emptied out but instead of stopping to pick it up which would mean she would have to talk to this person she just carried on walking with an empty and I just thought that is peak British there number 50 women seriously under dress for the weather or nights out or New Year's Eve you will see women in like bikini tops and tiny dresses bare legs strappy heels but they don't necessarily get cold and this is a phenomenon we like to call the beer blanket once you have enough beer in you you can't feel the cold right those are my 50 random weird and just a bit quirky facts about British culture and British life I hope you enjoyed them don't forget to check out audible you can claim your free audiobook and 30-day free trial in the description box along my recommendations just click on the link don't forget to connect with me on all of my social media I've got my Facebook I've got my Instagram and I've got my Twitter and I shall see you soon for another lesson [Music] [Music]

Channel: English with Lucy

Views: 1,682,130

Keywords: 50 random facts, 50 facts, 50 british facts, facts about uk, facts about britain, facts about british, uk facts, british culture shock, british culture, uk culture, london culture, english culture, facts about england, england facts, english facts, british life facts, british culture facts

Id: fmHtl2CRMXc

Length: 22min 23sec (1343 seconds)

Published: Wed May 29 2019