The thing that I notice most as an American living in England is the overwhelming amount of bureaucracy in every aspect of life here, and how it's just taken in stride as though nothing can be done about it.
You go to the swimming pool and try to pay your 3 pounds to go swimming, but they can't give you the blue armband for the 10:00 session because it's only 9:40, but they can give you the yellow armband for the 9:00 session, but that means you'll have to get out of the pool when the 9:00 session ends, but you're free to go upstairs and have a cup of tea until 9:55.
Me: "But that's insane. The pool is open all day"
Woman: [look of non-understanding, since this is how they've done things for 30 years therefore it is unquestionably correct, and nobody has ever complained before, and certainly one should know not to come to the swimming pool near the end of the hour, and who wouldn't welcome the opportunity to have a nice cup of tea?]
Me: OK, I'll take the armband for the 9:00 session, and keep 3 extra pounds in my trunks in case somebody asks me to leave in ten minutes so that I can walk back here and pay you again then.
Repeat that experience for every interaction with every business or government entity you deal with ever. You just want to give up and never leave the house. Until the internet goes down and you have to deal with British Telecom, at which point you start looking for property in France.
Because then it means they get to care even less. It's still their infrastructure and therefore their van that needs to come out to your house to fix things, but you've added yet another layer onto the process.
They've worked their contracts with the ISPs so that the ISP can't actually do anything in your name, so you still end up on the phone with them, but you're not their customer so you can't mention anything being wrong with the internet as clearly that's your ISP's problem. No, now "the phone line is really scratchy" is your only line of attack and god help you if you've contracted that out to a 3rd party (or worse, your ISP itself!)
Then they've cleverly broken off the van that comes to fix things (BT OpenReach) as a separate company that you can't talk to, so you have to go through BT's call center, which will helpfully tell you that there's no fault, and that it will cost $150 to send a van out if it turns out they can't find anything (d'ya feel lucky, punk?).
Fortunately, the van guys are actually good. And BT's infrastructure is so terrible that there's always at least one fault they can find. Usually about 5 meters further down the line than last time they were had the truck out two weeks ago.
One day somebody will lay some fiber that has no BT-ness associated with it at all. And they'll get everybody's business.
My recent experience trying to get BT Infinity installed...
1. Initially called and asked for BT Infinity and was promptly told it wasn't yet available on our street. I therefore opted for BT Total (ADSL). All installed no problems.
2. Checked the website a month later. Checker tells me that Infinity is available. I call BT, make the appointment and wait.
3. BT engineer turns up and starts installation. He then goes off to the cab and returns quickly telling me that the cab they have me listed on is wrong. I'm registered as using is about 2 miles away. Far away from this cab. BT engineer tells me he will inform "head office" so they can sort it and get Infinity installed.
4. BT make a new appointment and another engineer is sent out who repeats the same steps as above because nobody has told him and it hasn't been fixed. Engineer leaves. No Infinity.
5. I get a SMS message asking me to rebook my appointment and after calling I talk with a operator who is ready to put me through the whole process again until I protest asking to speak with somebody who knows more. I get on the phone to this person who tells me that Infinity is not available where I live. I'm told to check back in a few months but get this...I'll have to rebook the appointment and get a engineer out before I find out if it's actually available.
Counterpoint: Fibre has literally just been made available in my area. I just had Plusnet (an ISP wholly-owned by BT which uses BT fibre) install fibre broadband, and it was done quickly and flawlessly. Arrived when they said they would and it took 5 minutes. Speeds decent too (50 Mbps down / 20 Mbps up, though I was told it might take a week to reach full speed).
Here you pay your money (or you have a monthly pass to the entire sports complex), you go swimming. Outside of swim practice, no one has ever mentioned times. Certainly no arm bands.
Perhaps we're lucky up North, I haven't had any nightmare dealings with government, and I'm including the Border Agency in that (so far).
Even doing tax returns (which most people don't have to do) seems pretty straightforward - usually takes me less than 30 minutes in the years I do it myself.
The only thing I always find shocking in the UK is how racist speech is actually illegal, like serve jail time illegal. They will find surveillance of someone making a racist gesture at a football match or something on Twitter, hunt them down, and prosecute them. I'm assuming there are other limits to speech, but since anyone can say any crazy thing here and not be in danger of jail time, it's interesting to me.
Pretty interesting and i agree with all the points. One thing about the monarchy is the argument that they cost a lot. CGP Grey did a video explaining the true cost of the monarchy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhyYgnhhKFw
Yep, i'm of the same opinion. Because of this i now think they're worth keeping, however i'd like to see all the Royal cling'ons booted, the cousins and third uncles etc etc.
While we don't have a written constitution we are signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights enacted under law in the UK as the Human Rights Act. That's amounts to the same thing for many purposes.
Couldn't agree more about the problems with freedom of expression in the UK. Something the US should be proud of in comparison.
I'd also stress that not having a written constitution is totally different to not having a constitution. More accurately the UK doesn't have a codified (single reference document) constitution but does have strong constitutional case law.
Cheer-leading I can at least understand. Even if it might be inadvisable due to the sexualization issue, you can fully understand why young women want to do it and it's a lot of fun for everyone involved.
The guns and healthcare issues have me stumped though. As a conservative voting Brit, Thatcherite and Reagan admirer, you'd think I would be a natural republican sympathiser. I listen to 'right wing' american naratives on these issues and they just make no sense to me at all. I understand the history behind how America got into the situation it's in with these issues, but the justifications for blocking credible reform are just incomprehensible to me.
Why would we want to "reform" gun laws when the crime statistics (you know, the facts I hope politicians use to make laws) show a continued decrease? The media's continued harping is not the actual problem. We have 15 categories of killers of American's that we are not addressing, never mind the damn budget, while we are doing something foolish in the Senate. It is so foolish because it would not have stopped anything that actually happened. If we spent the same political capital on cancer and heart disease, we would save more lives.
Beyond actual limited government conservatives basic belief system, a lot of people have experience with actual government run health care and have found it lacking (google "don't get sick after june" for the IHS side). Plus the massive bill no one read (with so many things set to be decided by the bureaucracy in rule making and RFPs[1]).
If the government had passed a bill that said, people on welfare would be added to the government employee's health care plan or perhaps some looking at what makes medical costs so high, conservatives would have supported it.
I would have been overjoyed with some basic tort reform, more medical scholarships(2), better medical savings account rules, and perhaps a government insurance program like the flood insurance for catastrophes that pays 100% after something like 50K(3).
--
1) yes, I read the whole bill to determine what I would have to change in my life
2) this part is going to be an actual concern given the required number of workers in the coming years
3) this would have also made normal insurance cheaper given a cap on max outlay for a person
>A country where convicted felons can buy assault rifles automatic weapons without background checks, and the government actively affirms their right to do so.
This is just patently false. I understand that there's a large cultural difference between the US and the UK when it comes to guns, but if they're going to find our laws incomprehensible they could at least know what our laws are in the first place.
I've just done a straw poll in my office. Of about 30 people, 5 didn't know what I was talking about, 6 didn't express an opinion, and 15 or so think it's creepy, sleezy, or both.
Added in edit: You seem to have been downvoted, which is a shame given an honest question about a cultural difference, so I've upvoted you.
> how many of those people frequent games that have cheerleaders?
Probably none, and that's the point. In the UK we don't (usually) have cheerleaders. Therefore people don't go to games that have cheerleaders. Therefore when they see cheerleaders they think "What? Why are these scantily clad, nubile females flouncing around?"
Because the UK culture doesn't have cheerleading (in this sense) they have no other context for it, and so it's interpreted - probably purely subconsciously - as having sexual overtones.
> for me it's creepy to put it in a sexual context.
For me as a Brit, the only connection I have with cheerleaders is the web portrayal, and from what I can see they are popularly portrayed in a sexual content. A quick googling gives this sort of thing:
OP said "Cheerleading - Overt sexualisation of teenaged and pre-teen girls" like it's per definition. Seriosly, there is no overt sexualization in dancing or performing acrobatics only because she wears a skirt. Maybe out of the US (I'm not American too), as you imply, cheerleaders are more of a porn fantasy girl stereotype because there is less of them in sports and they know them only from porn and comedies? I don't know. To me it sounded like it's op's imagination playing a role here.
BTW none of my text search results for 'cheerleader' alone show anything even remotely erotic, and google knows I'm not a prude. When you attach 'hot' or 'sexy' to it and look at images, they won't be much different to when you attach these words to 'secretary', while first result for secretary is a movie about a stereotypically sexist portrayal of this job position with high-heeled legs on the poster.
As a single extra data point, I asked my wife about it and obvious sexuality was the first thing she mentioned. I think this may be a peculiarly British view, though.
By the way, I don't think I'm a prude either. If girls over the age of consent (16 in the UK) want to be sexual I don't have a problem with it. My surprise is a cultural one that it could be viewed any other way.
> I think the American approach to enjoying sport is much better than ours.
in Poland we call it 'picnic'.
> That is very strange to me; but it’s far from being a characteristically British problem, and is more pan-European.
it's more pan-almost-everywhere-except-usa. take f.ex. football violence in South America, in Europe we at least don't spray visitor team fans buses with uzis. throwing stones and knives onto the guests sector is also less popular than in, say, Turkey.
The sectarian element to football (and many other things) in parts of Scotland is bizarre - which football team you support (assuming you support any team - I don't) can be a hugely important indicator in many contexts.
[NB My recently acquired interest in watching team sports only extends as far as rugby - where the violence is kept on the pitch].
Well, I don't know about the Scottish scene, but such divisions often have a historical political and cultural background. In Poland many football rivalries are dated around the communism times, but some date up to the beginnings of the 20th century, f.ex. Krakow's holy war.
> It’s a surprise to me that so many people see the BBC as such an oddity. I know it’s an unusual way to finance broadcasting
It's not unusual at all:
"Whilst TV licensing is rare in the Americas, half of the countries of Asia and Africa, and two-thirds of the countries in Europe use television licences to fund public television"
Is this a complaint against PBS? They are as close as we get to the BBC and they are excellent, I don't watch anything else except Netflix and sports. Commercials are really mind numbing.
How about our sane gun control laws and our politicians who—while a bit rubbish—aren't being paid hundreds of millions of $ by BigCorp™ to go against the people?
To most Brits the question is why would anyone want to have weapons primarily designed to kill people not only in their house, but in the houses and hands of almost everyone else. To us, that's what seems insane.
Well, it's important to note that by judicial fiat in the '50s and statute in the '60 effective self-defense was outlawed. So I can well imagine "most Brits", who've lived all their adult lives in a regime were guns are useless except for recreation (and that rather limited due to urbanization and theoretically strict limits on handgun possession (the Dunblane shooter should never have been licensed, and the attempt to seal the records is telling)) would see our approach to all this "insane".
Compare to the nationwide sweep of "shall issue" concealed carry laws, a few states where it was allowed (and Vermont where it was never licensed yet alone outlawed), then Florida in 1987 to Iowa and Wisconsin in 2011. Now 42 states plus or minus have that, along with explicit rights to effective self-defense (latter effectively true in most of the anti-gun states as well), about 2/3rds of the population.
Yeah, I'll agree its somewhat weird, look at very well armed Switzerland where concealed carry is I gather rare. But there are lots of reasons, historical, sociological, etc. why we're this way (or so I think).
Hungerford and Dunblane kicked our gun regulation into effect, since then the incidence of crimes committed with guns has plummeted and we've not had a spree killing to the level of Dunblane.
(there are exceptions, the Cumbria massacre in 2010 springs to mind)
Hungerford was in 1987. Dunblane in 1996, 18 years ago.
If you really want to get into a discussion about the frequency of gun massacres in the UK and USA over the last 20 years, adjusted for population, go ahead. Make my day. I'll reply to that post.
And yes there are other ways to kill people. That in no way provides justification for giving them even more.
Wait, so everyone that wants to own a gun is a terrorist? Please, if you want to live in a nanny state I don't mind but don't act like it's any better.
Maybe that is partly the case. For the sake of argument lets say for a moment that it is at it's root a sociological problem. If you know you have this sociological problem where thousands of people are killed using guns on almost a monthly basis, why are you so insistent that these guns must be available to allow that to happen?
Why insist that this 'sociological problem' of mass killing be allowed to express itself using as powerful and efficient a means as possible? Are you really suggesting that if the guns went away, that all these thousands of people would all still be killed by machettes or axes or something instead? If other means of killing are just as efficient, why protect your home with a gun? Why not use a machette or an axe?
And while we're on this subject, what's with the ban on federally funded research into a problem that's leading to so many deaths? How is that anything other than red handed evidence of the gun lobby making it perfectly clear they're not interested in evidence, or rational debate, or honest discourse, or how many people die on a daily basis so that they can hold on to their favourite toys. Why not just say that the death toll in blood is to an acceptable price they are willing in full conscience to pay so that they can keep hold of their guns?
All I see is a pretence at debate. A paper thin fig leaf of argument. Hungerford in 1987, therefore British gun laws have no effect on rates of gun violence. No gun shops in Chicago, therefore banning gun sales nationally can have no effect rates of gun ownership or violence. Maybe it's a sociological problem - oh, well that's all right then. Lets just wash our hands of the whole problem and think about something else. Until the next horrific mass shooting. Meanwhile the body count nationally is quietly rising day, by day, by day.
This article seems way off point for hacker news (better fit for reddit) - and even if you were to make the stretch that it fit in the intellectual curiosity category, it's a little weak on that too.
This distinction only matters if the government can't subpoena private entities to hand over the footage whenever they want. (Note: I have no idea how easy it is for the government to obtain private CCTV footage in practice -- just pointing out that the fact that 92% of CCTV isn't operated by the government doesn't mean that it is not accessible to the government.)
I'd say the distinction still matters if a court and subpoena still needs to be involved. The distinction disappears when the police can get access to the footage without any probably suspicion.
This is one of the interesting things about CCTV in the UK. Not only is it owned by a myriad of entities but it's monitored by a myriad of entities too. Other than national networks for things like ANPR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police-enforced_ANPR_in_the_UK) tying together people's movements through a town, into a nightclub, out onto a motorway, etc, would involve working with numerous organisations, including the local council, the owner of the nightclub, the county council, etc.
This lack of cohesion means that, currently, intrusions into privacy are hard to automate and such footage can only be collected together into a complete narrative with some serious effort on the part of the police.
As long as the government isn't paying for it, then what's the problem? Private CCTV is great: it's difficult to abuse by the government for mass surveillance, but can be subpoenaed after a crime's been committed so we still get the benefit in that regard, and at no cost to the tax payer.
Wyrd also suggests that anti-intellectualism may be less ubiquitous and pervasive in Britain than in America.
I'd find it hard to call on anti-intellectualism but anti-exceptionalism is certainly a lot stronger in the UK than the US. It even has a special name, "tall poppy syndrome": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome
Worth noting that, as with pretty much everything in the UK that varies hugely depending on social class and location - it is (or at least was) amazingly bad in traditional urban working class areas.
Where/when I grew up (a fishing port) exceptionalism was pretty strongly celebrated and everyone knew and admired the most succesful skippers.
However, we get to laugh at your wildly under engineered electrical plugs.
[And yes, I know that we have crazy plugs because of our strange ways of wiring up houses. However, of all the places I've been the US has by far the worst plugs.]
1) It's not that common any more except in older buildings.
2) Historically, this was because only cold water was deemed potable because it came directly from the mains supply, whereas hot water would be lying around heating tanks etc. and might be contaminated. So by keeping them separate, you always knew the cold water tap was safe to drink from.
I second this. Living in Germany I am blessed with the best of German water heating technology, which includes mixer taps (faucets). Whenever I go back to the UK to visit family, I end up scolding myself on the hot tap. My theory is that Brits either don't wash their hands, or if they do, they have a limited amount of time before the hot tap becomes too hot!
Bureaucracy is rife, particularly in Northern Ireland ( which is a part of the UK ), in fact the entire economy is built on Bureaucracy. Government departments have been the biggest employer here.
Some of the bureaucratic things they do is just absurd. For example, I have to purchase annual road tax for my car. Usually its no probs, you can phone a call center and pay over the phone after they do some "background checks".
I phoned to renew as usual yesterday, but was told they could not give me road tax because my car is due for an MOT (road worthiness test) in May. Now my current MOT is valid until 30th April, but because they can't predict whether it will pass or fail, they won't sell me my road tax renewal (or let me pay tax to them for the upkeep of the roads :-o )...which they sold me last year no problem with similar circumstances, seems they have just added a little more red tape to be sure :-)...
I could list several other interesting bureaucratic nuances, in fact you could probably write a book on it....
> The progressive erosion of freedom that the last two points represent arises from a yet more fundamental issue which I’m surprised no-one picked up on: we have no (written) constitution.
The Canadian legal system is derived closely from the British system (except in Quebec, where civil law follows the Justinian tradition). The major difference is the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which was ratified 31 years ago.
At the time, there was a furore in England over the fact that the Charter would supersede statutes (which, in turn, supersede common law). Some lawmakers considered it unconscionable that the courts could strike down a law for violating the Charter. Apparently the fact that Canada wanted to patriate its Constitution almost triggered a constitutional crisis in England.
Since then, Canadian courts have indeed struck down a number of laws, including restrictions on access to abortion, restrictions on religious expression and dress, denial of collective bargaining rights, prohibitions on same sex marriage, and the right of convicted prisoners to vote.
The Charter enshrines human rights protection and equality for women, minorities and other vulnerable Canadians - including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Canadians, through court decisions that extended the list of prohibited grounds for discrimination in Section 15.
The sections on legal rights have also driven changes to the way police services operate, strengthening protections for personal privacy, freedom from unreasonable or arbitrary detainment and seizure, and due process on arrest.
In the years since the Charter was signed, legislatures still have the right to pass laws - but thanks to the Charter, those laws must be so constructed that they do not curtail our rights and freedoms. Where they do, courts now have the power to strike them down.
I don't think I would want to live in a system where legislators were not bound by a charter of rights and freedoms to ensure that statutes do not violate them.
One of the things I find incomprehensible is the clothes and makeup that a minority of young girls are wearing that from my perspective makes them look like tiny 20 year olds that are planning to go to a nightclub. Or do I remember incorrectly and is that an American phenomenon?
I have two young daughters and my mother is always on about this. It's her contention that most of the young girls that end up abducted and murdered were inappropriately dressed, and that this attracts sexual predators, so she's keen that our girls are dressed well. Honestly, since she pointed this out and I started paying attention to descriptions of what victims of this kind of crime were wearing, I have to say she's got a point. Not to blame anybody but the perpetrator, of course.
Be careful there, that logic doesn't hold for a lot of things. It might not be the clothes per se, so much as the activity and/or location they were at and the clothes just happened to be appropriate for the activity.
Example: Maybe girls are attacked at nightclubs a lot. You can't blame the clothes. The reason is probably because nightclubs are usually open at night. And(at least in the bay area) some of the cooler nightclubs for younger people are in sorta-questionable locations in terms of safety. And finally, if you're a young lady going to a nightclub you're probably going to dress to look attractive. The whole nightclub environment, young ladies dress up attractively... guys being guys(TM)... add alcohol... shady-looking people wandering about directly outside the nightclub... a lot of things to blame there, but clothes wouldn't be top of the list.
Just to be clear, I was talking about girls that are around 6-10 years old. And I absolutely do not see this as an excuse for approaching them sexually in any way (let alone worse). Despite their outfit and make-up it's patently clear that they are children not adults. I just find it very weird to see that they want this, allowed and perhaps even encouraged by their parents. It's understandable that children want to be older, the weird thing is the sexualized way this is done.
Oh sure, you're quite right. I'm not really making any statistical clams. Just an anecdote. You can't legislate about appropriate clothing for young women, this isn't a political issue it's a matter of private choice.
You go to the swimming pool and try to pay your 3 pounds to go swimming, but they can't give you the blue armband for the 10:00 session because it's only 9:40, but they can give you the yellow armband for the 9:00 session, but that means you'll have to get out of the pool when the 9:00 session ends, but you're free to go upstairs and have a cup of tea until 9:55.
Me: "But that's insane. The pool is open all day"
Woman: [look of non-understanding, since this is how they've done things for 30 years therefore it is unquestionably correct, and nobody has ever complained before, and certainly one should know not to come to the swimming pool near the end of the hour, and who wouldn't welcome the opportunity to have a nice cup of tea?]
Me: OK, I'll take the armband for the 9:00 session, and keep 3 extra pounds in my trunks in case somebody asks me to leave in ten minutes so that I can walk back here and pay you again then.
Repeat that experience for every interaction with every business or government entity you deal with ever. You just want to give up and never leave the house. Until the internet goes down and you have to deal with British Telecom, at which point you start looking for property in France.