English Traditions

The other morning Robbie Vincent on JazzFM was asking if listeners could come up with strange English traditions that foreigners find perplexing.

Some of those listed were:

1) Asking, "Do ..... you ..... speak ..... English?" in very slow, measured tones as if speaking to an imbecile. And 9 times out of 10, the foreigner speaks better English than you.

2) Marmite on toast.

3) Taking food abroad. Some English tourists arrive on holiday with cans of baked beans etc.

4) Complaing that, "It's all foreign food here." When I lived in Portugal, I would always reply, "No, it's not actually, most of it's Portuguese. There is a small amount of foreign food for those who can't do without their English breakfast or Sunday roast, but you'll find the majority of it is Portuguese." In other words, you're the bleeding foreigner here, mate.

5) Getting frustrated when people don't speak English when we go abroad. Why should they? It's their country. We wouldn't expect all our taxi drivers to learn French, Spanish and Japanese just for the tourist trade, would we?