Ask Another English Bloke (reprise)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Chanced across a fairly recent thread in which mattk volunteered his services in this role and got royally set upon. Due to a terminal misunderstanding with my hard drive I couldn’t answer the call for assistance but thought I might belatedly see if there was any mopping up to be done.

Reasonably wide knowledge of most matters indigenous: Politics, oddness, social history, general history, art, music, funny walks, race, gender issue’s, women – going to have to leave most of the gay stuff to Esprit and co, sport, etc… So any questions about:

This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of mars,
This other Eden, this demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone sea set in the silver sea,
which serves it in the office of a wall,
or as a moat defensive to a house,
against the envy of less happier lands,
this blessed plot, this earth,
this realm, this England,

this tongue-in-cheek quotation.

Fire at will – and yes, we always keep our socks on.

2

G’day London - good to see you again mate.

Q: How many people (approx) would you estimate would agree withmy contention that Man U suck?

And that reminds me: I have to check how my Wimbeldon predictions went.

3

Dear Another English Bloke,

Why is it that our American girls give it up so easily to you guys when they go off for a summer trip to England? Because it’s very hard for us American “blokes” to “shag” them once they get back on our side of “the pond.” Is it your accents or the bad teeth??
just wondering…

4

It’s the accent.

5

And we begin with a sports question from an Aussie – knock me down with a feather.

dpr – Evening/Morning, good to see you too. Reminds me of the famous quote from the English cricket captain at the customs desk as the team arrived in Sydney for a test series:

** Immigration Official**: And how long will you be staying, sir ?
** Cricket captain: ** About three months.

** Immigration Official: ** Do you have a criminal record at all ?
** Cricket captain: ** I didn’t know you still needed one.

Research puts the current number of people willing to cut the private’s off with a rusty bread knife, slowly, of any Man U player at 52 million. There is a direct and proportional correlation with sucking.

The Aussie’s did well at Wimbledon again this year, the men especially. Definitely looking good.

Jubei2k – We have an accent ? I tend to put it down to comprehensible names and good swordsmanship.

6

Sarcasm from a brit. Proof it’s the lowest form of wit.
It was funny though.
Which reminds me did you see that news story on the archeological dig the other day? Seems they found the fossils of the last succesful English sporting team…

(and yes I know your cricket team actually won a game the other day - thank god!!)

Won’t talk about England being knocked out of the main draw of the Davis Cup or Euro 2000.
But I am pleased to note there ARE signs of intelligence left in the old dart. 52 million huh?

7

It’s the accent. :drool:

Of course, I don’t have to hear London_Calling to want to shag him… I saw his picture.

Pardon me while I clean my keyboard.

8

Hmmph, hear London_Calling. That wasn’t intentional.
BTW, have you heard a phrase “Stick his spoon(fork) in the wall” ?

9

Hello, English bloke. I have some TV questions. (Well, it’s not called Mundane for nothing.)

We in the States are experiencing a spate of American copies of British shows - Who Wants to Be a Millionaire; Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush; Ready, Set, Cook!; Whose Line Is It, Anyway?. This is by no means a new occurrence - American TV has pinched stuff in the past, like Steptoe and Son (renamed Sanford). And I think there have been two misguided attempts to do an American Watery Fowls.

What I’m wondering is, are there any British copies of American shows? For example, do you have a show about 6 horrible, stupid people living together and the participants make an obscene amount of money - or do people in the UK watch Friends on satellite?

I’d also like to know if Whose Line? is still on the air over there. (I’m thrilled it’s on here, but our version has a problem - too much Drew Carey. Clive is much better at keeping the games rolling and knowing when to end a game.) We are getting “new” episodes of the English show on the Comedy channel (for “new” read: "shows without John Sessions that haven’t already been run and rerun 42 million times) but they are from 1997.

Ta!

10

Zyada – Hell fire and God’s teeth. You refer, I suspect, to the infamous ‘Gravedigger’ photo. I’m attending a country wedding this weekend and it’s possible that shot will be replaced – hopefully away from the churchyard. Anyway, you’ve suddenly made me very aware of my stiff collar. Thank you very much and I hope you won’t mind my socks.

“Stick his spoon in the wall” ? Never heard that, sounds curiously graphic. Closest I get is Zappa and Moonthingy doing “Valley Girls”

aseymayo – We have Friends - not only on satellite - and it’s still quite popular here.

We don’t copy successful formats from the States probably because the British public is more attuned to Americana (not only TV but Hollywood) and can therefore watch shows more comfortably in their original form. In other words, the British TV companies buy and screen the versions you see – as does much of the world (I saw Frasier in Portuguese last year, very deep voice and sounding hairier than Kelsey Grammer)

I suspect another reason why they do that is because there are only so many talented writers (smaller country). Experience seems to suggest it’s better to give writing talent a clean page and their own heads rather than trying to contrive comedy from something with which they’re not at ease.

Who’s Line is still showing and Clive really does do it unscripted although I understand the same is not always true of the players. I agree he does a good job of not turning the focus more to himself - my favourite was Josie Lawrence, IMO a very talented woman.

There is quite a lot more in a similar improv vein but it wouldn’t travel well because it tends to be more topically based.

As an aside, before he went into entertainment full-time Clive divided his time between practicing and teaching law and writing comedy skits. I went to that school 3 or 4 years after he left and several teachers were still doing the same combination. Made for an entertaining and not always wholly academic experience.

11

We did get two copies of American shows. ITV, the commercial channel with about as much comedy talent as my left buttock, tried remaking Married With Children and the '70s teen sitcom (Days Like These ?). They were both more terrible than a terrible thing, and neither got a second series.

12

jubei2k asks"

Jube, it’s the foreskin!!

13

Dear London_Calling:

First are the economic questions related to cost-of-living. Is there a legal minimum wage? How much money would, say, a cashier at a grocery store make? (For comparison, I make $6.20/hr (£4/hr?) at said job) How about a Junior Editor at the Publications Department at a not-for-profit organization? (I make $20,000/year (£14,000/year?) How are prices of everyday goods/services? A gallon of milk ($2.19)? A pound of ground beef ($1.69)? A bottle of cheap shampoo ($1.09 on a good day). Finally, how about the price of housing? A nice-but-by-no-means-fancy 3-bedroom home in a suburban neighborhood of a smallish city (like, say, mine, which has a population of about 120,000) would go for about $60-70,000. Rent on a 3-bedroom apartment in a good neighborhood would go for anywhere from $400-$700/month.

Now, for the cultural questions. First, the only pictures I’ve seen of British schoolchildren show them in uniforms. On this side of the pond, 99.99% of public schools don’t have uniforms, and about 80% of private schools do. Therefore, if you see a schoolchild in a uniform, chances are good that he goes to private school. On your side of the pond, are children required to wear uniforms at both public and private schools? Is there an attitude in Britain that public schools are for children who are too poor to attend private schools?

Finally, I’d like to know why no one has won the million on Britain’s WWTBAM. Are the questions that much harder? Can I have a few examples?

Thank you, Mr. London_Calling. God save the Queen.

14

Beat you to it, London_Calling!

Rastahomie:

(note - £1 is worth about US$1.55-US$1.60 or thereabouts)

There is a minimum wage - £3.60 for workers aged 22 or over
(increasing to £3.70 from 1 October 2000), or £3.20 for workers aged 18 to 21 or aged 22 or over and on accredited training (from the Department of Trade and Industry website). It’s a relatively recent introduction here.

Average wages depend on where in the country you live. I’m doing average secretarial/PA/admin/data entry temp work and I expect betweem £9.00/hr and £10.00/hr for Central London. Wages decrease proportionally outside London - maybe £6.00/hr in the South East and £5.00/hr to £6.00/hr in cities in the north or Scotland. Checkout staff can earn (depending on age, location and experience) between minimum wage and £6.00/hr. The average startin salary for a university graduate is (IIRC) about £20,000pa, although includes the really high-flyers. A more realistic graduate salary would, in my opinion, be closer to £16,000pa (obviously depending on profession).

According to the government, average gross weekly earnings is about £383 (ranging from about £565 for males in London to about £271 for females in the East Midlands). The English weekly average is £389.90, Scottish £350.30, Welsh £343.90 and Northern Irish £332.60 (table here).

The table linked here shows social stats like % of homes with TVs and the like, plus welfare figures.

The tables linked here are from an international price comparison report prepared by the government. The headline results were…

[quote]
In comparing retail prices for the UK against all three countries (France, Germany and the US), the majority of items successfully surveyed proved not to be significantly different - 45, in fact, fell into this category.

The UK was most expensive for 8 of the surveyed items:

[ul]
[li]Top 10 CDs[/li][li]A branded games console[/li][li]A 2 litre bottle of branded cola[/li][li]Packed ground coffee[/li][li]Cans of Lager[/li][li]Tinned Dog Food[/li][li]A bottle of branded & non-branded Shampoo[/li][li]Toilet Tissue[/li]
The UK was least expensive for 3 of the surveyed items:

[li]A 500gm pack of branded Cornflakes[/li][li]A packet of Choc Chip Cookies[/li][li]A long-sleeved Man’s Shirt[/ul][/li][/quote]

15

And for the rest of your questions…

School uniforms are compulsory in most state and private schools – I have no cite but I’d guess about 95% of both. “Public schools” are a variation on private schools here – someone explained it in a Harry Potter thread around here recently, I think. Private schools are still regarded as for wealthier families (because, obviously, you have to pay fees). Despite recent news stories about Oxford and Cambridge universities discriminating against state school students I think the bias is on its last legs – I went from an average state school with a lot of army kids to Edinburgh University and onwards, so I can’t claim to have faced discrimination.

Regarding your price figures…

The salary in a non-profit organisation is probably about the same (I can only speak with any kind of clue about London, though). Milk is (I think – I always do major shopping trips) about £1.10 for two litres. The only thing in my fridge with a price sticker on it is pork (£4.00/kilo), but I think bread is around 50p a loaf, shampoo about £2.00.

House prices are extortionate in and around London and the South East of England. My parents’ house is a Victorian four-bed which needed a lot of repairs. I think it’s worth about £140,000 (this is in a town of about 45,000 about 45 minutes from London). The one-room basement studio flat I live in would (if I could afford to buy) cost me about £190,000 (inner North London). Argh. My rent is about £820pcm, which is certainly not unusual in London. House prices change dramatically elsewhere – a big four-bed house in, say, Bradford, would probably cost about £70,000 to £90,000.