I just want to know what your impressions are of our [sub]mighty island[/sub] 
I’ve got an idea that you all think we sit around in our suits of armour, supping tea, in our 25 room mansions, set in our 25 acre estates.
Any questions you want to ask, feel free.
Any English dopers want to back me up, also feel free.
There a jolly good chap 
I, of course, live in a castle with a thatched roof. I wear floaty dresses and have tea with the queen every second Tuesday. On Sundays, I entertain the vicar at the village fete before popping into town on my bicycle for scones and jam.
I like to dine on jellied eels.
I’ve read too much John King. I know if I go there I will be terrorized by thugs who will kick the faeces out of me because I am wearing the wrong coloured scarf or something.
I do, however, realize that this is not the case in Scotland. There they will kick the shite out of me on general principles… (see, I read Irvine Welsh too!)
My mental image of England, based on some Merchant Ivory films and mid-1980s school-girl daydreams about Duran Duran, is:
Based on all this, England sounds really cool to me and I still, after all these years, really really really want to visit.
Am I still allowed to after the above description?
Well 1 and 7 are right
Incidentally, if you really do want to come to England, everyone’s welcome to Londope 2002. We promise to talk all posh at you.
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I see English cottages that have brick - walled gardens with cobblestone paths. The gardens are filled with Delphiniums, Hollyhocks and Foxgloves. The ladies wear long dresses and big straw hats when they work in the gardens, and they never get dirty.
That’s good enough for me! BTW: I really love rain.
And not dramatic rain, though that is nice, too.
I like the slow drippy grey rain that lasts all week.
Outside of London, there are lots of rolling fields with low cobblestone walls, quaint stone cottages with thatched roofs (at least one has smoke rising from a cobblestone chimney, even in the summer) and sheep (lots of sheep) grazing placidly on the hillsides (occasional mini-stampedes, but then they start grazing again). An occasional castle or ruins of an abbey in the far distance.
London is full of small gangs of street urchins (at least one has a dirt-smudged face) in newsboy caps ill-fitting clothes (usually the pants are too short), calling everyone “guv’nah”.
Judges wear long, tightly-curled, white wigs and black robes (with the occasional fishnets and garters beneath).
People live in either:
A) the family manse (manicured croquet lawns, butlers, dining room table seats 120 but the husband and wife sit at opposite ends of the table); or
B) rows of tiny cottages with cramped rooms, the wife wears dowdy housedresses all day, and the tv reception is really bad.
Every major city has a red double-decker sightseeing bus.
People from Knightsbridge are not to be trifled with.
Everyone shops at Harrods.
Every castle has a ghost.
All churches have huge gothic towers, stained glass windows, and a pulpit with a staircase. And the vicar stops your house by for tea, but only if you lie in he suburs.
A cross between “Upstairs, Downstairs” and “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”??
Back during the Nixon Administration Your poster and Mrs. Gelding took a 10-day leave and drove Great Britain from Portsmouth to Inverness. Had a great time, stayed in B&Bs, ate and drank in local pubs, drove the narrowest, most curvy roads I have ever seen (on the wrong side of the road until we met our first oncoming traffic each day). Bought a pinch waisted tweed jacket made of woven cast iron at a cut rate tween jacket chain recommended in “Europe on Five Dollars a Day.” Fordor’s book was our Bible for those happy pre-children days.
The enduring image for me was in Hyde Park, London, early one morning. We were quietly walking along in the park when a platoon on Horse Guards came by at the trot. The men were in green(?) duty uniform without arms. Apparently they were just out exercising the horses. The horses were all tall, dark colored, beautifully groomed and perfectly behaved. They clattered into view and then clattered away. It was about the last thing we expected to see.
The industrial midlands, on the other hand were just as depressing as any of our old rust belt cities.
Mancunian , you ought to chat to somepeople online , I talked to this woman/girl from California who thought that Braveheart was set in modern England and Scotland.Alas tis not
It’s my favourite place on this globe!
As a dumb yank that is saying alot!
Lived in Cumberland and the people were so nice and friendly… I have more friends there than I do in the US!
Hummmh… That statement gives me pause… The further away the better the friends…
::wandering off to consider the fact I might just have some responsibility in this matter::
Oh absolutely! Having just watched two full series of Jeeves and Wooster on disc I’m assured of it.
I just want to say that the happiest years of my life were when I lived in England. My Dad was stationed at Bentwaters-Woodbridge Air Force base. One of the great regrets of my life is that he didn’t send me to an off-base school. Some of his friends did, damn, those kids were smart.
But we did live in a bungalow off-base. That was cool, I hung out with the English kids and had a great time. Learned to play soccer and rugby. (and if Jennifer and Ivan from Kesgrave are listening …).
London is quite warm and sunny, temps in the mid-70’s, not a cloud in the sky, lotsa pigeons, and there’s a weird guy in the middle of the street with a karaoke machine, dancing like a boogalooing fool.
(Well, I’ve been there three times, and it was like that each time. If it’s not always like that, don’t tell me cuz I don’t wanna know.)
(Except the dancing guy. He was just there once.)
I live in the country.
There isn’t much to do around here in the winter so we have to make our own entertainment. My favourite nocturnal pastime is highway robbery, with a spot of wife-swapping thrown in when the omens are favourable.
I put on my Highwayman’s Uniform and untether Black Nostril from her stall. Then I ride down a dark lane and conceal myself behind a Large Tree.
When a stagecoach comes along I just hold it up with a cocked pistol. Well, two actually. Normally I rob the passengers but leave their (female) virtue intact. I used to say things like Your Money Or Your Wife in a firm voice but you get too many wives if you do that. So now I just take one wife and everyone else’s Doubloons, Bags Of Gold, etc.
Naturally I always take a wife back to part-exchange (the one from the previous robbery) otherwise it wouldn’t be wife-swapping, it would be Kidnapping. That’s a serious crime and could result (if caught) in a trip to The Gallows.
And I forgot to mention how proud I am that Tommy Atkins and GI Joe are standing shoulder-to-shoulder again. Thanks for your support, guys. Um, I mean, blokes.
You met my Dad ?
Matron, better make up another bed.
(1)…Ditto Boscibo
(2)…20-somethings loitering on the streets with green/yellow/orange/cyan/magenta spikes in their hair!