No offense taken, I was just a bit at sixes and sevens as to the exact meaning of your reply 
Respondents need not be British - they just need to know stuff about British usage of the English language. Example, I’m not British, but I can tell you a “crisp packet” is a potato chip bag.
FYI … “Brilliant” is so last year.
Everything is “amazing” now !
(Many Brits have very small vocabularies (i am a brit btw))
Sure - it would have been better to say “people who know the factual answer”. And I wasn’t for a moment suggesting that nobody else should comment to discuss matters of linguistic interest. As I say - my comment was only intended as a throwaway joke, and obviously didn’t hit home as such.
“Right” – especially leading off an utterance – seems to pull a lot of duty in British English.
I think my favorite nuanced use of British “right” is to mean “You’re shamefully lying/wrong/mistaken, but I’m too polite to say so openly”.
The American equivalents “(I’m) sure” and “OK …?” just don’t have the same panache. “Sure, Jan” is fun, but childish.
Now you’re on the trolley! But, what in tarnation does “a bit at sixes and sevens” mean? Some sort of Norwegian colloquialism, or just phonus balonus? It gives me the heebie jeebies. I’ve got to go iron my shoelaces now, after I see a man about a horse.
Assuming you aren’t just having a laugh and actually want to know, my understanding is that it’s an English idiom used to describe a condition of confusion or disarray.
I first learned the phrase from the Rolling Stones’ song Tumbling Dice, although they also added ‘nines’ to the phrase, which seems to be a Stones invention…?
The phrase isn’t a specific colloqualism, the structure is though.
If I want an update on a situation where the context is very plain and understood between myself and the respondent, a query can be expressed with very few words - for example:
I’m in charge of a team answering support tickets; I’ve just come back from lunch. I say “Many tickets?” - it’s immediately understood that I mean “Have there been many new tickets in the interval since I was last here?”
Likewise “Any news”, “Anything happened?”, “Been busy?”, “Feeling OK?”, “Much traffic?”, “Had lunch?”, “Going out?” etc
Edit: I have a feeling English might get this from its Germanic roots.
I was having a laugh, but also wanted to know, so thanks! Your explanation was the gnat’s whistle.
Would these not be colloquial in non-British dialects?
No idea; I just know it’s very common in British English.
Maybe he was asking about lunch… Munchin’?
Back to brilliant. In British and Australian usage, where we are allowed not to only use the literal version of words, ‘brilliant’ can also be a perfectly acceptable response to some news that annoys you and has just ruined your day.
e.g. ‘Your sister and her husband are joining us for this cruise’. ‘Brilliant!’
The literal meaning of “brilliant” has to do with bright lights. So it’s not the case that Americans don’t make metaphorical uses of words.
That’s a bit unfair. Americans understand sarcasm wonderfully well, after it’s explained to them.
I just watched a couple of episodes where it’s said and this is the answer.
I found some episode transcripts, and it appears the general consensus on the interpretation is correct. (Some of the dialogue part identifications are clearer than others.)
Brilliant!
Now can anyone explain what “There’s a sudden” means? 
Sudden death I suspect.
I’m guessing that “a sudden” is copspeak for “a sudden death”?
Officer training on Sudden Death:
ETA: bah, ninja’d by Princhester bc I went out for cites. 