[Music] britain the home of the british 65
million of us bound together by the love of a nice grab bag of crisps a brisk walk in the fresh air
i'm pretending we're busy so we don't have to see our friends our history and culture are the envy of
the rest of the world but our weird behavior and complicated social codes leave other nations utterly
baffled yes prince or pauper publican or politician we all spend every waking
moment flustered flummoxed and frustrated by very british problems
[Music] if you've ever been too polite to recline your seat in an airplane
shown how much you like someone by insulting them or lost sleep over who you'll be sat next to at a wedding then
don't panic these are very british problems and you are not alone it's
ridiculous but we do it we do it because we're british in this series we'll take a look at the hidden
codes that citizens of this island are somehow hardwired to follow we fear looking arrogant i'm just
terrified i'm going to see the wrong thing please don't make a scene it's fine
and we'll investigate the logic behind our bizarre british behavior
weird little sprites you yes okay we've got problems but they're our problems
very british problems british and i [ __ ] love tradition
[Music]
in this episode we're taking a look at those very british problems we export to other countries
the bizarre behaviours we display when we're out of our comfort zone and bombarded with language customs and
situations we just don't understand
[Music] every year 34 million of us pack up our
speedos and leave the country for a well-earned break there's nothing like a packed weather
spoons at gatwick airport at 7 00 am to let you know that british people are going on holiday
because much as we love our little island it can't offer us everything we need in a holiday you see here is [ __ ]
in it she got abroad it's a [ __ ] result in it it's like nice walter there's no there's no
nappies floating about so it's like touch even when we're abroad we remain
thoroughly british at all times come on let's let's pack our stuff we're
gonna go to spain and it was so exciting and then we would hang around with a lot
of suburban british people and being british means lots and lots of
very british problems little things make me uncomfortable like sometimes you get to go to the countries
and they say you can't flush the toilet tissue down the toilet and then i think well now i've lost faith in your whole system
our very british problems kick off an erotic seven months before we even leave which according to an international
survey is when the average brit starts planning their tanning a really perfect summer holiday begins
in the winter car go back to lisbon fly from there to gibraltar pick up the liner as far as naples there's a
wonderful coach ride up to venice after that bob's your uncle my husband will plan everything quite obsessively in
this very sort of english way because we don't want to just be spontaneous or anything like that heaven forbid i mean it's a holiday
it's got to be planned
[Music] so much homework to be done you can't
just buy an airplane ticket and turn up you have to say how many bags you're going to have how much they're going to weigh
how many items of hand luggage you finally run around the house going how many bags are we packing i don't
know the holidays in eight months they want to know now my dad is obsessed
with how i'm getting to the airport i just l i actually just spoke to him just
an hour ago because he's coming here tomorrow i know the whole itinerary hey dad what
time do you think you'll arrive tomorrow well being picked up at seven because i think
that's plenty of time bit of breakfast at the airport we won't eat anything at home we'll just get dressed go
bit of breakfast at the airport i think the flight is eleven we'll land then we've got the joys of us immigration so
i'll probably see you thursday right i don't need to know when your last bowel movement was down i just need to know
when you landed because of our fear of leaving anything to chance the average brit reads up to a
dozen reviews on tripadvisor for every single hotel they consider [Music]
i've got into a really bad habit when it comes to holidays especially and even restaurants on holiday where i'm
checking trip advisor when we went to mexico this year on a honeymoon for my birthday meal i booked
us into a place which was ranked second in cancun for restaurants it was a
little shack like offered like a service station and i'd got loads of people to go there as
well you know 40 people go and see a movie you'll have 40 different opinions about whether it's a good film or not
so why we'll all agree on whether the hotel was good or not i don't know but it's all you've got to go on
is that brian from layton buzzard said the bathroom was a bit grubby
can we go there brian didn't like it although we're addicted to reading these reviews we'd
never want to be the kind of person who writes them one italian lady posted on tripadvisor a staggering 7 900 times in
a year she's fun at parties you read it but then you think what kind of person is
this that's posting it like i found out one of my friends post on tripadvisor i've been able to look
him in the eye since booking confirmation received the next stressful episode comes on the day of
our departure [Music] [Applause] insurance companies say we're actually
more likely to be burgled on valentine's day or bonfire night but that doesn't stop us brits from being convinced we'll
all have our homes broken into during our holiday you can prevent crime
don't let them get away with it i'm just convinced this time we've been burgled and i'm going to get back and
all the doors and windows are going to be open and there's going to be 42 families living in our house [Music]
i never know how many curtains to draw do you leave a light on or do you get someone in to come and
change the light turn one light on one day because yeah i'm always concerned that someone's gonna burger
but do you leave your bedroom windows shut are you downstairs half shut um
what do you do that i just let me lie and roam free from the premises and put some off i will absolutely as i
as i'm locking the door and we're about to leave for three weeks i will just kind of go okay well bye see you soon
because you know you just don't know who's listening and also lowering your voice on the doorstep you know that
thing where you you lend your keys to the neighbors and you just say do you mind just making sure that there's no post left on the doorstep and that kind
of thing but i will always do it in this very sort of british lowered voice so i'll kind of go and can i just uh we've
got a set of keys it might be quite useful we're going away if you could just if you want to just look after the keys just good to have
the keys you know but specifically next week and in typically british fashion we're
determined to maintain standards even for the people who are ransacking our houses
i don't want potential criminals to judge me on my hygiene standards so the
rubbish is out everything's clean the washing is done the ironing is done the place looks better when i'm away for two
weeks than it does when i'm there [Music]
we're a country that loves a rule we've got etiquette guides stuffed with thousands of them from the correct way
to address an earl to the acceptable way to eat an avocado and at the airport rules are
particularly important because they're the last familiar ones we'll see before our foreign destination with all its
unfamiliar ways and the first airport rule get there in plenty of time
it's always about getting there on time they say two hours before three hours before and then but other people are
thinking the same thing so four hours before just be there
the only problem with arriving four hours before the plane leaves is it actually gives us more time to stress
i think the anxiety starts when you arrive at the airport and you see a check-in desk after checking desk i've
checked this with nobody there except for one check-in desk that seems to be like a take that
concert or a one direction gig the 7 000 people all seem to be getting to that
desk i hope that's not that it is the desk and then your heart sinks constantly
constantly imagining that you've lost a child a bag an important document your
mind it's a sort of constant low rumble of terror
underneath the surface we're in a state of supreme stress worrying we've forgotten everything from passports to
plug adapters but holidays are meant to be fun so we internalize our emotions as
ever british people at an airport are a ball of tension
but do not wish to show because we're going on holiday aren't we so we're about to have the best time ever so it's people
smiling and inside they're weeping because nothing's going well and
someone's forgotten something and it's it's a powder keg of emotions
wrapped up in a sombrero just make sure that your sombrero fits into a bag measuring 56 by 45 by 25
centimeters [Music]
our innate anxiety about breaking rules reaches fever pitch as we head through security when i go to the airport
and they try to take my toiletries away from me obviously i'm going to get a bit antsy and i know kate moss got in trouble for
saying it on the plane but that basic [ __ ] taking out my toiletries and and dropping them into that bin in front of
me and looking at me like this is a security thr*at as she drops into the bin it's not just this this is
clarence exfoliator if you throw it away i'm the [ __ ] security thr*at
you can't do anything you have to just let them chuck it away you're totally helpless
because of the w*r on terror what about the w*r on dry skin [Music]
now that's all over how about a nice wander around the shops no we prefer to stare constantly at a flickering
departure screen waiting for an inevitable problem [Music]
there's boards that you have to look at all the time you always look at the board is the gate being announced yet no it's not it's not going to announce yet
so we're going back to duty free you know what's not saying that's saying that saying that the flights before has
been countered does that mean a flight through castle no it hasn't expired it's fine we go back to duty-free why are they going that well we don't know
because we don't know if they're going the same place as us but they seem to be moving now i know we said we were going to go to duty-free yeah but what's the
they do that thing of going boarding now putting an outboarding now buddy now you're late and you're racing through the airport because you're thinking oh
but it doesn't take off for another hour and a half why are they shouting at us final boarding what and you get there
and there's still this snail-like queue of people getting the gate 18 and it
says it takes 22 minutes i know it takes 22 minutes to get to k18 but that is for the slowest person in the world all
right that's for the that's for the person who's sitting on that drivey thing and it's broken down and they have
to push that is how long it will take so we can get there a little bit we've got enough time no i think we better go now
because we don't want to miss the flight do you want to miss the flight and you're already in a state of anxiety before you even got on the plane
there's nowhere more important for the british to form a nice orderly queue than at the airport after all it might
well be the last bit of structure we have for a fortnight my dad will he'll start the queue
two hours before the flight is boarding uh-uh i'm getting an exit road it'll be
worth it you're gonna stand for two hours so you can sit with legroom
for a 45-minute flight go into dublin dad i'm surrounded by passengers from around
the world what better place than an airport to show other nations how it's done i once landed at la
and they said there's been a problem the computers have all gone down
we were there for nine hours standing there in a line and in our line because there was a
british plane and there was an italian plane after 20 minutes all the italians were lying around as though they'd been sh*t
as they were sort of dying there were people leaning on comforting each other people weeping
sort of you know the brits stayed standing in the queue
for the whole nine hours just queuing
so what have we learned we love going on holiday but we're terrified our hotel will be awful we're terrified we'll be
late and we're terrified we'll all be burgled join us after the break when we finally leave the country
that'll be relaxing right right [Music]
hello again welcome back to our look at those very british problems that dog us when we fly off to unfamiliar territory
when you travel by air your chances of getting k*lled in a crash are currently one in 200 million miles of flying
at present speeds that means you'd have to be airborne continuously for about 160 years before your number came up
us brits are more nervous of flying than any other nation in europe
but our fear of flying is trumped by our love of holidays so we just bury ourselves in our paperbacks and our
ipods and get on with it which actually makes us pretty good people to sit next to on the plane [Applause]
you always want to sit next to a british person on a flight because they keep to themselves i had the misfortune of sitting next to
a lady from quebec my last trip to canada she had a fear of flying
and she started talking and crying it made me miss britain it may be like
why can't i be sat next to someone who internalizes that fear so that it comes out later as alcoholism
as well as alcohol we have another way to combat our nervousness the soothing security of rules and regulations
so just put your tray table up and wait for the captain to say when it's okay to go to the toilet
it's a little bit like a school room again because we're very much like being told what to do it's their domain and as
nice as they are to us they have the final saying and they will tell us when to eat
they will tell us when to drink they will tell us when we've had enough to drink they will tell us to sit down because
you can't go to the toilet at the moment because the seatbelt sign is on and we sit there and we do that because
we like to know rules we like order you have to put the tray table up and the seat in the upright position
and the blind up as well i asked the lady about the blind and this is the genuine reason that they
tell you she said it's because if something goes wrong with the plane you're the pilot's eyes
what the plane's going into a nosedive and i meant to just amble up to the cockpit and pop my head through
the door i'm awfully sorry i didn't know whether you noticed but one of the wings has fallen off oh you did oh you did you had that
covered okay great it's ridiculous but we do it we do it because we're british and if we're told what to do we do it
researchers at university college london have proved that us brits need 16 inches around us to stop us feeling that our
personal space has been invaded no wonder we feel so uncomfortable on planes
brits are uncomfortable with physical proximity anyway uh and in a plane
you are wedged in these tiny seats next to somebody else and you could be there for hour after hour
so i think we like to pretend that the other person isn't there
[Music] i got on a plane once from australia
to los angeles this is years ago and uh a guy sat an american sat down
next to me and his word he went hey roomie he went this is what we'll do
you think of three topics i'll think of three topics and we'll talk all the way to los angeles
and i looked at him and just put my headphones on and went
even though we avoid conversation with other passengers at all costs it doesn't stop us inwardly fuming at what we
consider to be unsociable behavior i was on a flight to uh cyprus once
which is about five hours and in typical british fashion uh no one said anything about there was a guy playing a game on
his phone with the sound on fool like for five hours and only as we were
coming into land did the women go that's been very annoying
[Music] but there's one type of aeronautical behavior that winds us up more than
anything else [Applause] [Music]
i don't recline my seat because i'm very very spatially aware and if within minutes of
the plane taking off and the seat belt side disappears the person in front reclines their seat that's the point when i start thinking
oh great it's going to be one of those flights you know the reclining airplane seat was first
introduced by german carrier lufthansa back in 1926. naturally a brit would never invent something that invaded
someone's personal space i never put my seat back because i know there's no room
and this guy put his seat straight back into mine which means that you know you it means that the seat is his seat is
there and when you have your little little nibble of food that they give you you're you're like a mouse
so i said please can you not do that and he said [ __ ] off you know i said right there's a
little golden rule here i said that um when you're you know in this small confined space
no one reclines their seats i know you're able to but we don't because it's not fair on the people behind
[ __ ] off i mean it's just that's all i got i discovered he was an american so um i spent the whole flight
i felt a bit pathetic really because he i didn't win he just stayed there and i was just left getting up but it doesn't
matter really unfortunately news of the british protocol of never reclining and keeping
ourselves to ourselves has got around the international community and some of them are taking advantage of it to get
some extra elbow room i will always try to sit beside a british person even
if i have to exchange seats with someone on the plane because i know that i can spread out
more i can take advantage of them i can move into their space and i know they're
going to do very little about it except grumble and i don't really care move over fella
and of course we do move over it would be rude not to but when the plane lands and our fellow passengers applaud our
britishness starts to short circuit we don't want to appear impolite but we also don't want to participate in any
public outpouring of emotion [Music]
i don't clap the [ __ ] geez he's getting weighed on for it [ __ ] off clapping we do it
he's got about 800 grand a year and you don't even [ __ ] land it's a computer
[ __ ] thing but i think clapping is a very american thing and i don't like it i don't like people applauding things
because you go through some turbulence i suppose you might say that
british people would say sorry every time there's a bump now i'm always going yeah come on let's
hear it give it up for the pilot people and they will do it brits will go
so we've survived the flight with hopefully a minimum amount of awkward clapping and no interactions with
strangers it's time for the taxi to the hotel and oh dear we have to interact with a stranger
my car turned off at the airport when i got there and just like ended up being at the complete mercy of like some
taxi driver who's like driving me around buenos aires and all i've got is like seven quid in my person at w.h smith's
receipt and i realized that i don't actually speak spanish and like anything i do say they don't understand that's when you
feel you're most british [Music]
the taxi is named after an inventor called baron von turner texas who came up with the idea of charging us by the
minute it isn't known who invented the idea of taking the extremely long route to the hotel
or our irrational fear of taxi drivers [Music]
when you get a taxi late at night in a foreign country you could have the nicest person ever but they will always
be a part of you just thinking in that journey they're definitely taking me to some secluded
ditch and i'm definitely not coming back ideally what you want to see is a photo of some kids on the dashboard that's
what you want why am i because he's buried [Laughter]
research by travel agencies found that brits don't relax on holiday until day three and until then we're that most
terrifying of things the new person at the hotel
when you first arrive at a hotel you're not settled in yet i think the worst thing can happen to you when you arrive at a hotel is they give you like a fruit
cocktail welcome drink and you have to sit in the lobby and you're marked out as you've just arrived
everyone else is sauntering around full of confidence they know where they don't know where the pool is they know where the restaurant they know
where the buffet breakfast is you don't and it's really obvious you're sitting there looking slightly ashamed with your
passion fruit-based drink i always approach the reception desk with a with a slight so i'm braced ready for ready
for the problem here we go they're not going to have the booking i know that's what's going to happen and then i'm going to have to complain and i
can't do that i'm just so what will actually happen is i'll just go oh that's fine yeah don't worry it's fine it's fine and of course it's not fine
because i'm there with my family and my luggage and it won't be fine normally the british reserve means we
bottle up our frustrations and never let them show but sometimes just sometimes after a long day's traveling the stress
of being out of our comfort zone at the front desk can finally erupt we went to stay
in disneyland once i remember that and my dad got really annoyed that our bags hadn't been taken up to
our room and as children as well can you imagine how traumatic this is watching
my dad build himself up into a rage and then tell goofy to go [ __ ] himself
it's always a good idea to be armed with a few foreign phrases when you head off on holiday the typical brit knows seven
spanish words 10 in french and around three italian phrases [Music]
excuse me repertoire two more
[Music] i always say you know say hello
and that we're from scotland and see what happens now sometimes it can go well
uh sometimes they start speaking to you in their native language and you haven't learned anything and then that's very
awkward because you've kind of gone hello imagine that in a phone like hello in a foreign language
no sorry i only learned hello the most british thing i've ever done is when i went to the world cup in brazil
the one word of portuguese i asked to learn before was um sorry or the version of excuse me which is the sculptor
because i thought that would get me through being there if i bump into someone and i say that then i'm sorted
and so that tells you just how british i am when i go abroad so it's politeness i didn't like i didn't want to know stuff
for ordering any any like kind of etiquette in the restaurant if they're taking my money
they can speak english oh my god it makes you sound like britain first [ __ ] it out don't go to a
meme on facebook that will develop amazon somebody shout out
for those more ambitious brits there's always the hope that a single sentence might impress the locals
often this sentence remains with us for life when i was a kid i went on a cultural
theater exchange to the czech republic and because we were performing there we
were each given a translation of one of our lines of dialogue it was about women's suffrage so what i was saying was not
particularly useful in everyday life and it was
intricate which i think means give women suffrage now
having kept it in my head i used to try and sell the dummy that i was speaking czech to sort of waiters
and stuff okay so you've landed without mistaking the call button for the light switch but you think you may have insulted the taxi
driver with your tip and you've already fluffed your first attempt at the language you really need a drink after
all that mine's a pina colada
[Music]
we are exploring the tricky business of how to behave when we take off very british problems abroad from malia to
magaluf wherever we head on holiday chances are we'll bump into some fellow bricks and we always feel that we should
give them a quicker low as long as it's just a quick one [Music]
i will go as far as a hey hey like that i'll do a hey i'll do that but
you're not getting another word out of me of course we acknowledge each other when we're away of course there's that
it's like a a small deer in a forest you go there you go oh there's somebody yeah
and occasionally you'll go uh newcastle yeah glasgow and then you move on so we've just
landed on some um island so oh hello i hear from you where are you from you're a british yeah do you know where i'm
from are we guessing hold on i know that accident yeah are you in graduates oh yeah
yes and this is your wife yeah
i know what you mean where are you from then i've just tried the hotel bar yet we could meet up later
do we leave our wives at home yeah well she's not coming out no she's back i'll see you there then right
you're in your chunks yeah i'll be wearing my trunk so [Music] that was that went somewhere i never
expected it to go so we've acknowledged a few fellow brits at the continental breakfast bar but
that's as intimate as it's going to get
if i'm at a restaurant and there's another british couple sitting in england i'm not going to just make
friends with them so why are we now trying to make friends now just because we're in a different country oh isn't it lovely we've met that couple no because
the holidays ruined i don't think it's lovely i didn't book can i go on holiday with my wife and two
nobody's i don't know i've never met before could we can i book that now please that's not our books me and my
wife went on holiday and i made the mistake of just saying to another british guy
all i said was is that the rib eye that's it they were there we sat here is
that the rib-eye and he took that as oh we're best friends for the rest of the holiday
to the point where me and my wife were like stealth operators like if we were still
searching for O*ama b*n L*den i would just send stephen karen because they would find him like that
[Music]
to stop us spending the whole holiday hiding from our new acquaintances we've come up with a series of polite but
ambiguous codes to avoid any sort of holiday friendship blossoming [Music]
the first conversation is great it's like hi how are you you know where do you live blah blah blah great have a great holiday have a great holiday this
holiday speak for goodbye like end of see you don't want to hear from you again i'm friendly with lots of people
who work in the bar or in the restaurant because they're the people who are important
you know the guy mixing the drinks is important the guy giving you your dinner
but anybody else absolutely golden rule we don't talk i pretend that they're talking to somebody
else research by an online travel agent found that a quarter of brits give out fake
phone numbers to holiday friends clearly we don't want to be stuck with them for any longer than strictly necessary
[Music] [Applause] i think it's it's best to avoid trying
to make friends on holiday you know it's all a little bit a little bit kid malaria this isn't
something that's ever going to be continued back home and you don't want to get to the end of a fortnight and start exchanging numbers that you know
you're never gonna ring just leave it we went on safari it's another couple
and it was fine we chatted and you know it's all inclusive you have drinks and food and stuff like that and then they
emailed a month later saying we should meet up
why would we meet up and go we really got on do you know what we got on because it's really hot and we're looking at some
lions and we're all in a good mood i'm not gonna meet up with you and crawly it's not gonna be the same backdrop is it
debbie and i've been darting like mad going to the gym three times a week when we get here and you see the sights on
the beach nothing brits are the second most diet obsessed
country in europe after the danes unfortunately half of us fail in our diets after three days which makes
stripping off a trial
i think they're more confident in their bodies other countries british people hate it i think if british people could cut their head off and just put it on a
block we would just a little knocking about no bodies we hate our bodies and if anyone's got a good body we're
like i'll look at him pull it away i do feel like everyone's got a much better body than me oh
absolutely you should try it when you have to sliver into into the sea with one leg on even even worse when you get
stung by a jellyfish screaming and the first thing people see is when you come out with one foot missing
like grass what's going on here some big jellyfish research by a pharmacy found that nine
million of us get sunburned every time we go abroad but at least that means the sun was out on our holiday
[Music] nothing makes me happier than checking my weather up and seeing a whole
row of sun suns sun happy happy sun screen grabbing it and then send it to someone in britain i
love that but that is so british
somewhat beautiful miss
in britain we have only 60 days of sunshine a year compared to 300 in spain
so it's very important for us that those few days of sunshine in britain don't happen when we're abroad
i get that slight guilty pleasure when you google london weather and just
see rain clouds you're like it's more important that it's it's bad weather at home than it's good weather
on the holiday to find that they've they've just gone through a mini heat wave when you've got back from holidays
you might as well have taken all that money you spend the whole day and throwing it down the loo [Music]
and even worse than good weather back home is having british weather abroad sunday sunny spain
it's bucketing down i suppose the snow will come tomorrow
i went to france for a holiday and got to um nice or whatever and it was raining that
is depressing isn't it you leave london in the rain and you arrive at nice slightly heavier rain a little bit
cooler so after a day there i thought let's look at sandra pay and they said oh sunday there so i said
right we'll gain so we canceled the hotel moved to san tropez and got and the weather followed us
and it was then sunny in these went back to nice and it started raining in these
so i went home early to find that my gardener was having a party because he wasn't expecting me
home in my house so that was a great little holiday package
all because of the weather if the weather's no good abroad then
it's the perfect time to go sightseeing [Applause] [Music]
i would love to see an old ruin i just can never be [ __ ] sag don't get on a coach or something
you think i want to go and see that so i'm [ __ ] 300 years old but you know i just can't be balanced
you don't know how long you meant to stand looking at something i went to see the mona lisa in the louvre
and about 20 seconds in i was thinking how long do you reckon until i'm allowed
to walk away because i'm done here yeah but i don't want it you've seen it before oh yeah
i've seen it on a postcard i understand these people that go to crap stuff do i mean like you got to go to this
fountain do i you know it's like they're ruining a
nice trip with stuff do better stuff than here i wouldn't go and look at that
if it was next to my house why would i go to the other side of the world to have a look at it are you crazy
when we went to australian they were asking if we wanted to fly over ulla over airs rock and then i googled what
the aerial view of it was and i didn't go because i've seen what it looks like and
i looked at it on google images and i thought [Music] so to recap we acknowledge other brits
abroad but avoid chatting to them in case it leads to an unwanted friendship we hate it when there's good weather at
home and we don't like to spend any more than three minutes in the museum which is how long it'll be before i see you
again
[Music] [Applause]
welcome back to very british problems we are taking a look at those peculiar vbps that we pack up and take with us when we
go off on holiday
[Music]
in britain we don't have much in the way of dangerous wildlife it's all been rather tame since the sabretooth tiger
d*ed out a million years ago in the 21st century our deadliest animal
is the cow responsible for around five deaths a year brits have a hard time relaxing in any
kind of natural setting because nature d*ed in britain about 600 years
ago
as british people you go to the toilet here and the worst it's going to be is a spider so but when you're abroad and you hear
all the horror stories come back to you so i'm scared of using like you know the lavatory because i'm always terrified
that there's going to be a snake that comes up so i tend to try and hover over it and sort of look just
in case the snake's gonna come up and bite me i don't understand that people live in this country with these dangerous
animals let them have it there's enough of the world to go around for the rest of us they've chosen there to live let them
have it our fear of animals on holiday really took off in the 1970s when the
government scared us into believing that any contact with foreign dogs would instantly k*ll us
can you imagine being frightened of every friendly animal you meet imagine rabies in britain
all dogs will be leashed and muzzled no animal may be moved in or out of the infected area
all cats will be restrained the rule is any any animal domestic or
not abroad has rabies that's all that can go through your head when you see a dog rabies rabies rabies
rabies rabies if the dog comes up and licks you you've probably got 72 hours to live rabies is a k*ller we must keep rabies
out what a sort of um mild bit of racism to spread around oh they're dogs they've
got rabies they'll k*ll you don't go near the dog stay in your hotel build your own pub don't go near the locals no
their dogs have rabies [Music] but dying a protracted painful death has
nothing on our worst fear of all the foreign toilet
i've never seen turrets like this before you got me joking it's only the floor
[Music] [Applause]
i get nervous about using toilets in other countries in fact i would say on holiday the first two days i just won't
[ __ ] i just won't it's like my body's going dude let's just feel this out for a bit
and if it's safe then okay we've got one for you in development but let's not drop a deuce until we're
absolutely sure about the situation [Applause] in britain we get through two and a half
times more loo role than any other european country so the prospect of being stuck with a hole in the ground
and no paper is particularly terrifying sometimes there's a hole in the floor and a water tap british people cannot
handle that it's just like what do you want me to do with that i won't be surprised if someone just went in there sort of jet wash the floor on the left
[Music] if you're of a sensitive disposition and the thought of a foreign latrine is
turning your stomach i should warn you that we're about to discuss an extremely distressing topic
haggling nice one not too much 10. i get 10 for it
three thousand okay two year one three thousand okay give me twenty thousand
[Music] british people hate haggling i hate haggling it makes you feel physically sick there's too much pressure it's too
much stress i'd rather pay double and then you see the people at the market all giggling and laughing they're like he's going i've got that much off him
whatever mate i've got my self-respect i think it's rude i think it's roots they've said how much
it is just pay it you don't go to your local supermarket and go well i know it says a pound for milk but 25p you don't you just give
them the money how much is it and they'll just give me the price and i go all right and there you go and then i move on with my life
mainly because i've not gone abroad to spend my time haggling over key rings
shaped like camels haggling is a form of public arguing and we don't like to do that
haggling is saying i want this no i want this we we like to do everything with through
subterfuge and code we don't like to overtly disagree with people
so we brits avoid confrontation at all costs which also means no complaining on
holiday besides even if we wanted to we probably couldn't not with the language barrier and everything
i think what you do when you go on holiday when you're british you just make the best of it really you've called it on you've paid for the [ __ ] thing
so if it's a bit ropey you suffer it you're not know
the british would rather grin and bear it than make a foss
complaining and hold it breaks the illusion of um it just been like paradise and that you start admitting to
yourself somehow like this is really [ __ ] this holiday innit look at this [ __ ] that the server know
look how [ __ ] that beach is that pedalo costs 1 000 and [ __ ] pounds
to go out for for 10 minutes so you know you're admitting that you've screwed up you could have stayed at home watching
the box we'll never want to admit that we've wasted our time and money so instead
it's just a case of keep calm and carry on pretending everything's fine when you go to places like america and
stuff like that they feel like you're all working together for you to have a good experience i mean so you know when i get
a complaint you know what i feel it's helping me to improve so thank you thank
you for telling me how i can help you and inept where you've helped me i don't feel like that i worry that i'm
causing them a problem you know you want to be as as little of an issue as you possibly
can i think that's the british instinct my mum could order a sandwich
you could bring her a salad containing shards of glass and she'd go
it's fine honestly i'll eat it but i don't have the right who has the right to complain
american people that's who has the right to complain british people don't have the right to complain you're a little
suspicious of foreign hotels well what could be more reassuring than this one
another luxury hotel where the staff will greet you as though you are royalty or even americans i like the british way
of suffering in silence on holiday you don't want to complain and i didn't even realize that you were
that way largely until i went back and holidayed among american people who
complain just to check that you're paying attention they'll be like oh but could i not have
this and just does the cream sauce have cream in it does it oh well i don't it's
mortifying the americans invented the service industry maybe that's what makes them so
happy to complain about it although in fairness we brits do complain too we just do it to the wrong people other
brits we like a [ __ ] don't get me wrong between the other people in the hotel we
will moan like we will literally go an hour just saying i'll tell you what though i don't know if your room is like it but like they haven't changed our
sheets and we'll moan about it never tell a single person from the hotel about it and then you'll see somebody from america or something properly
moaning at the staff and go tell you what i wouldn't that's out of order that is but i bet you they got clean sheets
after two weeks it's time to check out and head home back to britain it's good to be back because no matter where you
go if you're british there's no place like home what are you looking forward to most
about this holiday probably getting back but i don't know yet
[Music] i got off at april i came back from australia
i could have cried when i saw that grace guy it was brilliant it was so lovely
that's a national rule that you have to say isn't it nice to be back everyone has to say that
as soon as i come home suitcase goes down i have a nice cupboard so we have a nice cup of tea oh do you know you can't get a good cup of
tea anywhere apart from you i can't can you [Music]
[Applause] sleep in her own bed something else you say it'd be nice to sleep in our own bed
tonight [Music]
first thing i do as a british man when i get home is order a [ __ ] chinese and i think most people do that they don't
just fancy chinese for some reason doesn't change that ranger holidays eh we worry we'll miss the
flight as soon as we've booked it we avoid talking to anyone when we're there and we honestly can't wait to get back home now
where's that menu [Music]
henning vane looks at brits from the outside in his witty immigrants guide to britain starts next monday at 10 and a
bit of british life not known to many a passion for dressing up and crawling all all fours dressed as dogs the secret
life of the human pups is revealed wednesday at 10. next tonight bill bailey's in the corner but he's not a
dog he's a cat playing countdown coming up