real talk, help me understand Britons

pint a bitters please.


had neighbors from somewhere south of London

moved to my hood in Boston growing up. they were really nice people. the dad was an engineer, the mom home schooled the kids.

their youngest asked me one day 20 years ago w his little accent..."why do the english say twenty, but the americans say TWUNNY?"
ah, the wisdom of youth. i told him "because we aren't the brightest bunch, back in the old times some of us got kicked out of England for being naughty"

housesitting for them was like taking care of adults. they were more responsible than i was. it was like seeing what an actual functional family could be.

so i can imagine the living standards vary in UK. some people are peasants, some are more like royalty, old money....

when i see jeremy clarkson rip on things richard hammond does it just confuses me. its culture shock to see them nit pick over what to me, seems like very minor cultural nuance.

im even part english/scottish among a few other things, mostly italian, then spanish, and even finnish as well.

so we came here a couple gen's ago, i guess after the 1st world war.


im a pretty big fan of British culture- Gordon ramsay is one of my heroes... but there are many things that just bewilder me. and i consider myself *somewhat* worldly.

its interesting the variety of accents, traditions, lifestyles, and influences for such a small land mass. i guess you've been practicing since before the romans showed up, so things must have had time to get weird.

now that you have my background, please share some info or insight.