- Hello everyone, and welcome back to English With Lucy.

Today I'm very hot, and it's only 19 degrees.

We're gonna talk about that later.

Today I'm going to talk to you about

50 weird and random facts about British culture.

Now this lesson's more of a fun one.

It's going to be great for your listening practise

and if you want to improve your pronunciation

alongside your listening, I highly recommend Audible.

It's an online database of audiobooks,

and I've got loads of recommendations

in the description box.

Basically, if you listen to an audiobook

narrated by a native speaker,

at the same time as reading the actual book,

it's basically the key to learning perfect pronunciation.

You can claim your free audiobook and 30 day free trial

by clicking on the link in the description box,

where I've also put loads of recommendations

for great audiobooks, to help you improve your English.

Right, let's get started with the video.

Fact number one.

Tea is by far the most popular drink drunk by Brits.

Maybe you knew this, but apparently we drink

165 million cups of tea every single day.

Bananas!

I've drunk no tea today.

It's not my favourite, I don't hate it,

I'll have it if I'm offered, but yeah.

Number two, on our main TV channels,

that's channel one and two and quite a few others,

they're run by the BBC and we don't have any adverts.

This is because we pay a licence fee

and I think it's over 100 pounds a year,

but basically we have to pay.

If we have a TV we have to pay it,

even if we don't wanna watch the BBC.

Now I kind of like it because I like ad-free TV,

but I also don't want the BBC

to tell me whether I can have a TV or not.

Number three, queues are incredibly important to us.

If you push into a queue, if you queue-jump,

you will be universally hated in Britain.

Doesn't make sense.

Comment below if queues are important in your country,

because I went to Spain and I lived there for a while,

and people did not respect queues.

When I lived in Spain I remember being in a bank

and some lady thought that her problem

was more important than my problem,

and she just pushed in and was like

sorry, this is an emergency.

I was like, in Britain that would never happen!

Number four.

Please, sorry and thank you basically dominate

all of our social interactions.

It's so ingrained into our brains

that we often bump into things

and then apologise to the inanimate object.

Like I have whacked my shoulder on a door

and said "Oh, sorry", and then felt really stupid

and British, at the same time.

But yeah, just a simple task

like passing the salt at a dinner table.

"Sorry, please could you pass the salt?

"Thank you, sorry, sorry, excuse me please."

Honestly, we say it about eight times.

Number five.

When you greet a friend in the U.K.

you don't normally shake their hand.

You don't normally shake their hand.

Normally you give them one kiss on the cheek.

If you've recently been in the rest of Europe

then you might give two kisses by mistake

and say "Oh sorry, I've just got back from France.

"Just got back from Spain."

And if you're feeling very masculine

and you're with another very masculine person,

then even though you know them very well

you might still shake their hand,

but that's only if you're very very masculine.

Number six.

When the sun comes out,

because it doesn't come out so often,

we make the most of it.

In 15 degree heat we will wear sandals, mini-skirts,

strappy tops, bikinis,

and we will get very very sunburned as well.

The day after a sunny day, everyone is red.

It's terrible.

Also, our houses are not designed to cope with the heat,

as I'm experiencing right now.

It's 19 degrees outside and I am absolutely dying.

Number seven.

British cuisine, well our most known dish

is probably the Sunday roast,

or beef and Yorkshire puddings.

However, we actually voted for our national dish

and we voted for a chicken tikka masala,

which is an Indian dish.

Number eight, if you are on public transport

it is highly expected that you give up your seat

for an elderly person or a disabled person.

And if you don't do it, people will tut at you.

This is a very British thing.

People just go (repeated tutting).

But we don't like to be too direct.

Sometimes we muster up enough courage to say

"Excuse me, that person needs that seat",

but we're not gonna be too confrontational about it.

And if we are ever confrontational with someone

on public transport, we spend the next week

coming down from the adrenalin and replaying the situation

in our head, telling our mates about it.

It's a big deal.

Number nine, our humour can be quite difficult to understand.

We love sarcasm, we have quite dark sense of humour.

We can be quite dry, so we can say things without smiling.

I love the British sense of humour

but it can offend people sometimes.

Sucks to be them.

Number 10.

The majority of museums in London are free.

And we do actually use them quite a lot.

There's been a big increase

in Brits trying to do cultural things,

which I think is great.

Hasn't quite reached me yet,

but I did go to the museum in my village last year,

so that was great.

Number 11.

If you are invited to the home of a British person,

if they are providing a meal or a party for you

then you are sort of expected to bring some sort of gift.

Normally a bottle of wine, some flowers or chocolates.

If you don't bring a gift,

we wouldn't say anything about it

but we would silently judge you.

Number 12.

We are absolutely obsessed with our animals here,

by animals I mean pets.

We put our pets before our own children sometimes.

We are dog and cat crazy.

Number 13, as soon as the sun comes out

we leave work, when it's a good time to leave work,

normally five o'clock, and we go straight to a pub garden.

We don't go inside the pub,

we go straight to the pub garden

or if there's no direct route to the garden

then we will march through the pub directly to the garden.

We love a pub garden.

In fact when I finish this video,

I'm going straight there with my neighbour.

14, that brings me onto our drinking culture.

It's quite bad but it's getting better.

It's very normal to see some very very drunk people

on Friday and Saturday nights,

and Sunday nights if it's a bank holiday,

which means we have the Monday off work.

But millennials, our younger generation, are drinking less,

which is a very good thing,

and binge-drinking cases are going down.

Number 15.

If we hold open a door for you, which we probably will,

we expect a thank you.

However, if somebody holds a door open for us,

and it's actually at a really awkward distance

so we have to kind of walk faster

and they have to wait for ages holding the door,

both parties hate this situation

but we still say thank you and we still do it,

because, I don't know why.

It's polite!

Number 16.

We are, hmm, this is divided.

Some of us are very polite drivers

and some of us are very rude.

The polite drivers will probably let you through

but they will expect a thank you.

We live for that thank you wave.

Sometimes people just lift a finger and that's enough.

I just like the acknowledgement.

I'm a polite driver.

Polite drivers also love to tut and shake their head

at impolite drivers who have not thanked you

for letting them pass.

(repeated tutting)

Number 17.

In many cultures around the globe

women want to have lighter skin,

but in the U.K. we want to have darker skin.

Well, not all of us, but a lot of us like to use

fake tanning products to make our skin darker.

I must admit I have got some on today.

I'm a very light shade of orange, on my knees particularly.

Yeah, we don't have much sun,

we don't get much chance to tan,

and having a tanned complexion, I think,

is almost a sign of wealth.

Like you've been on holiday recently.

I just think I look healthier with a bit of a tan

but you might not agree.

Number 18, we are very divided over the Royal Family.

Some people think it brings in loads of tourism and money.

Some people think that they spend way too much money

and there's never really been a study to show

whether they bring a profit or loss to the country.

So it's a funny one, we just don't know.

Number 19, the weather in summer can never be guaranteed.

So we don't actually go on holiday

in our own country that much.

We do, but we can't guarantee

it's gonna be a sunny beach holiday.

A couple of years ago my family and I

went away to Cornwall, to a beach resort,

and there was not a single day of sunshine.

It poured it down the entire time

and we just said never again.

We will always go abroad now.

Number 21.

We like to thank the bus driver when we get off the bus.

In London, on the school bus, anywhere,

it's pretty normal to say "Thank you", as we get off.

My school bus driver was absolutely amazing.

He actually used to buy us all Easter eggs.

A whole school bus of children, he was lovely,

his name was Roger.

I hope I get to see him again.

Number 22.

Dinner is often our biggest meal of the day,

I'm talking about evening dinner.

We have a fairly heavy breakfast, a light lunch

and then a heavy dinner,

and we normally have breakfast between seven and eight,

lunch between 12 and one,

and dinner between six and seven normally.

Number 23.

"How are you" and "You all right" are not genuine questions.

If we say "Hi, you all right,"

I don't actually expect you to answer saying

"Well, actually, no I'm not, my goldfish died."

I just expect you to say "Yeah yeah, you all right."

And that's it.

Top quality interaction.

Number 24.

Our population is incredibly diverse.

In London, for example, in 2011,

when they did the census that they do every 10 years,

44.9% of the population were white British.

That means London, as a city, is so diverse

and it's something that a lot of us are really proud of.