Myths About Britain - Debunked (Part Two)

In my last post, I talked about some misunderstandings regarding the United Kingdom and what it is like to be a British person as well of some things that people from other countries get wrong. I have some more to talk about today.

Our Beer is Warm

In Britain, there are so many beers that I could barely begin to even start naming them. We have several different types such as Bitter, India Pale Ale (or IPA), Mild and Stout. Each country within the UK has variations and beers that are specific to that country. We also have lager and lots of beers imported from other countries. 

You can enter most pubs in the UK and get a variety of these so the choice is incredible. There is a lot of regional variation based on local breweries. For example in Stockport, a town that is not too far away from Manchester, we have Robinson’s brewery so we have a few pubs in Manchester that are owned by that brewery and specialise in the various different beers from that brewery. Sometimes we get beers from other parts of the country too, for example from London. 

Many micro-breweries exist too and their beer appears in various pubs that like to offer “Guest Beers”, meaning that on any given day there will be a couple of beers that are only on offer for a short amount of time. 

The truth about our beer being supposedly warm is that it isn’t (well – sort of). Most beers are stored in the cellar whose temperature is controlled and you will normally find it served at about 10 °C (about 50 °F) but there can be variations depending on the season. For example, in the winter all beer is cold but in the summer it may seem to be a little warmer. That said, if you order a pint of lager it is always served cold no matter what the season is. 

In the colder months, I tend to drink Bitter or IPA but when the weather warms up I drift towards lager, usually continental offerings from Germany, Belgium, Spain, France or Italy. I have been known to drink any beer depending on the mood. 

To summarise, I can understand why, say, somebody visiting from Europe or the USA may find some of our own beers a little warmer than they expect it to be. But really, it isn’t. 

British Weather is Terrible

British people love to talk about the weather. Why? Because you cannot guarantee one hundred percent what it is going to be like, even when you have seen the weather forecast for that day. I remember once on one extreme day, I saw sunshine and then rain, followed by a freak hailstorm and then a thunderstorm. By the end of the day the weather had returned to a semblance of normality when the sun came out again. This was in June.

This all doesn’t mean that the weather in the UK is terrible. We just get a massive variation but we don’t get extremes like hurricanes, tornadoes or extreme cold or heat. 

In winter the weather is generally not good. We get lots of rain, usually some snow at times and also a fair share of sunny days. However, the temperature usually ranges from about -5 °C (23 °F) to a mild 10 °C (50 °F). We don’t get the extreme cold that they get in Russia for example. I recall being in Moscow when the temperature was -25 °C (-13 °F) and there was so much snow that there were mountains of it piled up on the side of the road. 

In spring and autumn the weather is genuinely quite mild and pleasant. We do get quite a lot of rain though and I am guessing this is where the “terrible weather” slur comes from. The summers are usually very pleasant with temperatures in Manchester rising up to 30 °C (86 °F) although it often gets a few degrees higher. The hottest temperature we have had in Manchester is 38 °C (100 °F) although it was even hotter in London. Again we don’t have the extremes of the Middle East where I experienced 46 °C (115 °F) in Muscat, Oman. 

The one thing I will say is that it could rain at any time – yet still we have droughts too. British weather is annoying sometimes but it is not terrible compared to some places in the world.

The United Kingdom is Boring

Whenever I’ve heard somebody say that the UK is a boring place, that person has never set foot on our islands. I have been to many varied and fascinating countries in the world and each one in its own way is interesting and full of adventure. And I think that sentiment also applies to my own country. 

The one complaint I hear most is the weather (see the previous point) but there is plenty to do and the UK is a friendly place full of people who are willing to talk to you and help you to enjoy yourself. We have an amazing history (if not a bit horrible at times) and thousands of cultural icons to enjoy. We have thousands of miles of coastline and four (count them – FOUR) countries all of which have their own culture and outlook on life. 

We have our fair of eccentric pastimes, eccentric people and some weird perspectives on life but these add to the charm. We are hilarious as a nation and boast some of the funniest people in the world. We are masters of self-deprecation and find humour in most situations. We have some of the greatest actors in the world and our music is legendary worldwide. 

There is a huge list of things that were invented by people from the UK including the world’s first stored program digital computer which was designed and built here in Manchester. We also were the pioneers of the Internet as well as inventing things like the hydraulic press, ATM, toothbrush, fire extinguishers, stainless steel,  steam engine, turbo-jet engine, telescope, hovercraft, lawnmower, light bulb, railway, the telephone and many more. 

We have always been amazing, interesting and we still are. We know how to entertain and also have fun, as you will discover if you spend time in a pub. 

We are definitely not boring.

All We Drink is Tea

I must admit that I am drinking a cup of tea as I type this. Nevertheless, I do drink coffee too. In fact at work, most people I worked with were coffee drinkers rather than tea. 

Tea is very popular here, probably more popular than it is in any other country with the possible exception of China and India and if you go to visit people here, one of the first things that will happen is that you will be offered a cup of tea. We have tea shops but we also have coffee shops too. 

I think this is merely a stereotype and I am being a little hypocritical because I do love a cup of tea (or a cuppa). 

British People are Reserved

Many people think that British people are reserved and we face adversity with our “stiff upper lips”. The myth is that we are polite and don’t show our true feelings preferring to hide behind a façade of stoicism and courage when confronted by something that is difficult or unpleasant. 

I think those old war movies have something to do with this particular myth. When you watch British officers and soldiers going into battle, they show no fear, are very polite and say things like “For King and Country” before marching off to certain death with no fear and a determination that they will “take out as many of the bastards as I can” before “returning to Blighty for a cup of tea and cakes”. In the case of Americans, they charge in looking angry and screaming their war cries while waving their flags and trying to put the fear of God into whoever is facing them. 

Here's a parody that illustrates what I am talking about from Monty Python.

The upper classes may have that old British War movie outlook on life but the rest of us don’t. In fact the vast majority of us are amazing and funny people and a lot of us are not reserved at all. We mock each other and ourselves and a lot of the time it’s hilarious. In fact, the further away from London north you go, and certainly the further north, the friendlier the people, as illustrated by this spoof news report:

Every British Person Loves the Royal Family

The Royal family are divisive in the UK. There are certain people who absolutely adore them and hang on every word they say. For such people every single story involving them is a must read and any word said against them is tantamount to treason. These people are fuelled by tabloid newspapers who themselves adore certain members of the family but don’t like others. The darlings of the Royal family at the moment are William and Kate. Nothing bad is ever written about them and Royalists worship them.

Yet William’s brother, Harry, is seen as a pariah, perhaps because he married Meghan Markle who rarely gets a kind word written about her. 

I try my best to ignore the Royal family, apart from the odd rant when a story about them is the number one item on the news. To me, a story about Kate turning up at a school is totally and utterly irrelevant. I couldn’t care less. But when such a story is given a higher priority than, say, the economy being in trouble, I get annoyed. To me they are just celebrities but with the difference that they don’t have any talent at all. They are just very rich.

It’s a bit of a cult in my view. I have nothing against them as people at all but I simply do not care one jot about them. As a nation we are divided into three camps; Royalist who love the Royal family (apart from Harry and Meghan and of course Andrew), people like me who don’t give a toss about them and then people who despise them. 

In the latter category, I used to work with a guy who called them all “parasites”. I can understand that view, although I don’t share it.

As you can see, we do not all love the Royal family at all. 

And finally …

I hope this has cleared up a few myths about Britain and British people and provided a fresh insight into the antics of the place I call home.

Caffeine Bomb

I have a love/hate relationship with coffee - or more accurately caffeine.

It all started when I drank approximately a gallon of coffee to help me cram in all of the knowledge in my notes the night before my very last exam at university. Usually I was well prepared but a mixture of laziness and arrogance forced me to spend most of the entire night reading and rereading reams of notes in the hope that some of it stuck.

Caffeine didn’t help me. On the contrary, I think it made the situation worse.

The coffee certainly kept me awake but my brain was totally and utterly fried and I didn’t get a wink of sleep. Sadly my ability to retain facts and apply logic flew out of the window and headed south. That was the worst exam I ever sat. After the initial panic was over, I somehow managed to struggle through dredging my memory to scribble down vague facts related to the subject at hand.

I passed – barely.

As a kid I rarely drank coffee. I would have a cup to force myself awake for a newspaper round at 6am in the morning, but apart from that I was a tea junky. I didn’t actually realise that tea contains a fairly large quantity of caffeine too - that's how stupid I was.

I have always loved my tea to be so strong that I can stand a spoon up in it. I leave the teabag in the cup for as long as possible so that all of the flavour – and caffeine – drains into the hot water.  Yet paradoxically I cannot stand strong coffee.

I remember my first trip to Europe way back in the early 1980’s. My travelling companion at the time was a coffee addict who drank his caffeine bombs by the bucket load. We spent loads of time in coffee shops in Amsterdam drinking the strongest coffee I had had to that point. The taste stayed in my mouth for a couple of hours until it was time to grab the next one. When people ask me how I felt about my first trip abroad, I used to say “the beer and food tasted of coffee and I barely got any sleep at all.”

Amsterdam? No sleep at all? Yes – but not for the obvious reason. I was so high on caffeine that I mutated into a gibbering wreck.

My brain was overstimulated but my body was completely exhausted. My brain wanted me run around like a madman but had no idea how to channel the energy into something constructive. The conversations went something like this:

BRAIN: QUICK!! WE NEED TO DO STUFF!!

BODY: Yeah – sleep!

BRAIN: NOOOOOO!!! SLEEP IS FOR ARSES!!! GET UP AND DO STUFF!!!

BODY: Do what? I’m exhausted.

BRAIN: I DON’T KNOW – JUST DO STUFF!!!

Coincidentally, the first time I worked abroad was also in Amsterdam, and my Dutch colleagues used to constantly supply me with huge mugs filled to the brim with potent coffee. I somehow survived on around four hours sleep a night for the entire week I was there.

Gradually as I got older, I started to feel the effects of caffeine more. The tipping point was when I found myself in a bar in Manchester around fifteen years ago with a few friends who insisted on sharing a pitcher of Red Bull and vodka. Until that point I had no idea what Red Bull was and naively thought it was some kind of weird mixer for boring old vodka.

I do not drink spirits but on this occasion I succumbed to peer pressure and had a fair amount. Inevitably I was slightly the worst for wear, noticeably drunk but there was something else wrong. I felt alive and buzzing, so much so that I was actually shaking.

I arrived home, desperate for sleep but lay tossing and turning on the bed with my brain and body completely and utterly wired. I think I eventually passed out at around seven o’clock in the morning some five hours after arriving home.

Red Bull gives you wings indeed – the stuff is lethal!

So why am I blithering on about caffeine?

The reason is that for the past year or two I have seriously cut down on my caffeine intake. I have even purchased decaffeinated tea – which is not exactly the best thing in the world but still infinitely better than the swill you get in Europe and America.

I still drink full fat totally caffeinated tea at the weekend but during the week my sole drink of choice at work is decaffeinated coffee.

I have had some abuse for this. One guy said:

“Why on earth do you drink decaffeinated coffee? Coffee tastes like shit and the only good thing about it is the BUZZ you get. It gets me through the day. Drinking decaffeinated tea is like drinking alcohol free beer – totally pointless.”

Nevertheless, I actually feel better for it. I sleep better and I am reasonably calm at work instead of being so wired that I run around like a demented lunatic.

Some people say that coffee helps the true executive to function correctly, keeping his mind sharp and focussed so that he can be bulletproof. Mr Motivator cannot live without his coffee.

So what does caffeine actually do that makes Mr Motivator so dependent on it? Caffeine actually blocks chemical signals in your brain that tell you how sleepy you are and thus kick starts your mind when really, perhaps, it should be feeling sleepy. I think we all know this especially if we are coffee connoisseurs or Red Bull addicts. However, as well as telling your brain that you should be awake instead of asleep, caffeine enhances mental ability, which is where Mr Motivator comes in.

“I need my caffeine to function at 200%!” says Mr Motivator.

Your body can successfully break down caffeine within a few hours so perhaps my mistake when I sat my final exam was not to drink a monstrous caffeine bomb comprised of Red Bull, caffeine pills and espresso.

Well I can function without it. My mind is clear and relaxed and I don’t end up buzzing around like a wired wasp.

Having cut down severely on my caffeine intake, I find that I am still reasonably agile mentally which is good because I don’t really miss it. I still love my tea and I can channel my energy into something useful. I have no problem staying up later though I don’t drink tea after 5 pm and usually end up falling asleep around midnight in front of Match of the Day or that late movie I really wanted to watch.

And I sleep a lot better when I finally do nod off at the end of the day.

I think I could actually live without caffeine in my life at all.

How about you, dear reader? 

Can you function without full fat coffee or tea?

Is caffeine a help or a hindrance to you?

And have you ever grown wings through drinking Red Bull?

I have to say, speaking about Red Bull, that it is absolutely disgusting. The taste is abhorrent even when tainted with vodka.

What on earth was I thinking? That is exactly the drunken thought that raced around my head for five hours in the wee small hours of that fateful night - and how disgusting Red Bull tastes.