How to speak British

You might think you know how to speak the language of Great Blighty, but just because you picked it up as a child doesn’t mean you’ve fully grasped its intricacies. Thankfully the internet is full of helpful advice for those trying to master British English, and in this post I’m going to round up some of the key findings for you.

Food

Every guide seems to begin with food words. In Britain, eggplants are called aubergines and zucchini are called courgettes. Then we have some more useful translations from YMT Vacations:

Word	Translation into British
Chips	Crisps
Beer	Jar
Cheetos	Puff snacks
Doritos	Doritos
Slices of cured ham	Rashers

Vogue add that flapjacks are “not pancakes”, though they have no information about what flapjacks actually are.

Nouns

What do you call that thing? If you want to avoid just pointing at something, you need to know its name. Thankfully Vogue knows a lot more about what things are called.

Word	Translation into British
Toilet	Loo
Elevator	Lift
Uniform	Kit
Pregnancy	Up the Duff

Quintain Living helpfully throw in some more common nouns that you might require. Don’t make the mistake of using the words on the left if you want to avoid being laughed at.

Word	Translation into British
Kiss	Snog
Man	Bloke
Toilet paper	Bog roll
Police officer	Rozzer

On that final point, YMT Vacations also helpfully share their understanding that the common British term for a police car is “jam sandwich”.

Idioms and phrases

If you really want to speak like a native Britisher, you should sprinkle some common Brit-sayings into your conversation to convince the locals that you too are from Fair Albion’s green and pleasant shores. Vogue have soaked up the culture and offer the following extensive list.

Word	Translation into British
Weird	Dodgy
Cray	Bonkers
Gross	Gammy
Ugly	Butters
Dating	Courting

YMT Vacations don’t know many common phrases, but they do know that if the weather is bad you should say it’s “blowing a hooley”.

We will give the last word to Quintain Living, though, who recommend avoiding the heavily Americanised phrase “go away”. Instead you should tell British people to “sod off”.

With all this advice you should have no trouble fitting in to British society and you’ll be the King of Downton Abbey in no time. Pip pip!

Old tat? Yes please!

How are you for gravel? Got enough?

Are you looking for a beautiful hand-made gift for a loved one?

Are you craving some more bits to fill up your cupboards, drawers and/or shed?

Free and affordable items are few and far between these days. Luckily there are mega chads still out there willing to part with their prized possessions for next to nothing, and sometimes nothing.

My local Facebook group has never let me down. Let me show you some of the treasures that have come up over the last month:

My favourite, by a mile and a half, has the be the one below because it makes me smile so much. I burst out laughing the first time I saw it:

The words, “whatever you see them as” will forever send me into tiny giggles. I’m considering writing them on the wall in the living room; it’s the new ‘live laugh love’.

Take a look at YOUR local Facebook group. Perhaps YOU’LL find something too.

Public Glasses

Now that I am visually challenged, I have come to understand the true value of seeing things. For so many years I took for granted my ability to just point my eyes at something and see it properly. Now my feeble oculus needs prosthetic assistance, I realise what a gift sight can be. I’ve been a fool all these years. An ignorant fool. An ignorant fool with 20:20 vision.

That is why I have started a campaign: Public Glasses.

My new charitable organisation will place glasses at strategic points across the UK, so that everyone can look at things no matter where they are.

No longer will you need to squint at a blurry landscape or the fuzzy remnants of an Iron Age hill fort. Whenever you feel the need to direct your peepers at something, just grope around at your barely identifiable surroundings, and there you’ll find a pair of specs, placed there for the benefit of the nation by Public Glasses.

I’ve made a start by filling my local park with glasses, and I encourage you to do the same. Then, when you’ve done that, donate all your money to my charity. Together we’ll bring the gift of eyesight to the masses.

Fancy pub checklist

Pubs all used to be more or less the same, back in the day. Dark brown furniture, brass rail along the bar, limited range of warm beers that were predominantly bitter and included something called “mild”, and the only food offering was pork scratchings.

Nowadays pubs come in a wide spectrum, from the old man boozer to the soft play family carvery. Most pubs serve food of some description. But every now and then you find a pub that is genuinely fancy.

How fancy? Well, now you can find out by scoring your pub against this helpful checklist.

Guest ale on tap: 1 point
Guest gin with home-made marketing display on the bar: 2 points
Man at bar is wearing a gilet and has an extremely large dog asleep at his feet: 1 point
Dog snacks on the bar are in a stylish glass jar: 1 point
Separate “restaurant area” for dining, though you can also eat in the bar if you want: 1 point
“Please wait to be seated” sign in dining area: 2 points
Separate menu for Sunday lunch: 1 point
Separate menu for dogs: 2 points
Exposed wooden beams: 1 point
Exposed wooden beams that are actually structural and may be grade II listed: 2 points
Table service for diners: 1 point
Table service where the waitress is an actual waitress and not one of the bar staff: 2 points
Made-to-order bar snacks available: 1 point
Made-to-order bar snacks feature miniature fish and chips served in one of those fake mesh buckets as though it’s just been lifted out of a deep fat fryer: 2 points
Made-to-order bar snack menu features n’duja, olive tapenade and padrón peppers: 3 points
Men’s toilets do not smell of urinal cakes: 1 point
Men’s toilets look clean: 2 points
Men’s toilets actually are clean: 3 points
Men’s toilets have hand lotion in little squirty bottles by the sink: 5 points

Dog Botherers

Hey! Hey you! You with the dog!

Whatcha doing with that dog? Are you bothering it? Is it that awesome that you can’t help but bother it and want to spend time with it? If that’s true, then you need to join the ‘Dog Botherers’.

You shouldn’t feel ashamed about your behaviour. There are thousands of awesome dogs out there. They’re sat with their owners out in real life which is great but sometimes you can’t bother them because they’re doing their own thing. That’s upsetting.

At ‘Dog Botherers’, we don’t mind if you bother our dogs. Our weekly meetings are designed for people like you to bother dogs in a safe and friendly environment. Come meet like-minded individuals over a hot cup of friendship and a generous plate of fun biscuits.

If you like dogs, bothering your dogs and bothering other people’s dogs then ‘Dog Botherers’ is the place for you.

Book now! It’s no bother!

Open source Chris

Here I am with a microscope. But what can I see?

I’d just taken a swab from my cheek and under the ‘scope was a sample of my own facial cells (or “facells”, as biologists call them). And once I’d managed to zoom in enough, I saw this.

It’s my DNA.

There it is in all its glory, all those chains of genetic information that make me so brilliantly unique. And now that I’ve put it online, it’s open source, free for anyone else to come along and use it, remix it and build on it. Feel free to take a screenshot and use it for your own biological experiments.

I’m hopeful that this is the beginning of an amazing new age where there are millions of clones of me running around everywhere. A world of genetically engineered Chrises wherever you look.

What will you do with my DNA? Let me know in the comments.

Clickbait roundup

The internet is full of junk these days, articles promoted into your social media feeds and “related content” links in your news articles. And you want to read it all, of course you do, it looks fascinating. But you’re a busy Executive Gentleman with a busy executive lifestyle, and you don’t have time for all that.

So how are you going to keep up with your colleagues around the watercooler when they’re all discussing the latest clickbait articles they’ve been reading? Well, never fear. My new subscription service Clickbaitr is now up and running, and for a monthly fee I’ll summarise all the hottest clickbait on the internet so you can keep up with this rapidly changing world.

Interested? Of course you are. See below for your free trial of conveniently summarised clickbait junk.

Happening soon

Guys, everyone, I know this is upsetting to some but I needed to get the word out now before it’s too late.

Gary Barlow is happening soon!

Now I’m not expecting people to start jumping into their nuclear bunkers immediately. It looks as though we have a window, how long is anyone’s guess. As long as you’re busy looking through Barlow Handbook when you have the chance to do so then that’s all we can ask.

Double check that you have plenty of water and tinned food. Carry out plenty of practise exercises with your ear defenders and earplugs.

Don’t take any risks. If you see a Gary Barlow coming towards you, whether or not he is singing, turn around calmly and walk in the other direction with your hands over your ears.

And whatever you do, don’t click that button; you do *not* want any more information.

Pouring
Beans

Category: Invaluable Public Service