The best of British

1. A postal system which works. Most first-class letters arrive within 24 hours of posting. Delays of more than 48 hours are taken as evidence of social breakdown, and the Government offers to resign.

2. Understanding of the restorative value of tea with milk at teatime.

3. London’s black cabs. Clean, plenty of headroom, all doors convincingly attached, and drivers who know the way.

4. Wake-up alarm calls which can be booked.

5. World’s cleverest shop-window displays.

6. World’s best and most stylish TV commercials.

7. Milk delivered daily to the doorstep.

8. Doctors who still make housecalls (off-set by chemists who won’t open at night or on weekends so you can fill the prescription).

9. World’s grooviest and most inventive hairdressers (pink highlights, madame?).

10. Upholstered seats in London tubes.

11. Best Italian restaurants of any city in the world, including Rome.

12. Best Indian restaurants of any city in the world, including Delhi.

13. Some of the world’s best theatres, and tickets which are still cheap(ish)

14. Great bookstores, cut-price paperbacks.

15. City streets which are safe(ish).

16. The survival of the traditional English nanny (which has ensured the survival of the 2-career family).

17. The only significant gay population not yet decimated by AIDS.

18. Police who, as a rule, do not carry guns, and have lots of friends who help them with their inquiries.

19. High interest-rates on ordinary deposit accounts.

20. Real town-houses in the centres of big cities, some still in single-family occupation.

21. Truly prurient gossip-columns appearing daily in respectable national newspapers.

22. National newspapers.

23. Public transport systems that do.

24. Preference for real wool carpet (100%) at prices which stop just short of ludicrous.

25. Wonderful parks, where civic authorities indulge the public fascination for plant-life.

26. World’s most beautiful traditional ‘prams’. Won’t fold away and store in cars, but perfect for wheeling baby-Brits through world’s most beautiful parks.

27. Appreciation of cream. Cream cakes, clotted cream teas, coffee with real cream, strawbs with cream at Wimbledon. Liquid double cream poured liberally over your already obscenely fattening fudge cake.

28. Harrods and Harvey Nichols (where most British women would like to be forced to remain under house-arrest).

CONTENTS:

INTRODUCTION............................................................................. 4

UNIT 1. THINK GLOBAL, SPEAK LOCAL (Tape) 6

UNIT 2. BASIC BRIT-THINK AND AMERI-THINK.. 6

UNIT 3. BRITS AND YANKS ABROAD.. 15

UNIT 4. STRICTLY BUSINESS. 23

UNIT 5. BRITS AND YANKS AT HOME. 28

UNIT 6. GOING PLACES (Film) 35

UNIT 7. WHAT DO THEY ASPIRE TO?. 36

UNIT 8. REGIONALISM AND OTHER LOCAL PROBLEMS
(Multi-media support and maps available) 45

UNIT 9. PATRIOTISM (Multi-media support available) 52