02x04 - On Holiday

Episode transcripts for the TV show "Very British Problems". Aired August 2015 - current.*
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"Very British Problems" is a humorous look at the British and their habits.
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02x04 - On Holiday

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[Music] britain the home of the british 65

million of us bound together by the love of a nice grab bag of crisps a brisk walk in the fresh air

i'm pretending we're busy so we don't have to see our friends our history and culture are the envy of

the rest of the world but our weird behavior and complicated social codes leave other nations utterly

baffled yes prince or pauper publican or politician we all spend every waking

moment flustered flummoxed and frustrated by very british problems

[Music] if you've ever been too polite to recline your seat in an airplane

shown how much you like someone by insulting them or lost sleep over who you'll be sat next to at a wedding then

don't panic these are very british problems and you are not alone it's

ridiculous but we do it we do it because we're british in this series we'll take a look at the hidden

codes that citizens of this island are somehow hardwired to follow we fear looking arrogant i'm just

terrified i'm going to see the wrong thing please don't make a scene it's fine

and we'll investigate the logic behind our bizarre british behavior

weird little sprites you yes okay we've got problems but they're our problems

very british problems british and i [ __ ] love tradition

[Music]

in this episode we're taking a look at those very british problems we export to other countries

the bizarre behaviours we display when we're out of our comfort zone and bombarded with language customs and

situations we just don't understand

[Music] every year 34 million of us pack up our

speedos and leave the country for a well-earned break there's nothing like a packed weather

spoons at gatwick airport at 7 00 am to let you know that british people are going on holiday

because much as we love our little island it can't offer us everything we need in a holiday you see here is [ __ ]

in it she got abroad it's a [ __ ] result in it it's like nice walter there's no there's no

nappies floating about so it's like touch even when we're abroad we remain

thoroughly british at all times come on let's let's pack our stuff we're

gonna go to spain and it was so exciting and then we would hang around with a lot

of suburban british people and being british means lots and lots of

very british problems little things make me uncomfortable like sometimes you get to go to the countries

and they say you can't flush the toilet tissue down the toilet and then i think well now i've lost faith in your whole system

our very british problems kick off an erotic seven months before we even leave which according to an international

survey is when the average brit starts planning their tanning a really perfect summer holiday begins

in the winter car go back to lisbon fly from there to gibraltar pick up the liner as far as naples there's a

wonderful coach ride up to venice after that bob's your uncle my husband will plan everything quite obsessively in

this very sort of english way because we don't want to just be spontaneous or anything like that heaven forbid i mean it's a holiday

it's got to be planned

[Music] so much homework to be done you can't

just buy an airplane ticket and turn up you have to say how many bags you're going to have how much they're going to weigh

how many items of hand luggage you finally run around the house going how many bags are we packing i don't

know the holidays in eight months they want to know now my dad is obsessed

with how i'm getting to the airport i just l i actually just spoke to him just

an hour ago because he's coming here tomorrow i know the whole itinerary hey dad what

time do you think you'll arrive tomorrow well being picked up at seven because i think

that's plenty of time bit of breakfast at the airport we won't eat anything at home we'll just get dressed go

bit of breakfast at the airport i think the flight is eleven we'll land then we've got the joys of us immigration so

i'll probably see you thursday right i don't need to know when your last bowel movement was down i just need to know

when you landed because of our fear of leaving anything to chance the average brit reads up to a

dozen reviews on tripadvisor for every single hotel they consider [Music]

i've got into a really bad habit when it comes to holidays especially and even restaurants on holiday where i'm

checking trip advisor when we went to mexico this year on a honeymoon for my birthday meal i booked

us into a place which was ranked second in cancun for restaurants it was a

little shack like offered like a service station and i'd got loads of people to go there as

well you know 40 people go and see a movie you'll have 40 different opinions about whether it's a good film or not

so why we'll all agree on whether the hotel was good or not i don't know but it's all you've got to go on

is that brian from layton buzzard said the bathroom was a bit grubby

can we go there brian didn't like it although we're addicted to reading these reviews we'd

never want to be the kind of person who writes them one italian lady posted on tripadvisor a staggering 7 900 times in

a year she's fun at parties you read it but then you think what kind of person is

this that's posting it like i found out one of my friends post on tripadvisor i've been able to look

him in the eye since booking confirmation received the next stressful episode comes on the day of

our departure [Music] [Applause] insurance companies say we're actually

more likely to be burgled on valentine's day or bonfire night but that doesn't stop us brits from being convinced we'll

all have our homes broken into during our holiday you can prevent crime

don't let them get away with it i'm just convinced this time we've been burgled and i'm going to get back and

all the doors and windows are going to be open and there's going to be 42 families living in our house [Music]

i never know how many curtains to draw do you leave a light on or do you get someone in to come and

change the light turn one light on one day because yeah i'm always concerned that someone's gonna burger

but do you leave your bedroom windows shut are you downstairs half shut um

what do you do that i just let me lie and roam free from the premises and put some off i will absolutely as i

as i'm locking the door and we're about to leave for three weeks i will just kind of go okay well bye see you soon

because you know you just don't know who's listening and also lowering your voice on the doorstep you know that

thing where you you lend your keys to the neighbors and you just say do you mind just making sure that there's no post left on the doorstep and that kind

of thing but i will always do it in this very sort of british lowered voice so i'll kind of go and can i just uh we've

got a set of keys it might be quite useful we're going away if you could just if you want to just look after the keys just good to have

the keys you know but specifically next week and in typically british fashion we're

determined to maintain standards even for the people who are ransacking our houses

i don't want potential criminals to judge me on my hygiene standards so the

rubbish is out everything's clean the washing is done the ironing is done the place looks better when i'm away for two

weeks than it does when i'm there [Music]

we're a country that loves a rule we've got etiquette guides stuffed with thousands of them from the correct way

to address an earl to the acceptable way to eat an avocado and at the airport rules are

particularly important because they're the last familiar ones we'll see before our foreign destination with all its

unfamiliar ways and the first airport rule get there in plenty of time

it's always about getting there on time they say two hours before three hours before and then but other people are

thinking the same thing so four hours before just be there

the only problem with arriving four hours before the plane leaves is it actually gives us more time to stress

i think the anxiety starts when you arrive at the airport and you see a check-in desk after checking desk i've

checked this with nobody there except for one check-in desk that seems to be like a take that

concert or a one direction gig the 7 000 people all seem to be getting to that

desk i hope that's not that it is the desk and then your heart sinks constantly

constantly imagining that you've lost a child a bag an important document your

mind it's a sort of constant low rumble of terror

underneath the surface we're in a state of supreme stress worrying we've forgotten everything from passports to

plug adapters but holidays are meant to be fun so we internalize our emotions as

ever british people at an airport are a ball of tension

but do not wish to show because we're going on holiday aren't we so we're about to have the best time ever so it's people

smiling and inside they're weeping because nothing's going well and

someone's forgotten something and it's it's a powder keg of emotions

wrapped up in a sombrero just make sure that your sombrero fits into a bag measuring 56 by 45 by 25

centimeters [Music]

our innate anxiety about breaking rules reaches fever pitch as we head through security when i go to the airport

and they try to take my toiletries away from me obviously i'm going to get a bit antsy and i know kate moss got in trouble for

saying it on the plane but that basic [ __ ] taking out my toiletries and and dropping them into that bin in front of

me and looking at me like this is a security thr*at as she drops into the bin it's not just this this is

clarence exfoliator if you throw it away i'm the [ __ ] security thr*at

you can't do anything you have to just let them chuck it away you're totally helpless

because of the w*r on terror what about the w*r on dry skin [Music]

now that's all over how about a nice wander around the shops no we prefer to stare constantly at a flickering

departure screen waiting for an inevitable problem [Music]

there's boards that you have to look at all the time you always look at the board is the gate being announced yet no it's not it's not going to announce yet

so we're going back to duty free you know what's not saying that's saying that saying that the flights before has

been countered does that mean a flight through castle no it hasn't expired it's fine we go back to duty-free why are they going that well we don't know

because we don't know if they're going the same place as us but they seem to be moving now i know we said we were going to go to duty-free yeah but what's the

they do that thing of going boarding now putting an outboarding now buddy now you're late and you're racing through the airport because you're thinking oh

but it doesn't take off for another hour and a half why are they shouting at us final boarding what and you get there

and there's still this snail-like queue of people getting the gate 18 and it

says it takes 22 minutes i know it takes 22 minutes to get to k18 but that is for the slowest person in the world all

right that's for the that's for the person who's sitting on that drivey thing and it's broken down and they have

to push that is how long it will take so we can get there a little bit we've got enough time no i think we better go now

because we don't want to miss the flight do you want to miss the flight and you're already in a state of anxiety before you even got on the plane

there's nowhere more important for the british to form a nice orderly queue than at the airport after all it might

well be the last bit of structure we have for a fortnight my dad will he'll start the queue

two hours before the flight is boarding uh-uh i'm getting an exit road it'll be

worth it you're gonna stand for two hours so you can sit with legroom

for a 45-minute flight go into dublin dad i'm surrounded by passengers from around

the world what better place than an airport to show other nations how it's done i once landed at la

and they said there's been a problem the computers have all gone down

we were there for nine hours standing there in a line and in our line because there was a

british plane and there was an italian plane after 20 minutes all the italians were lying around as though they'd been sh*t

as they were sort of dying there were people leaning on comforting each other people weeping

sort of you know the brits stayed standing in the queue

for the whole nine hours just queuing

so what have we learned we love going on holiday but we're terrified our hotel will be awful we're terrified we'll be

late and we're terrified we'll all be burgled join us after the break when we finally leave the country

that'll be relaxing right right [Music]

hello again welcome back to our look at those very british problems that dog us when we fly off to unfamiliar territory

when you travel by air your chances of getting k*lled in a crash are currently one in 200 million miles of flying

at present speeds that means you'd have to be airborne continuously for about 160 years before your number came up

us brits are more nervous of flying than any other nation in europe

but our fear of flying is trumped by our love of holidays so we just bury ourselves in our paperbacks and our

ipods and get on with it which actually makes us pretty good people to sit next to on the plane [Applause]

you always want to sit next to a british person on a flight because they keep to themselves i had the misfortune of sitting next to

a lady from quebec my last trip to canada she had a fear of flying

and she started talking and crying it made me miss britain it may be like

why can't i be sat next to someone who internalizes that fear so that it comes out later as alcoholism

as well as alcohol we have another way to combat our nervousness the soothing security of rules and regulations

so just put your tray table up and wait for the captain to say when it's okay to go to the toilet

it's a little bit like a school room again because we're very much like being told what to do it's their domain and as

nice as they are to us they have the final saying and they will tell us when to eat

they will tell us when to drink they will tell us when we've had enough to drink they will tell us to sit down because

you can't go to the toilet at the moment because the seatbelt sign is on and we sit there and we do that because

we like to know rules we like order you have to put the tray table up and the seat in the upright position

and the blind up as well i asked the lady about the blind and this is the genuine reason that they

tell you she said it's because if something goes wrong with the plane you're the pilot's eyes

what the plane's going into a nosedive and i meant to just amble up to the cockpit and pop my head through

the door i'm awfully sorry i didn't know whether you noticed but one of the wings has fallen off oh you did oh you did you had that

covered okay great it's ridiculous but we do it we do it because we're british and if we're told what to do we do it

researchers at university college london have proved that us brits need 16 inches around us to stop us feeling that our

personal space has been invaded no wonder we feel so uncomfortable on planes

brits are uncomfortable with physical proximity anyway uh and in a plane

you are wedged in these tiny seats next to somebody else and you could be there for hour after hour

so i think we like to pretend that the other person isn't there

[Music] i got on a plane once from australia

to los angeles this is years ago and uh a guy sat an american sat down

next to me and his word he went hey roomie he went this is what we'll do

you think of three topics i'll think of three topics and we'll talk all the way to los angeles

and i looked at him and just put my headphones on and went

even though we avoid conversation with other passengers at all costs it doesn't stop us inwardly fuming at what we

consider to be unsociable behavior i was on a flight to uh cyprus once

which is about five hours and in typical british fashion uh no one said anything about there was a guy playing a game on

his phone with the sound on fool like for five hours and only as we were

coming into land did the women go that's been very annoying

[Music] but there's one type of aeronautical behavior that winds us up more than

anything else [Applause] [Music]

i don't recline my seat because i'm very very spatially aware and if within minutes of

the plane taking off and the seat belt side disappears the person in front reclines their seat that's the point when i start thinking

oh great it's going to be one of those flights you know the reclining airplane seat was first

introduced by german carrier lufthansa back in 1926. naturally a brit would never invent something that invaded

someone's personal space i never put my seat back because i know there's no room

and this guy put his seat straight back into mine which means that you know you it means that the seat is his seat is

there and when you have your little little nibble of food that they give you you're you're like a mouse

so i said please can you not do that and he said [ __ ] off you know i said right there's a

little golden rule here i said that um when you're you know in this small confined space

no one reclines their seats i know you're able to but we don't because it's not fair on the people behind

[ __ ] off i mean it's just that's all i got i discovered he was an american so um i spent the whole flight

i felt a bit pathetic really because he i didn't win he just stayed there and i was just left getting up but it doesn't

matter really unfortunately news of the british protocol of never reclining and keeping

ourselves to ourselves has got around the international community and some of them are taking advantage of it to get

some extra elbow room i will always try to sit beside a british person even

if i have to exchange seats with someone on the plane because i know that i can spread out

more i can take advantage of them i can move into their space and i know they're

going to do very little about it except grumble and i don't really care move over fella

and of course we do move over it would be rude not to but when the plane lands and our fellow passengers applaud our

britishness starts to short circuit we don't want to appear impolite but we also don't want to participate in any

public outpouring of emotion [Music]

i don't clap the [ __ ] geez he's getting weighed on for it [ __ ] off clapping we do it

he's got about 800 grand a year and you don't even [ __ ] land it's a computer

[ __ ] thing but i think clapping is a very american thing and i don't like it i don't like people applauding things

because you go through some turbulence i suppose you might say that

british people would say sorry every time there's a bump now i'm always going yeah come on let's

hear it give it up for the pilot people and they will do it brits will go

so we've survived the flight with hopefully a minimum amount of awkward clapping and no interactions with

strangers it's time for the taxi to the hotel and oh dear we have to interact with a stranger

my car turned off at the airport when i got there and just like ended up being at the complete mercy of like some

taxi driver who's like driving me around buenos aires and all i've got is like seven quid in my person at w.h smith's

receipt and i realized that i don't actually speak spanish and like anything i do say they don't understand that's when you

feel you're most british [Music]

the taxi is named after an inventor called baron von turner texas who came up with the idea of charging us by the

minute it isn't known who invented the idea of taking the extremely long route to the hotel

or our irrational fear of taxi drivers [Music]

when you get a taxi late at night in a foreign country you could have the nicest person ever but they will always

be a part of you just thinking in that journey they're definitely taking me to some secluded

ditch and i'm definitely not coming back ideally what you want to see is a photo of some kids on the dashboard that's

what you want why am i because he's buried [Laughter]

research by travel agencies found that brits don't relax on holiday until day three and until then we're that most

terrifying of things the new person at the hotel

when you first arrive at a hotel you're not settled in yet i think the worst thing can happen to you when you arrive at a hotel is they give you like a fruit

cocktail welcome drink and you have to sit in the lobby and you're marked out as you've just arrived

everyone else is sauntering around full of confidence they know where they don't know where the pool is they know where the restaurant they know

where the buffet breakfast is you don't and it's really obvious you're sitting there looking slightly ashamed with your

passion fruit-based drink i always approach the reception desk with a with a slight so i'm braced ready for ready

for the problem here we go they're not going to have the booking i know that's what's going to happen and then i'm going to have to complain and i

can't do that i'm just so what will actually happen is i'll just go oh that's fine yeah don't worry it's fine it's fine and of course it's not fine

because i'm there with my family and my luggage and it won't be fine normally the british reserve means we

bottle up our frustrations and never let them show but sometimes just sometimes after a long day's traveling the stress

of being out of our comfort zone at the front desk can finally erupt we went to stay

in disneyland once i remember that and my dad got really annoyed that our bags hadn't been taken up to

our room and as children as well can you imagine how traumatic this is watching

my dad build himself up into a rage and then tell goofy to go [ __ ] himself

it's always a good idea to be armed with a few foreign phrases when you head off on holiday the typical brit knows seven

spanish words 10 in french and around three italian phrases [Music]

excuse me repertoire two more

[Music] i always say you know say hello

and that we're from scotland and see what happens now sometimes it can go well

uh sometimes they start speaking to you in their native language and you haven't learned anything and then that's very

awkward because you've kind of gone hello imagine that in a phone like hello in a foreign language

no sorry i only learned hello the most british thing i've ever done is when i went to the world cup in brazil

the one word of portuguese i asked to learn before was um sorry or the version of excuse me which is the sculptor

because i thought that would get me through being there if i bump into someone and i say that then i'm sorted

and so that tells you just how british i am when i go abroad so it's politeness i didn't like i didn't want to know stuff

for ordering any any like kind of etiquette in the restaurant if they're taking my money

they can speak english oh my god it makes you sound like britain first [ __ ] it out don't go to a

meme on facebook that will develop amazon somebody shout out

for those more ambitious brits there's always the hope that a single sentence might impress the locals

often this sentence remains with us for life when i was a kid i went on a cultural

theater exchange to the czech republic and because we were performing there we

were each given a translation of one of our lines of dialogue it was about women's suffrage so what i was saying was not

particularly useful in everyday life and it was

intricate which i think means give women suffrage now

having kept it in my head i used to try and sell the dummy that i was speaking czech to sort of waiters

and stuff okay so you've landed without mistaking the call button for the light switch but you think you may have insulted the taxi

driver with your tip and you've already fluffed your first attempt at the language you really need a drink after

all that mine's a pina colada

[Music]

we are exploring the tricky business of how to behave when we take off very british problems abroad from malia to

magaluf wherever we head on holiday chances are we'll bump into some fellow bricks and we always feel that we should

give them a quicker low as long as it's just a quick one [Music]

i will go as far as a hey hey like that i'll do a hey i'll do that but

you're not getting another word out of me of course we acknowledge each other when we're away of course there's that

it's like a a small deer in a forest you go there you go oh there's somebody yeah

and occasionally you'll go uh newcastle yeah glasgow and then you move on so we've just

landed on some um island so oh hello i hear from you where are you from you're a british yeah do you know where i'm

from are we guessing hold on i know that accident yeah are you in graduates oh yeah

yes and this is your wife yeah

i know what you mean where are you from then i've just tried the hotel bar yet we could meet up later

do we leave our wives at home yeah well she's not coming out no she's back i'll see you there then right

you're in your chunks yeah i'll be wearing my trunk so [Music] that was that went somewhere i never

expected it to go so we've acknowledged a few fellow brits at the continental breakfast bar but

that's as intimate as it's going to get

if i'm at a restaurant and there's another british couple sitting in england i'm not going to just make

friends with them so why are we now trying to make friends now just because we're in a different country oh isn't it lovely we've met that couple no because

the holidays ruined i don't think it's lovely i didn't book can i go on holiday with my wife and two

nobody's i don't know i've never met before could we can i book that now please that's not our books me and my

wife went on holiday and i made the mistake of just saying to another british guy

all i said was is that the rib eye that's it they were there we sat here is

that the rib-eye and he took that as oh we're best friends for the rest of the holiday

to the point where me and my wife were like stealth operators like if we were still

searching for O*ama b*n L*den i would just send stephen karen because they would find him like that

[Music]

to stop us spending the whole holiday hiding from our new acquaintances we've come up with a series of polite but

ambiguous codes to avoid any sort of holiday friendship blossoming [Music]

the first conversation is great it's like hi how are you you know where do you live blah blah blah great have a great holiday have a great holiday this

holiday speak for goodbye like end of see you don't want to hear from you again i'm friendly with lots of people

who work in the bar or in the restaurant because they're the people who are important

you know the guy mixing the drinks is important the guy giving you your dinner

but anybody else absolutely golden rule we don't talk i pretend that they're talking to somebody

else research by an online travel agent found that a quarter of brits give out fake

phone numbers to holiday friends clearly we don't want to be stuck with them for any longer than strictly necessary

[Music] [Applause] i think it's it's best to avoid trying

to make friends on holiday you know it's all a little bit a little bit kid malaria this isn't

something that's ever going to be continued back home and you don't want to get to the end of a fortnight and start exchanging numbers that you know

you're never gonna ring just leave it we went on safari it's another couple

and it was fine we chatted and you know it's all inclusive you have drinks and food and stuff like that and then they

emailed a month later saying we should meet up

why would we meet up and go we really got on do you know what we got on because it's really hot and we're looking at some

lions and we're all in a good mood i'm not gonna meet up with you and crawly it's not gonna be the same backdrop is it

debbie and i've been darting like mad going to the gym three times a week when we get here and you see the sights on

the beach nothing brits are the second most diet obsessed

country in europe after the danes unfortunately half of us fail in our diets after three days which makes

stripping off a trial

i think they're more confident in their bodies other countries british people hate it i think if british people could cut their head off and just put it on a

block we would just a little knocking about no bodies we hate our bodies and if anyone's got a good body we're

like i'll look at him pull it away i do feel like everyone's got a much better body than me oh

absolutely you should try it when you have to sliver into into the sea with one leg on even even worse when you get

stung by a jellyfish screaming and the first thing people see is when you come out with one foot missing

like grass what's going on here some big jellyfish research by a pharmacy found that nine

million of us get sunburned every time we go abroad but at least that means the sun was out on our holiday

[Music] nothing makes me happier than checking my weather up and seeing a whole

row of sun suns sun happy happy sun screen grabbing it and then send it to someone in britain i

love that but that is so british

somewhat beautiful miss

in britain we have only 60 days of sunshine a year compared to 300 in spain

so it's very important for us that those few days of sunshine in britain don't happen when we're abroad

i get that slight guilty pleasure when you google london weather and just

see rain clouds you're like it's more important that it's it's bad weather at home than it's good weather

on the holiday to find that they've they've just gone through a mini heat wave when you've got back from holidays

you might as well have taken all that money you spend the whole day and throwing it down the loo [Music]

and even worse than good weather back home is having british weather abroad sunday sunny spain

it's bucketing down i suppose the snow will come tomorrow

i went to france for a holiday and got to um nice or whatever and it was raining that

is depressing isn't it you leave london in the rain and you arrive at nice slightly heavier rain a little bit

cooler so after a day there i thought let's look at sandra pay and they said oh sunday there so i said

right we'll gain so we canceled the hotel moved to san tropez and got and the weather followed us

and it was then sunny in these went back to nice and it started raining in these

so i went home early to find that my gardener was having a party because he wasn't expecting me

home in my house so that was a great little holiday package

all because of the weather if the weather's no good abroad then

it's the perfect time to go sightseeing [Applause] [Music]

i would love to see an old ruin i just can never be [ __ ] sag don't get on a coach or something

you think i want to go and see that so i'm [ __ ] 300 years old but you know i just can't be balanced

you don't know how long you meant to stand looking at something i went to see the mona lisa in the louvre

and about 20 seconds in i was thinking how long do you reckon until i'm allowed

to walk away because i'm done here yeah but i don't want it you've seen it before oh yeah

i've seen it on a postcard i understand these people that go to crap stuff do i mean like you got to go to this

fountain do i you know it's like they're ruining a

nice trip with stuff do better stuff than here i wouldn't go and look at that

if it was next to my house why would i go to the other side of the world to have a look at it are you crazy

when we went to australian they were asking if we wanted to fly over ulla over airs rock and then i googled what

the aerial view of it was and i didn't go because i've seen what it looks like and

i looked at it on google images and i thought [Music] so to recap we acknowledge other brits

abroad but avoid chatting to them in case it leads to an unwanted friendship we hate it when there's good weather at

home and we don't like to spend any more than three minutes in the museum which is how long it'll be before i see you

again

[Music] [Applause]

welcome back to very british problems we are taking a look at those peculiar vbps that we pack up and take with us when we

go off on holiday

[Music]

in britain we don't have much in the way of dangerous wildlife it's all been rather tame since the sabretooth tiger

d*ed out a million years ago in the 21st century our deadliest animal

is the cow responsible for around five deaths a year brits have a hard time relaxing in any

kind of natural setting because nature d*ed in britain about 600 years

ago

as british people you go to the toilet here and the worst it's going to be is a spider so but when you're abroad and you hear

all the horror stories come back to you so i'm scared of using like you know the lavatory because i'm always terrified

that there's going to be a snake that comes up so i tend to try and hover over it and sort of look just

in case the snake's gonna come up and bite me i don't understand that people live in this country with these dangerous

animals let them have it there's enough of the world to go around for the rest of us they've chosen there to live let them

have it our fear of animals on holiday really took off in the 1970s when the

government scared us into believing that any contact with foreign dogs would instantly k*ll us

can you imagine being frightened of every friendly animal you meet imagine rabies in britain

all dogs will be leashed and muzzled no animal may be moved in or out of the infected area

all cats will be restrained the rule is any any animal domestic or

not abroad has rabies that's all that can go through your head when you see a dog rabies rabies rabies

rabies rabies if the dog comes up and licks you you've probably got 72 hours to live rabies is a k*ller we must keep rabies

out what a sort of um mild bit of racism to spread around oh they're dogs they've

got rabies they'll k*ll you don't go near the dog stay in your hotel build your own pub don't go near the locals no

their dogs have rabies [Music] but dying a protracted painful death has

nothing on our worst fear of all the foreign toilet

i've never seen turrets like this before you got me joking it's only the floor

[Music] [Applause]

i get nervous about using toilets in other countries in fact i would say on holiday the first two days i just won't

[ __ ] i just won't it's like my body's going dude let's just feel this out for a bit

and if it's safe then okay we've got one for you in development but let's not drop a deuce until we're

absolutely sure about the situation [Applause] in britain we get through two and a half

times more loo role than any other european country so the prospect of being stuck with a hole in the ground

and no paper is particularly terrifying sometimes there's a hole in the floor and a water tap british people cannot

handle that it's just like what do you want me to do with that i won't be surprised if someone just went in there sort of jet wash the floor on the left

[Music] if you're of a sensitive disposition and the thought of a foreign latrine is

turning your stomach i should warn you that we're about to discuss an extremely distressing topic

haggling nice one not too much 10. i get 10 for it

three thousand okay two year one three thousand okay give me twenty thousand

[Music] british people hate haggling i hate haggling it makes you feel physically sick there's too much pressure it's too

much stress i'd rather pay double and then you see the people at the market all giggling and laughing they're like he's going i've got that much off him

whatever mate i've got my self-respect i think it's rude i think it's roots they've said how much

it is just pay it you don't go to your local supermarket and go well i know it says a pound for milk but 25p you don't you just give

them the money how much is it and they'll just give me the price and i go all right and there you go and then i move on with my life

mainly because i've not gone abroad to spend my time haggling over key rings

shaped like camels haggling is a form of public arguing and we don't like to do that

haggling is saying i want this no i want this we we like to do everything with through

subterfuge and code we don't like to overtly disagree with people

so we brits avoid confrontation at all costs which also means no complaining on

holiday besides even if we wanted to we probably couldn't not with the language barrier and everything

i think what you do when you go on holiday when you're british you just make the best of it really you've called it on you've paid for the [ __ ] thing

so if it's a bit ropey you suffer it you're not know

the british would rather grin and bear it than make a foss

complaining and hold it breaks the illusion of um it just been like paradise and that you start admitting to

yourself somehow like this is really [ __ ] this holiday innit look at this [ __ ] that the server know

look how [ __ ] that beach is that pedalo costs 1 000 and [ __ ] pounds

to go out for for 10 minutes so you know you're admitting that you've screwed up you could have stayed at home watching

the box we'll never want to admit that we've wasted our time and money so instead

it's just a case of keep calm and carry on pretending everything's fine when you go to places like america and

stuff like that they feel like you're all working together for you to have a good experience i mean so you know when i get

a complaint you know what i feel it's helping me to improve so thank you thank

you for telling me how i can help you and inept where you've helped me i don't feel like that i worry that i'm

causing them a problem you know you want to be as as little of an issue as you possibly

can i think that's the british instinct my mum could order a sandwich

you could bring her a salad containing shards of glass and she'd go

it's fine honestly i'll eat it but i don't have the right who has the right to complain

american people that's who has the right to complain british people don't have the right to complain you're a little

suspicious of foreign hotels well what could be more reassuring than this one

another luxury hotel where the staff will greet you as though you are royalty or even americans i like the british way

of suffering in silence on holiday you don't want to complain and i didn't even realize that you were

that way largely until i went back and holidayed among american people who

complain just to check that you're paying attention they'll be like oh but could i not have

this and just does the cream sauce have cream in it does it oh well i don't it's

mortifying the americans invented the service industry maybe that's what makes them so

happy to complain about it although in fairness we brits do complain too we just do it to the wrong people other

brits we like a [ __ ] don't get me wrong between the other people in the hotel we

will moan like we will literally go an hour just saying i'll tell you what though i don't know if your room is like it but like they haven't changed our

sheets and we'll moan about it never tell a single person from the hotel about it and then you'll see somebody from america or something properly

moaning at the staff and go tell you what i wouldn't that's out of order that is but i bet you they got clean sheets

after two weeks it's time to check out and head home back to britain it's good to be back because no matter where you

go if you're british there's no place like home what are you looking forward to most

about this holiday probably getting back but i don't know yet

[Music] i got off at april i came back from australia

i could have cried when i saw that grace guy it was brilliant it was so lovely

that's a national rule that you have to say isn't it nice to be back everyone has to say that

as soon as i come home suitcase goes down i have a nice cupboard so we have a nice cup of tea oh do you know you can't get a good cup of

tea anywhere apart from you i can't can you [Music]

[Applause] sleep in her own bed something else you say it'd be nice to sleep in our own bed

tonight [Music]

first thing i do as a british man when i get home is order a [ __ ] chinese and i think most people do that they don't

just fancy chinese for some reason doesn't change that ranger holidays eh we worry we'll miss the

flight as soon as we've booked it we avoid talking to anyone when we're there and we honestly can't wait to get back home now

where's that menu [Music]

henning vane looks at brits from the outside in his witty immigrants guide to britain starts next monday at 10 and a

bit of british life not known to many a passion for dressing up and crawling all all fours dressed as dogs the secret

life of the human pups is revealed wednesday at 10. next tonight bill bailey's in the corner but he's not a

dog he's a cat playing countdown coming up
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