In message
,
Mizter T writes
On 10 Jan, 16:28, "Graham Harrison"
m wrote:
"Tom Anderson" wrote:

For your daily dose of crazy, with some interesting boring pictures:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLL2sp6iJZI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNDePyexjA4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZDcp-2DYyY

Where do Americans get those voiceover guys?

tom

--
now you're under control and now you do what we told you

Many years (late 60s) ago I worked in a travel agency in Kinghtsbridge. An
American asked which Tube to get to "Edinboro". He was genuinely shocked
when we explained the idea of taking the Picadilly to Kings X and then
sitting for over 4 hours on a "real" train.


I'm not sure there'll ever be a time when I don't find such tales
amusing! Though maybe I'm merely pleased that a few yanks do fulfil
the relevant stereotyping, which is perhaps a bit unfair on the rest
of them. I'm sure there's a whole contingent of Brits capable of
equally daft behaviour when abroad (or even when away from their home
patch),
Whenever this sort of thing comes up, I usually end up telling a story
or two.

I have had Americans confuse Windsor and Brighton, Oxford and Oxford
Street, ask for directions to Camelot and head off up to the Northern
end of the DLR in search of Shakespeare's Birthplace.

But then I've had Britons complaining *bitterly* that "the Dome isn't
next to the London Eye" , not recognise Big Ben [1] and try to get to
Covent Garden by standing at a bus stop [2] and waiting for a bus
labelled "Covent Garden" to come along.......

Taking Britons abroad I've heard complaints that Paris "hadn't used to
be this far", that the view of the Alps is "spoiled by all the mountains
in the way" and been admonished for speaking German to a hotelier when
sorting out a customer's problem "because I must have had something to
hide".

Overall, we tend to be more ignorant abroad than visitors to the UK are
about us. (European visitors in particular are generally very
knowledgeable and interested in Britain and its culture.)

though I doubt this is helped by Ryanair selling flights to
Vienna's Bratislava airport...

[1] And I don't ,mean in the sense that "Big Ben is actually the bell",
I mean actually ask what that clock tower is.

[2] Any bus stop, at random.

--
Ian Jelf, MITG
Birmingham, UK

Registered Blue Badge Tourist Guide for London and the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk