AMERICAN? Concerned that your country will soon be at war with both its neighbours solely ‘for the lolz’? Looking to flee here? This advice will help you acclimatise:
Get into stout immediately
Over there, you enjoyed a chilled Coors Light of a weekend. Get that bullshit out of your system now. Over here, we drink opaque beer at room temperature or above, and we do it every weekday evening or from breakfast onwards on weekends. Start now or it’ll be all the harder when you land at Heathrow and they line four pints up in front of you.
Choose your crap football team
In America, sport is about success. In Britain, it’s about relentless, miserable failure sparking a cycle of violence in the back streets of provincial towns, and is all the better for it. Get a map of deprived areas and pick your team. AFC Fylde, Caernarfon Town or Port Vale are your heroes now. You will never experience joy ever again.
Get into the metric system, a bit
Used to measuring everything in cups? That’s over. Read up on grams and millimetres, our system of choice when it comes to some stuff, and be ready to switch effortlessly between that and Imperial measurement depending on how your builder decides to rip you off. To feel fundamental confusion about even basic units is to be British.
Select your supermarket
The class system is very real and largely decided by where you buy your cornflakes. To be truly accepted as a citizen, you must know the difference between a Morrisons and a Waitrose person and the ramifications of becoming either, such as will be felt unto the eighth generation.
Start spelling properly
It’s colour, not color. It’s specialise, not specialize. Most importantly it’s paedophile, not pedophile. You don’t want to be mocked when joining in baseless riots on your council estate by spelling your graffiti incorrectly, especially when you’re already burning down the wrong person’s home because the online rumours were made-up shite.
Lose the attitude
We enjoy your movies and your fast food but that doesn’t mean we’re friends. Your winning smiles and tendency to divulge your life story to strangers is going to piss a lot of people off, so if you don’t want to be deported on the grounds of being emotionally open get your act together and stop being so f**king positive all the time.
