{"id":1423,"date":"2017-12-07T09:55:25","date_gmt":"2017-12-07T09:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/evanevanstours.com\/blog\/?p=1423"},"modified":"2025-09-05T14:44:46","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T13:44:46","slug":"our-favorite-weird-british-customs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/evanevanstours.com\/blog\/our-favorite-weird-british-customs\/","title":{"rendered":"What are some weird British customs?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Let&#8217;s face it &#8211; we Brits are a pretty odd lot. From our cheese-rolling antics to our national obsession with queuing, we love to indulge in our own slice of the ridiculous every now and again. Maybe it&#8217;s something to do with our overcast days, our long and complicated national heritage, or maybe it&#8217;s just in our genes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Either way, we certainly have our&#8230;err, how to put it&#8230;idiosyncrasies?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When all is said and done, though, our quirks are what make <a href=\"https:\/\/evanevanstours.com\/?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_campaign=weird_british_customs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Britain such a fun and interesting place to visit<\/a>. This week, we sat down together in the office and listed all the things we think make us weird. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Here&#8217;s our official list of weird British customs:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Apologising<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The May Pole<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Complaining<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Swimming in the cold<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Saying &#8216;Cheers&#8217;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Queuing<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Enjoy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Apologising<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m sorry, but this one isn&#8217;t going away anytime soon. Apologising is the <a href=\"https:\/\/evanevanstours.com\/blog\/tips-for-your-first-visit-in-london\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">default setting for the start of most interactions<\/a> in the UK, from &#8220;I&#8217;m sorry, but is this Oxford Circus?&#8221; to &#8220;I&#8217;m sorry, I seem to have stepped on your sandwich&#8221;. Labelling these as an apology is actually a little misleading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You see, &#8216;I&#8217;m sorry&#8217; has a much broader usage for us Brits. It&#8217;s commonly used as a way to get the attention of someone else, just like &#8216;excuse me&#8217;, and is often used ironically to preface negative sentiments, such as &#8220;I&#8217;m sorry, but this is the worst tea I&#8217;ve ever been served. Where is the manager?&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The May Pole<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>We Brits can understand the tradition of dancing around a pole with coloured ribbons to celebrate May Day or Pentecost. After all, they used to do some odd things for entertainment back in the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What we don&#8217;t understand is why people pursue this pastime with such fervour today. Maypole dancing is actually a lot harder than it looks and requires some serious choreography to get right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Complaining<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>We love a good moan. It always seems to go particularly well with tea. Seriously, there&#8217;s nothing better than huddling around a teapot with a few friends and taking ten minutes out of your day to complain about&#8230;well, whatever happens to be on your mind. It&#8217;s a cathartic experience and helps to bond us together in dissatisfaction &#8211; the perfect antidote to a long, stressful day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Swimming in the cold<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>It is summer. We will wear shorts. We will <a href=\"https:\/\/evanevanstours.com\/blog\/outdoor-swimming-pool-london\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">go swimming<\/a>. This is the British mindset. It doesn&#8217;t matter if it&#8217;s minus five and tipping it down with rain. It&#8217;s just another reason to break out that stiff upper lip and take a nose dive into the unknown. After all, you never know if the water isn&#8217;t a little warmer than it looks. Hint: it&#8217;s not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Saying &#8216;Cheers&#8217;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>This may be one of the most valuable words in the <a href=\"https:\/\/evanevanstours.com\/travel-guide\/out-of-london-guide\/60-english-idioms-and-phrases-to-learn-before-visiting-the-uk\/\">English language<\/a>. If you&#8217;ve never used it before, cheers means &#8211; actually, it means pretty much anything you want it to mean. From &#8216;hello&#8217; to &#8216;goodbye&#8217;, to &#8216;thank you&#8217; to no meaning at all, it&#8217;s a chameleon word that always fits in with the conversation. Use it liberally when you have nothing smart to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Queuing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, we couldn&#8217;t leave out the one thing that brings British culture global renown. Seriously, though, we couldn&#8217;t really imagine a world <a href=\"https:\/\/evanevanstours.com\/blog\/traveling-in-london-like-a-true-local\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">without queueing<\/a>. It would be a hellish place where people constantly bump into each other, forget to apologise, and then fail to have the decency to complain about it afterwards. Awful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If all this sounds a little confusing, our tour guides here at Evan Evans are well-versed in British culture and can tell you everything you need to know. Spend some time getting to know them on one of our <a href=\"https:\/\/evanevanstours.com\/tours\/london-tours\/walking-tours\/?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_campaign=weird_british_customs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">fantastic walking tours<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We decided to sit down together in the office and list all the things we think make us weird. Welcome to Evan Evans official list of weird British customs<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[607,1330,605],"tags":[781,778,803,1346],"class_list":{"0":"post-1423","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-culture","8":"category-british-culture","9":"category-local-guides","10":"tag-british-culture","11":"tag-british-history","12":"tag-british-slang","13":"tag-weird-british-customs"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Our Top 6 favourite and weird British customs<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We decided to sit down in the office and list everything we think makes us weird. 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