What's the most aggressively British thing you've ever witnessed?

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Agreeable_Archer_210@reddit

My primary school teacher, who I stayed in touch with, was in the Hatfield rail crash in the year 2000. After the crash she was flung across the carriage and lost consciousness when the train derailed. When she came to she was lying on top of a man who was vaguely stirring. On assessing her injuries her first words were apparently

“I’m terribly sorry, I appear to be bleeding on you.”

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AlternativePea6203@reddit

When a woman lies on me I get vague stirrings too.

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AirlineSevere7456@reddit

I read it that way too

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Appropriate_World265@reddit

Thats how people get married I imagine

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Diligent_Craft_1165@reddit

Ronnie Pickering

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pelvviber@reddit

Johnny Who‽

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lokitheseraph@reddit

Come on! Let's have a bare knuckle then!

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jcmush@reddit

Who?

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Will-Conroy@reddit

Ronnie Pickering!

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Fuck_Reform@reddit

Voting to leave the EU and then moaning that it's shite being out of the EU.

Starts or participates in wars all over the world, displacing millions of people from their homes. Moaning when a tiny percentage of those people arrive at our shires looking for safety.

Take your pick. Britain sucks.

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Western_Rooster_4832@reddit

I don't disagree these are bad things, but I think you've misread the vibe of the thread

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Most_Kiwi3141@reddit

Today I mentioned to someone that the plush keychain on her backpack was brushing along the ground (this is a good way to ruin a plushy). "Sorry!" she said.

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NecroVelcro@reddit

Was it on a particularly long chain or was the carrying the backpack low on her arm?

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Most_Kiwi3141@reddit

She was carrying it holding the straps.

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CatfightAfrica@reddit

Bless you for not spotting the irony. Or sarcasm. Either way. Ice cold.

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Agitated-Honeydew-41@reddit

A cheeky old lady picked up the last pack of strawberries in Asda and winked at me and tapped her back pocket.

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Sad-Nectarine-7855@reddit

And as she began to regain consciousness she looks up to see you tap your bsck pocket with your swollen hand

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Sad-Nectarine-7855@reddit

There was a fare dodging crackhead refusing to get off the bus once, driver kept asking them to get off, several other passengers asked them to get off.

Eventually this middle aged, very meek looking guy got up, went downstairs and shouted "will you PLEASE alight from the bus in need to get home because i have a STEW in my slow cooker!" and he actually did get off 😂

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Murf22222222222@reddit

Friend of mine picked up a scouser girl. During a passionate moment she said to him in the thickest Scouse accent imaginable “Dick me now, me minge is screaming!”

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darthpaul1978@reddit

I've just more or less rolled off the bed with laughter.

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Tigerbaton@reddit

Delightful

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iiibehemothiii@reddit

Who says romance is dead?

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Due-Parsley953@reddit

This is something that I did within the past couple of months.

I get the earliest bus to work during the week and one morning the bus came round, but it was malfunctioning and had to have an engineer check it out.

The next morning I noticed it was the same bus driver and I joked with her that this bus was behaving itself, so she was doing the early bus the following morning and she told me that I'd jinxed her and she broke down on the return journey the previous morning.

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Funployee182@reddit

Someone didn't say thank you to the bus driver

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Particular-Scale5644@reddit

This was never, ever a thing in London until the last few years. Still find thanking the driver weird.

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Strict_Ad2788@reddit

Always been a thing in SE London.

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Chelsea-Girl@reddit

Agree.

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Particular-Scale5644@reddit

No it hasn't, in my 40s now, SE born and raised, never heard it happening until around Covid times. Exceptions apply of course, if they let you off before the stop, dealt with some issue etc but otherwise never.

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Strict_Ad2788@reddit

Well maybe it's by borough then because I've always thanked the driver, as have many others on the bus, for the last 35/40 years!

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spoo4brains@reddit

Not in my Gen X time growing up in London.

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Chelsea-Girl@reddit

Yes it was.

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intotheneonlights@reddit

The pre-cheers as you tap on is the only acceptable method. Then you're locked in and you can get away with anything.

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nihilistkitty@reddit

Well London is the exception to the rule. Idk why but it is

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Technical_Brain1493@reddit

London is quite international in many parts... And American once said to be it could be San Fran or any major city in the US.

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SeaworthinessHead613@reddit

Never been to Bristol then ? Big sign in the bus station - "Cheers Drive." It's like an old Testament sin there not to thank the bus driver.

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nihilistkitty@reddit

Ive been to Bristol many times but only via car and train. Its is a very friendly place. Im not sure why its being compared to London. Not that I've had a bad time in London. It just doesn't have the same vibes.

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Particular-Scale5644@reddit

My sole experience of Bristol started with someone calling me a 'fucking Londoner', so may have missed the politeness. Lovely place though tbf.

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spoo4brains@reddit

Yeah, I grew up in London many years ago and the only time I did it was if it was very snowy/icy.

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HauntingTheVoid@reddit

I can't bring myself to do it. A pathetic little wave is the best I can do, sometimes I abort halfway through if the embarrassment gets to me

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Particular-Scale5644@reddit

Blow them a kiss as you get on the bus, that means you don't have to do anything at all when you get off.

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nihilistkitty@reddit

That maybe the most unbritish thing I've heard

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pelvviber@reddit

Good gracious! I can only hope they might possibly be of a foreign extraction?

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Decent_Confidence_36@reddit

Once got into an after you war that went to round 4.. I gave up and went

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Visual-Grand-1596@reddit

😂

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NoSir7320@reddit

My friend was offered cocaine once on the way home after a night out. She told him "no thank you, I'll just have some toast when I get in". This was over 20 years ago and still makes me chuckle

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Visual-Grand-1596@reddit

😂

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AnonymousTimewaster@reddit

Saw a homeless guy fighting with a seagull that was trying to take his pasty

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Difficult_Paramedic8@reddit

I saw a homeless person walking around with a pigeon tied to a string as kite. He was around for a while and kept and loved that bird.

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Strange_Ad854@reddit

When I worked in social housing one of our tenants had a seagull she'd walk around on a string. She kept it in her bath.

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Dartzap@reddit

Chap in top hat and tails, riding a penny farthing past a craft beer pub.

It was a slight improvement on the naked bike ride that had gone past me the previous day.

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HowUtterlyGhastly@reddit

Heh....

Reminds me of a summer afternoon in a beer garden in Oxford, coming up on some mushrooms (back when they were kinda legal).

At some point in the distance we saw some middle aged college fellow, wearing his full Sub Fusc, approaching rapidly on his bike, while loudly bellowing out the Tenor part from some Gilbert and Sullivan opera with tremendous gusto. He was gone in a flash, leaving us all individually wondering if we were already hallucinating, until it was confirmed everyone else saw him too.

(Note, Sub Fusc = Oxford University's "uniform"... i.e. suit, plus gown gown and mortar board)

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martinhayman@reddit

Someone sent me a pic from the naked bike ride in Brighton and they were all riding the rented bikes. Just a little warning for the next time you borrow one of those and plonk yourself on that saddle!

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front-wipers-unite@reddit

The paramedics on motorbikes also ride naked. Lol.

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front-wipers-unite@reddit

Brighton?

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Dartzap@reddit

Exeter

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front-wipers-unite@reddit

There was a guy I used to see every morning in brighton. And he rode a bicycle made from two bicycles. It was essentially a bicycle frame turned upright and fixed to the other bicycle frame. So think two mountain bikes configured to look like a penny farthing esq contraption. Every morning I'd see him and think "how the hell does he deal with traffic light, he can't put his foot down to balance himself. And how does he get on and off".

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Extra-Question9273@reddit

Saw the same guy(?) in Henley on Thames.

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BeefyWaft@reddit

I don’t find the performative Britishness to be very British. They are trying too hard. Britishness should be organic.

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AndyVale@reddit

I live in the countryside.

Last year I went on a hike, stopped off at a little old pub for a pint, very rustic.

The only other customers there are two old blokes sitting at the bar.

They say nothing to each other for a while until one says to the other "So, did anything happen this week?"

The other pauses for a long, sombre thought.

"No."

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mothsugar@reddit

just had a flashback to sitting in a silent breakfast room in a B&B with two couples at other tables.

after about 5 interminable minutes a woman goes "you like kippers don't you?" to her husband and he makes an affirmative grunt. then silence again.

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AndyVale@reddit

Masterpiece.

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pajamakitten@reddit

Wow, they were chatty.

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Low-Captain1721@reddit

😂 There's a Paul Whitehouse sketch in that..

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Sea_Director_4439@reddit

I didn't see it but my mates girlfriends dad who is a cockney wanker, once got in a fight in a pie and mash shop and smashed a bottle of chilli vinegar over some blokes head. I was just coming up on an edible when my mate was telling me this story. I lost the ability to breathe when he confirmed "Yeah, of course he's West Ham".

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WonderfulThomas@reddit

Weapons grade shit that chili vinegar. Assume he did 25 to life for that kind of war crime.

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Sea_Director_4439@reddit

They don't grass mate

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WonderfulThomas@reddit

"Who was it, Richards? Who was it? Carlin?" Richards: "I slipped, sir".

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howlingwilf1@reddit

Scum?

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toooldforthisworld@reddit

Yes !!

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howlingwilf1@reddit

Great film.

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Severe_chill@reddit

Poetry!

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Lanky_Ad_8198@reddit

Ronnie Pickering ...

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Last_Philosopher4487@reddit

My wife and I, along with three kids of our kids, on our first family holiday abroad, first time flying as a family. Arrived at Munich at about eight o clock at night, and set off from the plane in search of our luggage. A whole bunch of people from our plane joined a queue along the concourse, so we just joined it too. It took a whole 15 minutes of waiting in this queue before we found out they where all waiting for their connecting flight somewhere else. The luggage was a further hundred yards down the way.

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MaskedBunny@reddit

I think it was in an old episode of Inspector Morse, Morse was interviewing a posh bloke and when the toff had enough he simply said to Morse, "now if you dont mind I require your oxygen".

Most British way to say fuck off I've ever heard.

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LeadershipAble773@reddit

I once got a taxi home with my boyfriend. I told the driver "3rd left". He must have miscounted and he turned and the 2nd left. We got out the car and obviously couldn't go into any houses. For some reason the taxi driver didnt drive off so we hid behind a car lol. When he eventually drove off, we walked back to my actual house. Thinking back, he probably waited for a while because we were quite young (15/16) and he was probably checking we got home safe lol

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No-Piglet-4735@reddit

For absolute clarity- I did not witness this, but its so aggressively English it deserves to be repeated as often as possible.

From a British Airway pilot who flew through volcanic ash cloud. Got the Engines restarted, landed safely. BA flight 9 in 1982:

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress."

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Fufferstothemoon@reddit

Then he described the incident as “trying to navigate one’s way up a badgers arse.”

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jess-star@reddit

Saw a couple load so many bottles of alcohol on to the Tesco checkout it wouldn't move forward.

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WaspsForDinner@reddit

Neighbour at my previous house was an obnoxious wanker - loud music all day long, aggressive DIY all night long, throwing shit in other people's gardens, abusive and cruel to his pets, wife and child. Everyone talked about him, everyone hated him.

After three years of trying with various authorities, I finally strong-arm someone from the council into listening to my complaints - they go around the other neighbours, asking if obnoxious wanker was an obnoxious wanker.

Unanimously: "No, we've never had any problems! We don't hear anything!"

Council guy goes away thinking that I'm a loon, and the neighbours go back to talking about how wankery and obnoxious the obnoxious wanker is.

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WonderfulThomas@reddit

I had one of the worst neighbors imaginable so to curtail some of the more obnoxious behaviour we stuck security cameras up. The psychological impact it had on them was phenomenal. No more 4am cocaine parties in the back garden for them, no more screaming in the front garden throwing bottles at each other.

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Stephen_Withervee@reddit

I man on the ground being kicked by 6 people after their team lost and his team won.

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highrouleur@reddit

Flew into palma mallorca last week. There was big queue for the new fingerprint scanners non EU people have to go through. Someone blatantly pushed in. The collective tut was astonishing. Obviously no one said anything

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Asaxii@reddit

I saw a dinner lady and a lollipop lady having a shouting match once.

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doepfersdungeon@reddit

That bloke who whacked a jihadi holding a sword after shouting "fuck of mate, I'm Millwall" on London Bridge. Old school...

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M0ntgomatron@reddit

I watched a traffic warden get his head stamped on by football hooligans.

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RadaghasztII@reddit

This definitely sounds like the most aggressively British thing on this whole thread

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Electricbell20@reddit

A bunch of lads dressed as the spice girls doing the Oatley run.

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Nettoghetto82@reddit

Otley

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J8766557@reddit

I was on a bus once where the bus driver was being a bit of a knob. Nothing specific really, just tutting a lot and being short with everyone who got on. We reached the main stop in town and everyone seemed to have a moment of telepathic agreement that none of us were going to say thank you to him when we got off. I'll be honest, I nearly broke when it was my turn, but I stood firm and walked past him in silence. I didn't even give him a wee head nod.

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Ohtherewearethen@reddit

Oof. I do little acts of defiance like this sometimes and it's genuinely so fucking hard! I admire all of you for recognising what a knob he was and for your solidarity! Respect!

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hesgotredhair@reddit

This

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dontyajustlovepasta@reddit

I was in Exeter a few weeks back with my girlfriend, looking for a cafe to go to, when I saw a couple of young lads (19ish) having an altercation outside of a pasty shop, before one of them stormed away, yelling at the other that he'd be seeing them.

He got about 30 meters down the road, before he grabbed an outside chair from another establishment, did that sort of fast-squat-run you did when carrying something heavy back in the direction of the pasty shop, ran in the door, and immediately went back to whacking this other guy with a chair, at which point the old bird working behind the counter started bellowing at him with the most impressive set of pipes I've ever heard, (many "Oi!" 's were given, and possibly even a few "Pack it in" 's).

Finally, the lad with the chair was seeing walking out of the pasty shop looking rather wobbly, and bleeding severally from the mouth and with his tail between his legs.

Watched the whole thing from a bench about 20 meters away, one of the more blizzare events I've seen in my life time.

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bickylala@reddit

I was exiting Boots when a young woman and her friend were walking in. The poor young woman somehow tripped and came flying in the doors. After recovering her balance she apologised to everyone who had seen her trip and nearly fall over. Poor thing!

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StabbyMcStabbedface@reddit

Booked a last minute holiday to Tunisa (yes before booking holidays online were a thing and travel agents ruled the roost) I got a really good deal however it turned out that the hotel was absolutely full of Germans, and it was during a big football event, I think it was the World Cup, or at least the euros, I can’t really remember.

Anyway…

During the middle of the night they would go down and stake their claim to the best sun loungers and I mean that there wasn’t a single one left come breakfast time, so I did what any English person would, I took mine and my partners towels, my England football top and paid the lifeguards/pool staff, they in turn would remove any towels left unattended and place ours in place of them, bloody great holiday.

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notthatbluestuff@reddit

So you just stood there watching them for more than 15 seconds?

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DanteThaScrub@reddit

OP was part of the queue…

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Potato-starch-eater@reddit

OP was more aggressively British than either of them by politely staying away, not wanting to make it awkward.

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OldEquation@reddit

Best not to get involved.

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gogoluke@reddit

A friend in a pub had his foot stepped and he apologised... then the stepper aggressively apologised for actually stepping on his foot.

"Sorry"

"NO IM SORRY!"

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Wide-Sail3061@reddit

So ten years ago… Pregnant needing a seat on a packed bus with two men either side of the aisle offered me a seat, staring at each other. Me I had to decide whose seat to take then sat in one. I then felt embarrassed for the rest of the journey in case I had offended the rejected persons offering…

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mcglash@reddit

Beautiful.

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Imaginary_Break_7288@reddit

England fans rioting in Lansdowne road 1995.

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UnderHisEye1411@reddit

Euro 96

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Imaginary_Finger7844@reddit

Absolutely beautifully mentioned. No better example.

Peak aggressive Britishness right there.

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