Online conversation, impossible for non Americans

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You dirty old man!

Even "All in the Family," the Archie Bunker show, was based on a British show.

Is it ok to only have a small group of these 'buddies in your locales'? And for not all of them to be local? Some of my best friends are via email or snail mail. And to prove I don't hate Americans - one of these is from San Fran Or she lives there now anyway, she's actually from somewhere in Latin America which I ought to have made a note of but she said so quickly I forgot.

I think what I want is a really, really close friend who is platonic but gets me on everything. I think this is probably impossible, the main thing is a relationship with myself. Then hop from place to place to find the others. So for eg if I want something I can guarantee a relatable conversation with on WP, talk about being aspie

I've not seen Steptoe, it's a generation gap thing I think. I got it mixed up with the Two Ronnies which does have a sketch I've seen (four candles)

I had lots of pals when I was a kid (I was like an NT and a popular one too), then we moved house and I had nobody. I've struggled to get people again - I mean meet and befriend - but none of them 'get me' and the last bunch were at a library I volunteered at and they were old women who hated me for not being racist. I daren't come out to them, they were very right wing.

I think what links all these people who I do get on with depth wise and where online friendships fail is, they started as people I met face to face. Even the American. I met her on a writing course, intense and week long, by the time the week was out we knew everything about each other and liked most of it.

I just wish she'd quit saying 'love' in her letters and signing off with a kiss, she isn't straight and it's confusing...

Maybe I'll get more pals offline as I live somewhere for longer. I've only been here a few months. I'm trying to get involved in things.

Im glad that you were taught to differentiate between the US and America. (And Im not being anti-US either). I never realized that outside of North America, people referred to the two countries together as “America”. It was only when I started doing family history research that I learned that. We get our Corrie and Father Brown right up to date. It really shows my age when I can say I used to watch all of the Carry On movies. My Mum was Irish and there was still quite a large British influence when I was young. We still used to fly the Union Jack back then.

One thing I love about Canada:

There's a Tim Horton's on every corner. And they make much better sandwiches than Dunkin' Donuts.

And they really are polite when it comes to driving (except for Toronto!)

Toronto drivers used to be polite. If you signaled for a lane change you would get let in. That’s where I learned to drive! But that was more than forty years ago. Now, unless I have to go downtown there I get in the Express lanes and keep up with the traffic and get out of there. The City has gotten just too big and busy. I find the worst place to drive in Canada is actually Ottawa. With all of the Embassy’s and related NGOs, there are driving styles from all over the world. And with federal employees from all over the country, there is even more varied driving styles. Throw in the old fashioned polite drivers and it is heck.

I’ve only a bit of driving experience in the States. My family used to go down to the Boston area to visit family, but my father wouldn’t let me drive. Probably wisely.

And yes, Timmies is better than Dunkin’ Doughnuts!

(Sorry Op for side tracking the conversation.)

Nah it's fine I think my conversation has died a death anyway.

We're vaguely Republican in the Irish side of my family but I grew up in an Orange town so I'm used to Union Jacks etc.

(Republicans fly tricolours and over here, an Orangeman from Belfast would never call himself Irish. Unless you mean a long time ago in Dublin, then I'm not actually sure if they'd say 'Irish')

One thing I like about Kraftie (so unstereotypically USA, so unstereotypically aspie) is: he always makes room for the next person in the conversation and tries to learn things about them And makes them comfortable to talk about themselves

You've got an "advantage" there having grown up in Canada. Wasn't ever broadcast in the US. My mother's first cousin in Montreal followed it but admitted she had trouble with some of the dialogue. Being Canadian didn't help her in that regard!

I think part of it is just knowing England isn't Jane Austen and Scotland isn't Braveheart

I mean it was maybe in some areas in the past, but not in the 21st century.

Watching Corrie helps that cos you see English people living like regular people. It's a soap so they also die and have affairs a lot but that's not the stereotype of England. Certainly takes away from the prim and proper image.

I first went to England in 1998. Before this, as per images in the media, I thought England would be sort of an industrial wasteland with perpetual fog. I thought Birmingham and Manchester were probably filled with factories and such. "Deforestation" was spoken about frequently. During the Thatcher days, they talked a lot about coal miners, and about bad "council estates" which seemed like NYC-type "projects."

I found out differently. I was shocked about the amount of greenery and how well-planned the greenery was even in Central Urban London. My wife's son lives in SE London, near Bromley. There's a bunch of very nice parks there. And a nice shopping area which has merry-go-rounds and other rides for kids during the spring through autumn.

On the motorways (what we call highways), there are no billboard advertisements like we have in the US. Most of the UK along the motorways is farmland and such. Even Stansted Airport is right on an actual farm.

I love the different accents of the British Isles. I watch a lot of Brit shows (mostly detective genre) just to hear the speech. Things like Hinterland, Shetland, and there was a thing with two lady detectives from northern England, Manchester I think, that I liked a lot. Can't remember the name, one blonde and one brunette, like Cagney & Lacey (an old American show). I'm enjoying Doc Martin and Poldark, too.

See this is probably why you are open minded, it's not really an American versus UK thing. It's a people who have travelled or who have family who have travelled versus those who haven't thing. Those who haven't sound a bit ignorant when not talking about their own country. Even I have this, I've never lived outside the UK and haven't travelled much since my eyes got bad - before that a lot of the travelling I did was to 'tourist traps' full of Brits. A Brit going to certain parts of Tenerife learns nothing...

(In my defence I have been to USA and I've been to other parts of Europe and my German uncle owns a farm over in Crete which is faraway from the traditional tourist trap part of Crete where the British and German tourists go. I've been to the farm a few times and interacted with the Greek people around there but my eyes are too bad to go a lot, I can't go anywhere which doesn't have weather similar to Britain)

Wow that previous image you had really interests me. I thought the media would show otherwise. I had imagined the media would show either greenery or London. That other cities didn't exist on American TV shows. What I'm seeing might be a mirror of a mirror, many times distorted. Or did it come from watching the news/documentaries?

I have been to America a few times and what gets me is how big everything is. I feel the same in London. The streets are long and the buildings are high. And because I watch so much American TV and movies, it feels a bit like being on a movie set.

What interests me is a lot of areas have been gentrified. Sheffield for eg would have been like what you describe, in the 80s. But nowadays it's a really nice city, mostly for students and graduates. More retail based than industrial.

The sad places are those that didn't adapt because there's not much industry left after the 80s so the places that haven't got this, they're barren. Full of hooligan types (chavs) and high crime and people who struggle to get jobs. It's sad to me. There are towns like this in Nottinghamshire, where I went to school for what you'd call high school and I'd call the latter bit of secondary. It was horrible and I didn't want to be friends with people who kept having sex (we were 14-16) and getting into knife fights and getting drunk. So I got bullied instead. Those sorts of towns are probably the result of the news you watched in the 80s and 90s.

I masked things like my interest in football but I wasn't about to mask my whole identity living there in order to fit in. The only people who fit in in that town, teenagers anyway, were little thugs who didn't want to learn anything.

I think it's just that it's different in different areas. Most decent towns have greenery, even the cities. Is this different in America? I know there are 'dog parks' over there but that sounds like a good idea to me, because there is a park down my street where some of the dogs run off lead even though we have all agreed on an unofficial dog park and the dogs have fun there. Mum has a dog but I'm scared of dogs in general and don't like them running in the non-dog park bit of the park, especially in bits where it says 'all dogs must be kept on leads'.

Hinterland was filmed a stones through from where I used to live. I've dined in the Children Home used in the first series ( It's a hotel )

I think the series you can't remember is Scott & Bailey

The US, and New York City, has a considerable amount of "green areas."

But in the case of New York City, I don't believe it's as well-planned as that found in the UK. The US, as a whole, is very widely spaced, and has many, many miles of plains, forests, and deserts. One can drive for a whole day in some places, and only see Nature.

If one flies over London, one sees the greenery. If one flies over NYC, one only sees the steel and the buildings.

Within the "inner cities," and some rural and suburban towns, we have our equivalent of the "Chav" element, too. It's stereotyped as either "hip-hoppers" or "trailer trash."

I think there was a pair of cats next door named after them. Mum thought one cat had a stupid name for a queen (Scott). I can't remember 100% though could've been another female detective duo.

Yes! Exactly right. Very interesting, complex characters. I liked it a lot and was sad when I reached the end of the episodes. It was not only the accents but the figures of speech I enjoyed. "Here's me not giving a fock." etc.