Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Britain vs the rest of the world

My DH forwarded this image to me recently. I think he remembered me telling him about  NFAH's comments on the topic!

 

7 comments:

Paul said...

Is this also a metaphor for the schizophrenic British character, I wonder?

Expat mum said...

Ha ha. Don't let my husband see this. We have a small powder room and we needed a teeny sink for it. For some reason I insisted on putting in an English style sink with two taps. (It looks great.) These bloody Americans scald their hands every time they use it. What;s wrong with putting the plug in and filling the sink with lovely WARM water?

Paul said...

Well, here in Florida, I converted the old two separate taps in the bathroom to combined taps. I am firmly on the combined taps side of the fence.

I don't think I saw combinded taps in abundance until I visited Germany as a young adult, where they seemed to get them long before the UK!

Many British would rather go through some eccentric and lengthy hand-washing ritual, rather than deal with new fangled technology. As a trait, it is both irritating and charming at the same time! ;-)

Lucy said...

@ExpatMum:

I can think of one reason why someone (including me) would have trouble putting the plug in and filling the sink with "lovely WARM water": people probably spit in that sink, especially if it's the only one in the house aside from the kitchen sink. My apartment only has one bathroom, which is shared by 4 other people and sometimes guests, and I would never imagine filling up my sink and using that water to wash my hands (or worse, my face). Of course, that wouldn't be a problem if people disinfected the sink every time they brushed their teeth, but really, who has time for that?

Anonymous said...

This made me laugh, especially as I've just got back from a week in England, where lots of the public loos had "Caution: Very hot water" signs by the taps! I have a range of taps in my home and no one burns their hands, even when using the British style ones, but maybe that's because I don't heat my water to "take the skin off your hands" temperature! Much too frugal for that!

Brenda

KeyReed said...

If the 'hot' water has not been used for a long time, chances are the tank is so far away that you will have completed the hand washing task before any warm water arrives. Thus, the 2 taps should be labelled cold and cold.

Anonymous said...

I'm an Englishman (in England) and I refuse to have anything but the 'combined taps' in my house. Anything else is just silly! :-)

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