Photo: javi_indy/Shutterstock

15 Abilities the English Have Over Everyone Else (and One We Suck At)

England Student Work
by Lauren Williams Jul 27, 2015

1. Passive aggression

We’re just too polite to go next door to ask the neighbour to turn their happy hardcore down to something less than rave-volume at 4am on a Wednesday. Instead, we’ll post a bitchy note through their door which looks something like this:

Dear neighbour,
Thank you for introducing me to a new genre of world music I didn’t know existed until the small hours of the morning. I had a very important meeting today which I messed up because I was up all night being educated on the beats of what can only be described as “techno on speed”. But none of that matters, because now I am worldly and cultured. THANK YOU FOR TEACHING ME!
Your now unemployed friend at number 6. Xxx

2. Ridiculously polite queuing

Oh man, do we love a queue in England. Whether it’s in the post office or for a train, at the cinema or for the bathroom, we don’t mind a good queue. We will stand and we will wait like the patient Brits we are and tut if someone dares to push in. Unless it’s at the bar, then we were definitely there before that guy.

3. Hangover-curing breakfast

We know that a full English breakfast is the perfect way to set yourself up for the day ahead. Nothing could be more nutritious than a huge plate of bacon, eggs, tomato, hash browns, sausages, mushrooms, baked beans and maybe a bit of black pudding on the side. A full English is also the only way to cure your hangover every Sunday morning. Fact.

4. Breeding the world’s greatest writers

We gave you JK Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkein, C.S Lewis. Basically, if it weren’t for us, Dobby wouldn’t have died, lions wouldn’t talk and you’d be lacking in motivational quotes to repin on Pinterest.

5. Eccentricity

The Mayor of London is Boris Johnson. That’s all.

6. Sports

The world has us to thank for football and cricket and baseball, tennis, rugby, ice hockey and boxing. Shame we can’t play any of them.

7. Irony

See above.

8. Boozing

Beer, ale, cider, lager, gin, rum, whiskey — we’ll take it all in a pint glass and swig it down with a jager bomb for good measure. Six times over, thanks. We know that we can drink any nationality under the table and that the rest of the world are just pussies. We have a culture of drinking like no other country and we know that drinking every day makes us drunks, not alcoholics.

9. Hating on our political leaders

It doesn’t matter who it is, but we really, truly, hate our PM and most other party leaders with all the gusto we can wretch from the bottom of our guts. Because of the austerity, because of tuition fees, because of privatisation and the education system. Because of immigration and foreign aid and how we just can’t wait to jump into another war with the USA by our sides so we don’t miss out on a life-sized game of Risk. We hate them because they’re bad on telly or because their plane-crash didn’t kill them or that they’re on side with the unions. We hate them for pay-freezes and for scandals with rent boys. We hate them because they are hypocrites and elitists and earn too much money. We hate them for winning the election and the other party even more for not being good enough to win it. Trident. The NHS. Whether or not we stay in the EU. EURGH.

10. Reality TV

If you haven’t spent a night watching Gogglebox — a show where you watch people on telly watching telly — you haven’t lived.

Also, Take Me Out, First Dates, The Undateables, Made in Chelsea, The Voice, Big Brother, I’m a Celebrity. Quality television right there, ladies and gentleman.

11. Apologising

Saying sorry is like a national sport — when someone walks into you or when you have to complain at a restaurant, even going to the doctor is a cause to apologise. We just don’t like to inconvenience anyone.

12. Festivals

Sorry Rest of the World, but you just don’t have Glastonbury do you? Or Reading and Leeds? Or Boomtown? Or Secret Garden Party? Or even Boardmasters? No, no you don’t.

13. Tea

All day, every day. Choose your dunking biscuit wisely.

14. Moaning

About the weather and about queueing at the post office and how you vommed up your full English because you had one too many jager bombs last night. About the weather again and about our noisy neighbours and about David Cameron, Nigel Farage and Magerate Thatcher and who the hell even is the Labour leader anyway? ‘Cause he’s a twat too. About how it’s too hot and we need a storm to break the pressure, but goddamnit if it rains next weekend when Aunt Millie is coming around for tea on the lawn. We’ll moan about not getting Glastonbury tickets and also how expensive they are. We moan about the weather again before moaning that someone hasn’t bought us a cup of tea already. But mostly, we moan about the weather.

And we suck at…

1. Talking about feelings

Who? Who is this feelings person everyone else in the world is talking about? We don’t need him, we just need booze to squash those things that make us think about shit.

Sorry, btw.

Discover Matador