Only women have a fanny over here, but everyone has a bum. And a bum over there is a tramp over here, and a tramp over there is a tart over here.

Service in restaurants in general isn't as good as in the States, but service in fast-food places is much better in Britain. I think we've got a better grade of minimum-wage burger jockeys. :-) In particular, you can often get decent fast-food at roadside burger/kebab vans (although this can be risky, as some are merely food poisoning transporters).

In general, American food tends to be sugary whereas English food tends to be salty - this applies particularly to bread and other savoury foods. We don't do "high-fructose corn syrup", but that's a good thing health-wise bcos it gives you diabetes. Oh, and the best peanut butter is made by Duerrs - again, peanut butter is less sweet than the US variety.

The US seems to have picked up many European foods such as pumpernickel. This kind of stuff is difficult to get. Some supermarkets (particularly more expensive ones) have selections of foreign food like that, but generally you can't get it.

As far as supermarkets go, there's a few big chains. Asda is the cheapest and nastiest. Tesco's is next up (cheap but OK). Sainsbury's is next in line (more expensive but better stuff). Top-end is Waitrose (expensive but good). There's also some other ones. The Co-op is variable depending where you are (some are good, some are bad), but generally tends to be smaller local shops. Spar is another one you generally find as smaller local shops - it used to be the only one open late hours, but most supermarkets are open late now. Morrisons is a north England one which is coming south.

Wine isn't expensive over here - you can get a good bottle of wine for £4-5, and cheaper rough stuff for £3 or less. Waitrose generally has a better quality of wine for the same price as other supermarkets. Oh, and liquor stores are called "off-licenses" (or "offies") over here (so-called bcos they're licensed to sell you alcohol to be drunk off the premises, unlike a pub).

There are very few brewpubs over here, in fact the term simply isn't known. Most pubs have a single main brewery that they get their draught beer (bitter) from, plus sometimes guest beers from local small breweries. Plus Guinness, and lagers could be from anywhere, and there'll often be stuff in bottles as well. There are some beers that are nationwide bcos the big breweries have pubs all over, but smaller or medium-size breweries will often have the trade sewn up in the area around where they are.

Re the date thing, if you always write the month in words (or three letters) then you're guaranteed to be OK whichever way round you write it. After working on a project for a US company for 3 years, I do that automatically now.

Any paper with a red top (Sun/Star/Sport/etc) is only suitable for wiping your arse on. The Mail is for ppl who want to read a red-top paper without looking dim. Telegraph and Observer are for Conservatives (right-wing), Guardian is for Labour (left-wing). You can still get decent news from the latter three, so long as you know the political bias to expect.

Graham.