Really? Well damn. My Mexico stamp says Mexico and the state in Mexico (Raja California Sur in my case) I figured it would be similar there.

Nope. I suppose the British authorities think that you'd know where Heathrow is.

Which other parts of the UK are you visiting apart from London?

It pisses me off that Planet Earth isn't an option. I consider myself a citizen of the world ;)

It pisses me off that Universe isn't there as I consider myself one with the universe. :-)

Or maybe, in my truly Zen moments, it doesn't piss me off because I am one with the passport stamp and one with the website, therefore I would be pissed off at myself. ;-D

When you return to your car and a traffic warden says I have to give you the ticket now because I've already started writing it ...... wtf !!

Trying to explain queueing to Russians

People who stop and ask for directions, then when you have finished explaining they go the opposite way

@jamie: 2 nights in London, 1 night in Bath, 1 night in Hollyhead. That's it for the UK, from there we'll take the ferry from there to Dublin (F @ Irish sea, convoy Tourist from Wales to Dublin) and make our way to Shannon via Ashford Castle and Dingle Bay over the next 5 days.

@nigee, you probably have that look about you that makes people think "this guy is fucking with me, I should probably do exactly the opposite of what he says"

I suppose I'm not exactly too pissed about it but it's rather annoying when someone asks if it's okay to date my ex-girlfriend when they're already dating and he isn't going to stop whatever I say :P

Having to decide between two equally horrific options

1/ go shopping for socks
2/ waste endless days trying to find two matching socks just because people who obviously hate me (friends and relatives) think it's amusing to buy me socks with days of the week on them (in different colours) I've given up matching the day of the week to the day printed on the sock (as I've only been called out on this twice) but I can't wear a tueday sock with a Friday sock, perhaps if they were printed in the same colour I'd risk it, but I suspect that is why they don't.

@hardcore - "this guy is fucking with me, I should probably do exactly the opposite of what he says"
Have you met my wife?

when I'm entering an address on the internet and it asks for country of residence I want to select Flanders so why can I only enter Belgium, do people in England write UK as their country of residence, it is utter bollocks.

Exactly, to be fair for a lot of the US websites probably think the UK is close enough, why go into details, I think the whole GB vs UK thing is confusing for foreigners, why are we GB in the Olympics but UK on the internet?

I thing in the future to save any confusion dispense with country codes and just have GPS references.

I don't know why people get confused by the whole UK, GB, England thing...

The British Isles include Ireland but the British Islands doesn't. Ireland the Rugby Union Team includes Northern Ireland (which is sometimes called Ulster) but the Ireland Football (Soccer) Team doesn't. Wales was legally referred to as England from 1746 to 1967. Berwick-upon-Tweed has at one time or another being part of England and Scotland whilst still being part of the UK. Berwick continue to play in the Scottish Football league dispite being in England.

Whilst I can understand some foreigners getting a little confused by the UK, GB, British Isles, England thing, I can't forgive the British Civil Service who, by their oversight left Berwick-upon-Tweed at war with Russia for 113 years. Because of it's changing status between being within England and Scotland, Berwick was given a special mention in the declaration of the Crimean War against Russia which was signed in 1853 by 'Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, Ireland, Berwick-upon-Tweed and all British Dominions'. The Paris peace treaty signed in 1856 omitted any reference to Berwick-upon-Tweed so technically it was still at war. In 1966 this technically was rectified and a peace treaty between Berwick and Russia was signed. The Russians have slept soundly in their beds ever since.

Sadly Maniac that's an urban myth. A fun one though. The Crimean War declaration doesn't actually mention Berwick-upon-Tweed. The London correspondent of Pravda stopped off in Berwick in 1966 and they signed a "peace treaty" as a bit of a laugh and to set up an amusing photo to put in the newspaper.

I get completely fed up when I see a form that says simply "county" on it, rather than "county or parish." In the United States of America (please don't call it simply "America") there are 50 States, and 48 of them are subdivided into counties. One (1), Louisiana, is subdivided into parishes. I've seen forms where it only asks what county you're in. Now, every single on of those times, I have been able to accurately answer that question, because I've never lived in Louisiana. I've never even been there, nor have I met anyone from there. So I've always lived in a county, as such. So I put, like the name of a county there, there. But what if I did live in a parish? Would I put county, "none"? It's all so unfurianting!

ALASKA DOESN'T EVEN HAVE COUNTIES. I MEAN SERIOUSLY, WHAT WOULD I DO IN THAT CASE? NBABAY PLEASE RESPOND DO YOU COPY OVER OVER

Here's one - a piece of software or website only offering English (US), as if that's the only country that speaks it.

I don't think that's what it implies, you've got American English and British English. If you want to be completely correct you know what to do with certain spellings to make it US or UK. It's not totally irrelevant, or at least not in every meaning of that word :)

If you knew anything about locales and computers, you would know that EN-US is one locale and EN-GB is a another locale. So software offers the speicifc ones for which it has translations.

Ouch! Okay okay, it isn't as bad as I thought...

:P

oh come on. you live in the UK, that's the government that represents you at the UN.

i might identify as texan before american but that doesn't mean the US isn't my country of residence on a form. where's your passport from, dude?

Yes, scotland, england and the EU aren't members of the UN (though the EU may be getting special representation there) England is thus not a 'nation'.

More importantly it is not a nation by the standards of international mail delivery. (whoever or however they happen to be)

Also further to the difference between in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland (other than one being an independent republic) if you live in the North (or any other part of the UK) you probably refer to the Republic as 'the South' or Southern Ireland; but if you live in the Republic you almost always refer to it as Ireland, and rarely as 'the Republic' if you need to distinguish between the state and the island... (though the Republic only abandoned it's territorial claims to the North in 1998, with the Good Friday Agreement, which effectively saw the end of the troubles)

Also Ulster refers to one of the four provinces of Ireland (the island) whi h includes all of Northern Ireland (and it's six counties) along with three counties in the Republic (Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan)

Still, if you want to be English and NOT part of the UK then i'm sure there are some english republicans who want to get rid of the monarchy and establish a seperate English parliment. You'd probably be considered a successor state, and thus inherit the UK's permanent seat on the UN security council, and any other international obligations which the UK currently undertakes.

Fortunately for anyone with a Scottish vs English issue, there is an example of Ireland's breaking with the Union to follow. Currently as an EU citizen i would be entitled to vote in local and EU elections in any EU state i was residing. But as an Irish citizen, when i am resident in the UK i get to vote in national elections aswell (but not referenda) and vica-versa.

Keeping this relationship as it is, but extending it to Scotland (should it vote for independance) means that citizenship should be virtually no problem for engaging with democracy.

But the really important question is, what will the UK be if Scotland leaves? The United Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland? Or The United Kingdom of Southern Britian and Northern Ireland??

EN-GB will remain the common language localisation option, and UK the abbrv of the nation (and postal code) while .uk remains the www TLD. scotland may have some trouble as .sc is the seychelles, .sd is Sudan, .sl is sierra leone. They might want to consider renaming the country (for marketting purposes) .ab is free if Alba was the desired name...

Yes, because Ireland is a utopia since it split from the UK. I'm not so sure it's a great model to follow. In a more severe depression than it's former state, had to be bailed out by it's former state and isn't really listened to in the circles of power.

Of course, being the massive Unionist (in the British sense, not Northern Irish sense) I am my opinion might be a teensy bit biased...

I don't know, Hereward, Ireland has done well enough. I agree it would have been better off under as part of the Union, but it's been a success in its own right. Scotland would probably do OK on its own too, but the advantages to staying are far more than those of leaving. They won't leave, of course, because the Scots know a good thing when they see one. So do the Irish, and we really had to piss them off good and proper before they decided leaving was for the best.

Well home rule being delayed until 1914 - and then 'until the end of the war' really pushed them out of the Union, public opinion in Ireland (except parts of Ulster) was entirely for something like the current devolution agreements until 1916; when the execution of the leaders of a minority republican group gave their cause a huge boost.

I mean, the sailing a gunship into dublin and shelling of the capital was all blamed on the republicans, pretty much UNTIL the execution of the leaders. (and the Army even thought they were being all nice about it, as they shot the republican leaders as a sign of respect - previous rebels had been hung as traitors, shooting was reserved for enemy soldiers.)

And being Irish (ie from the republic) I grew up with an almost automatic sense that the republicans in the north were right - it took a lot of thinking to get over that cultural bias. The current situation is ideal - effective independence with self-determination written into the law, so if they choose later they can.

As far as i'm concerned the only thing that NI should change right now is to join the Eurozone, and save the towns along the border from having constant gain and loss of business as the exchange rate determines where people go to shop...

As for scotland, of course all the same economic arguements about Britian not joining the Euro apply to Scotland leaving the Pound. Alex Salmon (who i heard speak in dublin a few years back) has a very good point about Scottish fishing rights being ignored because the UK doesn't have a significant fishing industry, so at an EU level Scottish inependence would increase representation of Scottish specific issues, (but i have to say, he's a very boring person to hear speak...) He definitely has a point, but the same would be true of any region which is part of a country but isn't homogeneous with that country - there will be SOME local concerns which get ignored.

@Hereward&Octavious, if you're both in favour of the Union with Scotland, might I ask the other question, how do you feel about the Monarchy? (and if you haven't seen this, watch it and tell me if it changes your mind: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhyYgnhhKFw )