Brits Abroad
As we edge closer to summer we found ourselves looking forward to holidays but dreading the thought of running into British tourists abroad. Is disliking your countrymen while overseas a universal feeling or are we disproportionately hard on ourselves? How do we ensure our holidays won’t be ruined by people exactly like ourselves?
In this week’s podcast, we discuss Brits abroad. We discuss ingroups and outgroups, Newcomb’s paradox, the intricacies of the British class system and evolutionary information discovery. Peter shares his strategy for avoiding Brits while on holiday and we share some of our best and worst experiences of meeting Brits abroad.
A few things we mentioned in this podcast:
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Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast, produced by me, Fraser McGruer for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts, we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Chris Wragg, Nick Hare and Peter Coghill of Aleph Insights. And this week we're discussing Brits Abroad. Chris, I know you're about to go on holiday, I don't know if it's abroad or not, but anyway, lead us in.
Speaker B:Yeah, so I'm about to go on holiday. We're going to Greece. We're going to spend a couple of days in Athens. Then we go on a short island hopping cruise. We go to Ephesus and Rhodes, visit Knossos and Santorini. And then we're having a bit of time on the Athenian Riviera. I'm already making judgments about what you're saying. This sounds highly educational. You're going with the family as well. Yeah, going with the family, exactly. Yeah, but there's a little bit of beach time later on. But my kids love the Greek myths, right? So they're really looking forward to seeing the Temple of Poseidon and the Acropolis and all this sort of stuff. So actually, they will enjoy it, I insist. Or else. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Or I'll take them to Tenerife next time. But anyway, so I'm going on holiday and I'm a little bit, there's a little bit of trepidation there because the last family holiday we went on where we went to southern Germany, it was great. There were no Brits there at all. And then we went to this lovely place called Oberlingen on Lake Constance. And we'd sat down by the lake. And then this man from Birmingham and his family put their... I've got nothing against Birmingham, but that's a little point of detail.
Speaker A:Especially, as it happens. Coincidentally, he was from Birmingham.
Speaker B:Anyway, they sat down next to us and started talking English and their kids started sort of playing up a little bit. And it almost ruined this entire holiday for them. So I'm a bit worried that we might bump into...
Speaker A:Were they talking or were they braying? Because I always find that braying is the word that people tend to use about other British people.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think, yeah. Brummies don't really bray.
Speaker A:No, they don't. If they were from Islington or Surrey, people from Surrey. Surrey, boom, you've got it, Surrey.
Speaker B:Yeah, no, exactly. So yeah, I'm worried that my holiday is going to be ruined by Brits. And the worst kinds of Brits are the ones that are most like you, I suspect. Like you can deal with Brits that are from a different strata or a different background to you, but the ones that are like you are the worst for some reason.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, but also they're the ones you're likely to encounter for obvious reasons. I mean, I'm not going to go to Benidorm and no slight on anyone who does. But the point is, I'm unlikely to run into the kind of British tourists who want to go to fish and chip shops or British pubs. Are those, are the ones like yourselves really the worst? Maybe, maybe not. We will dive into this. I've got some data.
Speaker B:But what I don't want to be is my own stereotype. That's what I don't want to be. And yeah, anyway, so that's it. So I'm looking forward to Greece, but I'm slightly dreading bumping into some Brits.
Speaker A:Well, you're in luck because I'm going to Greece, but not till the summer. So we can, we can agree not to, you know, cross paths. I thought you were going to say you're in luck because I'm going to Greece next week as well. We're going to have a fun night. I'm totally subclass. So before we, I think this is fascinating and I wonder how much of this is just about being British. Could Germans be saying the same? Could Americans be saying the same thing? I've got some information. Could Japanese be saying the same thing? I don't know. Well, I've got some information along those lines. Good. Wait. So you don't have to guess. Good. This really reminds me of something, just an aside, actually, which relates to why we're all sitting here and how I first met Nick, which is we met through NCT. Yes, which is. Which is for anyone, I don't know, National Childbirth Trust. Is that right? And if you're terribly middle class in Britain at this time, or at least 15 years ago, you will go to childbirth classes. And it's led by a very sort of, in our case, a Mother Earth sort of figure. And I used to sit there, sit there. And actually, these are all lovely people, really. But still friends with them. Still friends with them. At least you were before this podcast. Exactly. Yeah. Some I just work with now. It's more like acquaintances. But I used to sit there and sort of in the same manner, I think, sort of secretly sort of despising the one, the whole thing. But everyone sitting there, including myself, because it was so bloody North London. And everyone's very worthy. And everyone's really nice. And, you know, of course, I said to myself, do you know what, if a Martian fell out of the sky and was plonked right in the middle of us all, he wouldn't sit there and go, oh, my God, all those people are really horrible. Apart from that guy over there sitting, he's a nice guy. I'm the bloody same as them. Who's going to lift this up and take us somewhere? I can put some hypotheses down. One is that British people are intrinsically annoying. Right. That's I guess the kind of most general sort of hypothesis here that people are intrinsically annoying. And we find them annoying when we're abroad because they are. The second category is that British people find each other annoying, even though British people aren't intrinsically annoying. Yeah. Right. But that British people in particular find each other annoying. And then the most general sort of category here, which is that people are annoyed with other people who are like them. On holiday. On holiday. Now that's so the question, if that's true, and we'll look at the evidence in a minute. But if that's true, then, you know, it's it is maybe because of something to do with the fact that they're ruining the fact that you're abroad, whether it's whether it's that they are bad on holiday because it's a holiday and they're not allowed to be there, or whether it's something to do with them reminding you of you and taking you back home in a way you didn't really want to go and thinking I could be in a pub in Solihull here. That's no fun. I want to be abroad. Yeah. So so those are the three things. So either British people intrinsically annoying, British people find each other particularly annoying, but aren't intrinsically annoying. Or that in general, finding your country, country folk when you're abroad is annoying for some reason to do with that context. And I can bring some evidence to the party. But I don't know if people have any other suggestions. I think that's a nice breakdown. I mean,
Speaker C:there is a more general that people are just yeah, that's the Peter Coghill hypothesis.
Speaker A:But then but then you would be as annoyed by people here as you are.
Speaker C:I am. And I'm annoyed when I go abroad. I'm annoyed by the foreigners who are there. Oh, I see. That's why you don't discriminate. I don't discriminate. Even the ones that live there. Even the ones that live there. Yeah. They should vacate when they stay. No, I wouldn't be so presumptuous to say that. But I would generally go on a holiday where there aren't people. The Antarctic.
Speaker A:I think there is an element in which to which I sort of think I get annoyed. Like if I'm on a train and there's lots of other people on the train, I think what the hell are all these other why have they got the right to be on this train? This is my train. Why are all these other idiots on here? Like they're not doing something as interesting or important as me. Now, I don't actually think that. But some part of my subconscious does.
Speaker B:I have a slight adjustment. I think it might be a two, a two a. Yeah, go on. Which is that Anglophone people find Anglophone people on holiday annoying. Or, you know, people who speak the same language as you, because I definitely find other English speaking people abroad annoying. Not as annoying as Brits, but they are annoying. And so there's something about being able to comprehend. Oh, that's a yeah.
Speaker A:Exactly. Because I think one of the things here is I quite like it sometimes if I'm in another country where I just don't have any idea of the language and it's great because it's just a noise. Yeah. So I don't understand their accent. I don't there's nothing I understand. It's just this lovely noise. And yeah, and there's a there's a there's a there's a joy in that sort of ignorance. I've got a three a. I've wait before you do because I've forgotten the things. Tell me them again. So one is British people are annoying. Yeah. Two is British people find each other annoying. Three is people find their own country mates annoying. And I guess four in Peter is just other people are annoying. But but I think I think it's one and two. I favour two or keep going.
Speaker C:I've got a three a which people find people most like them most annoying. So and it's a mechanism would be you don't say people are most like you. You don't gain any new information from them. Ah, interesting. Whereas people are different for you. They speak different languages or different behaviours, different cult, different. They do different things. You kind of they they they're more interesting to watch because you gain information about the world from them.
Speaker A:Yeah. And I guess you might sort of think, well, if I've paid to go on holiday, I don't want to you know, I don't want to waste it with British people. Yeah. I don't want to see the same things. Well, I've got a question to Chris, really, because I think he speaks German. Do you speak German? Ein bisschen. Does it annoy you when you can understand Germans talking to each other at a next table?
Speaker B:In part.
Speaker A:Right. Does it annoy you to hear Germans speaking German to each other? Because it's not the fact so you're you're.
Speaker B:No, in fact, I actively seek it because I'm trying to improve my German.
Speaker A:And if you if you're in a I know you never go out, but if you went to a pub in the UK and there were some Germans speaking German. Okay. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, that's fine. So so it's not the being able to understand people. Right. Well, only in Chris's case. Okay. You so you you speak Portuguese. Yeah. And do does it annoy you that you other Portuguese. Other Brazilians. In Brazil. Actually Portuguese as well. Okay. They're in Brazil. They're speaking Portuguese. Yeah. That's their own language. I don't mind that. Okay. But but you it annoys you when you are next to some some Portuguese people, e.g. in Italy or something. Yes. And there's some Portuguese Brazilians. Yes. Interesting. Yeah, it does annoy me. Shall I bring some data? And I know why. But anyway, go on. Okay. Well, I can confirm hypothesis two very strongly. British people. Yes, definitely. Find each other annoying to a they're actually out of this poll that you did by some margin, the top of the list for finding your own country mates annoying. Right. So so they were asked two questions. How positive or negative an impression do you have of your country's tourists when they're abroad? And then how positive or negative do you think the locals have? We think so. 57% of us said negative on both on one count and 61% on the other count. So and the next one was 45 and 54. Right. Which is Norway. Norwegians are very hard on themselves as well. And then it's Germany, then France at the complete opposite end of the list. People who not only are very positive about their compatriot support, but think other people like them as well are Indians, Omanis, Filipinos, and people from the UAE, Thais, Indonesians, Southeast Asians, Asians, Asians, basically South Asians, Southeast Asians. They have a very positive view of themselves when abroad and they think other people like them too. Now, now, I don't, I do not consider that a virtue. Having a positive view of yourself is not something I consider a virtue. And now that's probably because I'm British. We want to talk about culture of holidays. Because I bet in the top five that we mentioned, I think those people, those countries travel more to other countries than those bottom five travel to other countries. And in terms of either frequency or volume, I think there's something going on there as well. But then I've also got a bit of data about who everyone thinks the worst tourists actually are. This is frightening. Now we're not, we're not actually top. I think the Russians and the Chinese come top of the list of most annoying tourists. But now this one really interesting fact is that in Europe, the Brits score the worst. In Asia, the Chinese score the worst. In the Middle East, the Saudi Arabians score the worst. Right. So what does that tell you? It tells you that we don't, the people who are objectively disliked probably travel more. Right. So we're looking at the richest, probably, you know, in aggregate countries, richer, more populous. Most entitled. Sort of regionally historically dominant and hegemonous. Yeah. But not, the point is they're not complete foreigners. Right. So it's people a bit like you. It's a bit like our opposites episode. Yeah. But anyway, the key thing to note there is that yes, British people are actually a bit annoying abroad. They do score more highly in terms of who are the worst tourists, but nowhere near the extent to which we hate each other. Yeah. So we have a much more negative view of ourselves. Yeah. Than foreigners actually do. And in fact, if you look at perceptions of the UK as a country, it's actually really surprisingly positive. So there's a sort of uncanny valley.
Speaker C:Interesting. What's uncanny valley? Sorry, what's that? So uncanny valley describes how creepy or cute or nice, how positive you think about something versus how negative you think about something, particularly when it has a likeness to yourself. So cartoon characters, quite cute usually because they're quite far away from what a human looks like. But a mannequin that's got very realistic features, quite creepy because it's too close. It's in the uncanny valley. Gotcha. And then other humans, they're fine because they're like you.
Speaker B:I think all of this points towards the idea of the narcissism of small differences. This idea that you hate the people that are most proximal to you, but not you, right? So if you think about the British class system, right, who do I as a sort of, you know, a brought up guardian reading liberal sort of professional middle class background person dislike? It's the people who read The Telegraph, who are a bit more public schooly, right? It's them. And then it's the Daily Mail who are the sort of lower middle class, you know, the next bit down. Those are the ones that you traditionally dislike the most. If you look at all, you know, who is it that, you know, where you get the most, the greatest amount of religious violence, right? It's sectarianism. It's yes, they had the Crusades and so on. But if you look at, you know, the Hundred Years' War and you look at Islam and Shia versus Sunni or even, you know, it's about, it's about, yeah, look, we know those guys over there are, they're off the scale. So we don't hate them. We hate the ones who've got nearly our views or nearly our culture.
Speaker A:Yeah, there's a very famous essay by Scott Alexander called, I can tolerate everything except the outgroup. It's one of the best things I've read, I think, in the last 20 years. And he makes exactly that point. But that, you know, the outgroup, it can only exist as a concept if it's threatening to be in your in-group, like you have to differentiate yourself from them because that doesn't just happen automatically. And he makes the point about, you know, the German, the Nazis, you know, the people, they were perfectly happy to go and make an alliance with the Japanese, like in theory, massively racially inferior. And the people they hated the most were German Jews who were pretty identical to them, you know, but just a bit different. So yes, I think there's a bit of that going on. Yeah, it's like the viciousness of factionalism or the viciousness of civil wars. I mean, it's kind of in there, right? I think there's another, there's another factor going on, which means I need to bring in Newcomb's paradox, which is, okay, so it's called the, sometimes called the paradox of the predictor. Let me describe it to you, Fraser, and you can tell me what you would do. You've got two boxes, about two boxes, box A and box B. Box A always has £1,000 in it. Box B sometimes has £1,000,000 in it, okay? You can open both boxes and have whatever's in there, or you can just open box B, right? Now you're thinking, it's obvious you take both boxes. Why wouldn't you take both boxes? Why would you just pick box B when you could have the extra £1,000 in box A? Because there's a twist. And the twist is that a great predictor who is really good at predicting your behaviour has only put the £1,000,000 in box B if he predicts that you will open only box B. So what do you do? Say that last bit again. The great predictor has only put the £1,000,000 in box B. That's the really important box. That's the one that sometimes has £1,000,000. He's only put that in there if he's predicted that you will pick box B.
Speaker B:And we know the great predictor to be 100% accurate.
Speaker A:He's always been right about Fraser in the past. Let's put it that way. So Fraser, what's the... come on, you've got to decide. You just opened box B. Yeah. But you're aware that... But I'd like to know about frequency and how often this happens. He can't change what's in the boxes. You know that. He can't change what's in the boxes right now. So he's only a predictor. Yeah, that money is in box A, right? He's not a magician.
Speaker B:It's paradoxical.
Speaker A:Yeah, it is paradoxical. Because who... does he... does that predictor... does he only predict? Yes, but he's been completely accurate about everything you've done up to now. But is he involved in the decisions in whether something goes into box B or not? Yeah, he's the one who's decided. He's put it in there if he thinks you'll pick only box B and not open box A. Even though if you open both boxes, you get whatever's in box B plus the £1,000 in box A. So what do you do? Well, the thing is that you ought to open both boxes, right? Because you'll definitely get £1,000 more than if you only open box B. I see what you mean, but... Are you with me? I'm with you. I'm with you. Right? But the problem is you're kind of playing a game against yourself here. Because as soon as you go, well, I'll open both boxes because that's the logical thing to do. Well, silly you, because the predictor saw that coming a mile off. Now, where am I going with all this? Part of this problem is you can't defy the predictor. Because whatever you do, ultimately, is something that would be predictable. And I think part of why running into British people abroad is really agonizing is that it reinforces to you that you're actually predictable, that you're being basic. I mean, it doesn't get much more basic than going to Greece and visiting the Parthenon and going and spending a week on a beach. So much so that that's what we're doing in the summer. And the problem is no one wants to be that. No one wants to think, you know, and I think back in the day when it was the Grand Tour and you could go all over Europe and the only other people you'd bump into were other TOFs, you know, you were much lower chance of being forced to confront your predictability. Whereas now you go abroad... But much higher chance of getting syphilis. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's worth it, though, isn't it, to avoid British people abroad. But I mean, the point I'm making is I think that's actually there's a deep-seated existential horror which you get when you go abroad and you discover that you've chosen the exact same holiday as, you know, hundreds of other people. And you're just like them. You're not special. You're not the hero of this world.
Speaker C:I've got an anecdote that I like, part of the reason I like the wilderness and the desolation of going to places is I like the sort of the story you can tell yourself that you're discovering it. When there's no one around, you can sort of tell yourself a narrative that you are the first person to be there. Yeah. And that's a sort of nice thought to have. You're finding things for the first time.
Speaker B:And I wonder if that sort of links into this, you know, idea of evolutionary information discovery that you are sort of, you know, like if you go to the place that everybody else has fished or, you know, hunted in, that's obviously not a good thing to have done. You want to find the, you know, the Eden, the undiscovered Eden.
Speaker A:But also I think it becomes harder to, I think there's a problem of status, of undermining your, it actually does undermine your social status. If you go there and you discover there's another family who's just like, just like me and it's hard for you to go around and be as high status as you are in real life now. You're suddenly in a position of having to compete on status, like with you mentioning Snidely that their children were acting up. It's like when, if my children act up when I'm in a restaurant, it's so embarrassing because I feel like it's a low status thing to happen. And I, we're not in that status competition, anything like as much with Germans, you know, they've got their own thing going on. I don't feel inferior when I meet a German Toff in the same way as I do when I meet a British Toff. And so I think there's the status anxiety element as well, which we don't want to have to deal with. Well, and there's something we need to delve in. I think we've skipped over it a little bit, but you're starting to get us back into it, Nick, which is this British thing. But before we do, I was on holiday this time two weeks ago and I went to Albania on holiday. Hooray, on the assumption that you weren't going to be low status in Albania. Well, no, mainly, or maybe. They might worship you as a god. It was mainly because it was cheap. And one of the things that was lovely about it.
Speaker B:It's easy to get back into Britain, by the way, from there if you lose your passport. Yes, yes.
Speaker A:Yeah. And it was lovely because there were almost no other tourists and it was quite unusual being a tourist there. And there were certainly no other Brits. I think I saw some Germans in Tirana, but that was kind of it. Although that's what was good about it. The bad thing about it was it was no disrespect to Albania, but it's Albania. It's, you know, I wouldn't recommend going on holiday there necessarily. Anyway. Message me. Sorry? Message me. Message you. You'd like in the middle of nowhere in the forest and mountain. Exactly. But we need to delve more into this point that you made. I think it's really interesting about the Brits are different. We do despise ourselves more, you know, and so to for that quote, it's impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him. Boom. I think that sort of encapsulates it nicely. It doesn't matter who you are, what class you are, but especially your own maybe. Why? What's different about us? Why are we like that? You know, I think a lot of people say that Britain has this kind of unique class system, but it doesn't. Every country has a status system. They all have a class system. I think ours is really hard work. That's the trouble. I think it's a lot of work because it's so because it's subtle and it's complicated. And the reason it's successful is precisely that. We talk about signalling, don't we? A lot of this. The key point is that for a signal to work, it has to be quite difficult. You know, it's got to be hard for in order to separate people. You can't just have a signal which anyone can do by definition in the US. I think they actually use class words synonymous with wealth, right? They when they say sort of, you know, upper class or middle class, whatever middle class in the US, I get the feeling it sort of means actually what we would mean by lower middle class. It's kind of you're an everyman if you're middle class. Whereas I think in Britain, if we say middle class, it encompasses a far bigger range. But the point is, it's more or less wealth. Like you can't really be a poor upper class person in the US. So there's kind of one yardstick. Yeah, absolutely. Because because there's a whole range of things that you that we could need to sort ourselves out on, like intellect, culture. There is your educational background. There's your family. There's a whole range of and of course, wealth is one of them. But you know, I'm perfectly comfortable to look down at a millionaire footballer. Yeah, because I went to university and he didn't. Maybe he did. But you know, do you know what I mean? But the thing is, and he can look down on me because he's got more money than me. So everybody's happy.
Speaker C:He'll get an honorary doctorate when he builds a swimming pool.
Speaker A:But the point is that he can look down on me as well. And we've got it all sorted. But there's so many dimensions to have to worry about. That everyone is a loser. I think part of the joy of being abroad is not having to do that all the time. Not having to, you know, being abroad where there's nobody else.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:But anyway, so I think that's where I would go with it. I think I think it's not it's that you're when you meet strangers, you other British people, you you are whether you like it or not in a sort of status competition. You've sorted that out.
Speaker B:What you're saying is you go you go on holiday as a break from the stress of having to manage your social. Our class system.
Speaker A:Well, well, what I'm saying is it is one of the benefits of being abroad. Yeah. And if you meet strangers, if you meet strange foreigners, you don't you just don't have to.
Speaker C:Is this why you always holiday in Norfolk so you can look down on everybody when you're there?
Speaker A:Have you been to North Norfolk? I'm like the I'm basically a peasant when I go. Maybe it's all all that sort of down the simple for you. It's all it's all it's all. Yeah. It's like going back. It's like going into a theme park where you get to play as a medieval peasant because everyone else is a braying, you know, upper middle class person and they all wear barber jackets and they all talk about going to the going to get, you know, pheasants from the butcher and that kind of thing. So, yeah. But no, it's a Norfolk, Lincolnshire. Definitely. You know, and I think that's why he moved there. That's why Fraser moved there was so that he could, you know, he could be said. Yeah. But anyway, I mean, so it's highly speculative, but it feels intuitive. There's an intuitive element to it, which I like this theory about, you know.
Speaker C:Maybe it's because I'm such a high class, but that for me is much less of a driver than the survivalist new information kind of thing.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah. I could be some element of both. It feels that it's not I'm not quite satisfied by that. I think it was a good effort, Nick, but it's just somehow not quite there about something about the British character. And I think maybe it ties in comedy and how we're the victims.
Speaker C:Have you got a silly answer for us? Is this where you're going? No, I don't actually.
Speaker A:I think it's genuinely perplexing.
Speaker B:If we if we if we if we accept that this may be imponderable to some extent, we could think at least we could at least accept the fact that we are annoyed by one another when we're on holiday and think about what we might and take comfort in the fact that
Speaker A:we annoy other people as well. Well, quite.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's a it's a net neutral annoyance. But but I was I was sort of thinking about, well, what what do you do in order to avoid Brits and stay at home? Well, no, if you want to go on holiday, right. So I looked at a few sorts of bits of data, did a bit of back of the envelope sort of thinking about this. So if you look at where Brits most often go, right. Spain top, USA second, France third, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Australia, Canada, Turkey, right. Those are the sort of top 10 and so on and so forth. I couldn't find data about the least visited.
Speaker A:I've got a few. Shall I just list a few? Yeah. Equatorial Guinea. Yeah. Comoros, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Sao Tome and Principe, Turkmenistan, North Korea and Yemen. Yemen.
Speaker B:I can understand why Yemen might be on there. But not North Korea. But I also but I did I did find some data that sort of backs that up, which is which is basically least visited by overseas people, not necessarily Brits. So but you can assume, you know, that if it's not visited by many, many people. And so you do have lots of those island nations down the bottom because they're quite small, right. So they don't support lots of people. But then you've got, you know, some countries like Mali, 217,000 overseas visitors. Moldova, 174,000. Is that low numbers? Those are low numbers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the high numbers are, you know, obviously in the millions. So yeah, so that was one factor. Anyway, the incidents with which they're visited by Brits. But then the other thing was the size of the country, right. So obviously, you know. The Coghill factor. Yeah, the Coghill factor. Canada is enormous, you know, nearly 10 million square kilometers or whatever, where some of those island nations, you know, actually maybe you only need 100 Brits there and you can't move for Brits. So there's sort of the dilution factor. But then like proximity to the UK, because you don't want to be going miles to have to escape Brits. And then there's the other factor, which is sort of cost of living when you get there. You don't want to spend, you know, so Switzerland isn't actually very visited by Brits, but it's bloody expensive when you get there. And so the cost of avoiding Brits is high. And then there was... Also, it's full of Swiss people. And it's... Oh, yeah, yeah. No, sorry, anyway. True. And then there's the sort of niceness of it when you get there. So there's a cost of getting there, which is partly the cost when you arrive and partly the cost of the distance of having to get there, I suppose, the time and the implicit cost. The niceness when you get there, so the benefits you get, how big it is and how few Brits there are and, you know, how diluted they're going to be by the size of the country. So I sort of... My kind of factoring in, basically, if you're Peter, you go to Greenland. Yep. Yeah, makes sense. For everybody else, visit Russia. Yeah. So, yeah, that was my thing. Mali was quite high as well.
Speaker A:Yeah, I performed a similar analysis, but I actually looked at... I was thinking about, like, actual area, because as Chris says, you can get away from people. But what I looked at was population in the end. So I thought, well, let's look at, like, the number of British tourists per head. To me, that's the key thing. And then I also factored in how positive the people in that country report feeling about British people. Yeah. You like to be treated well when you go on holiday.
Speaker B:Well, that's right.
Speaker A:You don't want to go somewhere... You say, we're going to go somewhere... That's what's nice about Albania. No other British people. Yeah. But also... So a low percentage of British tourists go there. And when you're there, the people are going to be nice to you, right? There's actually two clear winners. Japan and Australia. It's, are Australians actually not British? Discuss. Anyway, it's a good job we haven't got Jordan on this podcast because they're pretty convinced they're not British. But I'm not sure how much going to Australia gets you away from British culture. But they like us there in Australia. Yeah, 71% of people in Australia apparently have a positive view of the UK.
Speaker B:Well, they've got a very funny way of showing it. Yes, exactly.
Speaker A:Yes, but you're not taking it... Give us that little urn back. Other people being asked India and Russia and Egypt and Mexico. But the point is that Australia and Japan. So yeah, in my experience, actually, I'd say when I went to Japan, I can't recall meeting in the three weeks that I was there. I can't recall meeting any other British people, possibly one or two. But Japan is very Japanese. And they like the British. Yeah, there's lots of Japanese people there. It turns out. Yeah, they are.
Speaker C:So speaking of data, I didn't do any analysis, but strategies for avoiding people. I feel like Peter's solving a different problem to the rest of us. But strategies for avoiding British people. So if you go on holiday and you go to the big tourist sites in any country, you're going to find more foreign visitors there, right? Yeah.
Speaker B:So don't go to anything nice.
Speaker C:No, it's not necessarily not going to anything nice. I would say not go to anything exceptional. Water treatment plants. So well, what I mean is, right? So when you're traveling and you're not traveling by convention, if you get on a plane, there's going to be some Brits in there. But if you... Cycling places, right? You don't bump into many people. Okay. And so some of the nicest kind of like days out I've had have been cycling somewhere like, you know, between sort of the north coast of France, where I've got off the ferry to Paris. Loads of little places stopped on the way, cafes and lunch places. And there are normal places, nice places that normal French people live. But you don't see any Brits there because you're kind of between... You're in a liminal space between the major port and the major city that everyone goes to. That's a whole sort of un-mined area.
Speaker A:So don't use public transport. Don't use public transport. And go to boring places where there are no tourists. Go to normal places. Non-exceptional places. When I went to France, I went to this wonderful little spot. Only French people there, called the Eiffel Tower. And I recommend it. It was really nice. Very un-exceptional. Yeah, no one knows about it. It's only those in very... You should go there, Peter, you'll like it. Well, it's an engineering feat, isn't it? The Coghill genti there. Yeah.
Speaker C:You joked about sewage plants. One of the most interesting places I've been is in Northern Europe was a decommissioned, or not even decommissioned, it was a never commissioned nuclear power station in Germany that was built, ready to be fueled. And then the Greens kicked off in the early 80s. Oh, that does sound cool.
Speaker A:Yeah, when I went to Slovenia, I went to a mercury mine. No, was it Slovenia? Somewhere like that. Went to a mercury mine. That's pretty cool. We need to stop. But just before we do, I've got a question, two questions, actually. Best experience, within the bounds of decency, of meeting a compatriot whilst abroad. And worst experience of meeting a compatriot while abroad. You can choose what you want. Go with one of them or go with both as you like. But I'll kick us off. I've got two. Best experience. I remember being in the Caribbean a number of years back on a cruise ship, because my brother used to work on cruise ships. And it was a very American dominated set of passengers. And this one day I was sitting on this launch to take from the ship to the shore. And I sat down to this little, next to this little old lady. Turned out she was British. She was English. OK. And it was lovely. And the reason why it was lovely is because we just had a little chat. We just had a natter. OK. And it was just so refreshing because I had been so used over the previous 10 days or so of having these conversations where in the first minute, huge amounts of information is exchanged about who you are and where you sit in society and, you know, where you live, where you're from, how much money you make, et cetera, et cetera. I was finding it really wearying. Yeah. And it struck me that's how Americans communicate. And it goes back to this class thing. In Britain, we don't need to do that, you know. And with this lady, we just had a little natter about the weather. And it was lovely. And we knew nothing more about each other. And she picked up a huge amount of information about you just talking about the weather. Yeah. And that was lovely. Worst one was about two years ago. I was on holiday in Majorca. I was at a water park. I think that's you. I've spotted your area. OK. But surprisingly, being in Majorca, next to it, I started to hear, it was a packed day, was this little child going, Daddy, Daddy, because we've got these passes, why can't we go to the head of this queue? And the person goes, well, Oberon, the thing is that da-da-da-da-da. And they started talking about stuff. And because we're in a queue that's about 30, 40, it was stuck next to them the whole time. And they had the most annoying names. And it was things they literally called things like, well, what about Orlando? Do you think he should do this? And what about Clementine? And they were talking, so Daddy, when we go back tonight, I don't want the chef to make us curry again. I don't want that. No, we won't have that tarquin, dear. And I was just boiling. How many children has this big guy got?
Speaker C:Oh, there was loads. There was a group.
Speaker A:No, but it was a group of family. They've got the money to have loads of kids. Oh, I see, right.
Speaker C:And they're all Shakespearean characters.
Speaker A:Yeah. They all look like the midwich cuckoos. So they all like perfect. They were, you know. And it so infuriated me that off the back of this, I went off and bought one of these passes myself. So I wouldn't have these people sort of, oh, it was just, and even just talking about it, I feel angry. Who's next?
Speaker C:Yeah. So for all my chat about getting away from people often, what I do is go away with people on sort of either we organize it ourselves or we go on a kind of organized package venture trip thing. So I obviously very much like the people I go with. I'm selective. Hopefully. So I have a great time with those Brits that I meet abroad. But there was one time that stood out. It was a trip to, I think it was a Mallorca trip, a mountain biking trip in, no, sorry, a mountain biking trip in Morocco in the Atlas Mountains. Really, really beautiful place. And the team or the group of people we were with includes very great guys, British people, and they were good fun. But there were two who were particularly awful. How? Why? Well, they, without, I'm not commenting on class, but just basic things. So when you're out mountain biking all day, particularly where the availability of sanitation isn't great in the Atlas Mountains, it's difficult to keep hygienic. So like washing hands is not easy. So you use hand gel and everything else. They would not do that. Washing hands was a sort of, was a foreign concept. It was a little bit unsanitary. Unsanitary. And lunch would be laid out for a sort of big picnic. So they'd immediately start diving in salad with their hands still in their cycling gloves, covered in, you know, all sorts of things from open sewers and things. So luckily, they are the only two, luckily they were the two who got D and V out of everybody. I think nobody else suffered from it. Well, maybe one person got it, but they would have got it from them. And unluckily, they won't have learnt their lesson as a result. But they were just awful. Did you not bring them up on this? Sort of, hey, get your... Yes. And they stiffly ignored it. They sound wankers. Awful people. Awful people. Okay.
Speaker B:Okay. I've got a worst one. Yeah. I went on a stag do to Lisbon and I've never been so ashamed of being British. I mean, and I'm mostly ashamed of being British. But this really piqued it, of just the utter crassness, the boorish, the, you know, the cultural imperialism, the just... It was terrible. You know, the sort of desecration of local culture, you know, could have been anywhere. And it's like, well, why not be anywhere then? And so, yeah, that was... And these were people I was with similarly to Peter. I don't particularly have a best experience other than the time where I raced through late for my flight coming back home from being in America for a couple of months coaching football or soccer. So I'd been away for a while and I came rushing through at the last minute and Concord was going at the same time as from New York at the time. And the guy in the sort of putting his keys through the thing in front of me was Paul McCartney. So and I sort of nodded at him. I wouldn't say I met him as such, but he sort of he looked back to get his stuff and I was then sort of and I went.
Speaker A:Yeah. So you basically you're now basically best buds. Yeah, best best buds. With Maka.
Speaker B:But but yeah, that was that was yeah. Generally, if I had to talk to him, I'd have probably hated him.
Speaker A:But I'm also wondering about Paul McCartney on his podcast answering the same question. Well, true. And let's hope you're on the right end of the yes, no. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker B:I would suggest he probably doesn't remember you. I would think there's probably a high chance.
Speaker A:I think he remembers him really well. There's this awful person like that. Nick, I think this is quite interesting because all of our stories so far have been people we're trapped with and mine is also about people we're trapped with. So I think it possibly that it's about the about the awkwardness of being associated with awful people. It's not just about meeting them. It's like it's like something we didn't think of. But this is going to reflect badly on me. I was trapped in a house. I was invited by accident to spend a week or two in Italy with this sort of upper middle class North London family who my best friend was going out with one of. And I think they didn't really want me to be there. And I wasn't the same. I was sort of middle, middle class, and they were kind of upper middle class. And they were pretty dysfunctional as a family. But they were they spent the whole every time we went out, they would spend the whole time slagging off other British people that they knew. That's awful. But it was a very unreflective precisely. You know how like we actually feel quite embarrassed slagging off other British people because we're just we're probably exactly the same. They did it completely unreflectively. And there was this one family who lived nearby who they were constantly criticising. But this other family had a swimming pool and they didn't. And it doesn't seem very upper middle class behaviour. They were renovating this old run down. Of course they were. And then they and then they as soon as these other family they've been slagging off invited them over to their swimming pool. Suddenly they were their best mates. Yeah. And I didn't go. I boycotted the trip because I said, I'm not going to. That's hypocritical. You know, you can't. Of course, they couldn't see that. Sounds very lower middle class kind of behaviour. Well, I'm sorry, it wasn't. And I know because of these people, I don't know about the behaviour, but I'm just saying that the family were, you know, very educated.
Speaker C:And you take very close attention to this social scale where you are on it. Well, exactly.
Speaker A:But they were they were definitely above me. I lived in a townhouse in Islington. And, you know, the dad was a composer. And they were. Yeah, they sound like tops. Yes, they were. But I think there were more. It was the dysfunctionality, possibly more than the class. Were their children called Oberon and Hypatia? Yeah, I think I might have met them at a waterpark in New York. I'm actually not going to tell you what I call because it will be too easy to identify. But apart from the fact that you spent time with them in a.
Speaker C:We don't want to dox them any further.
Speaker A:Suffice to say, yes, they all had those kinds of names. But they wouldn't be sufficiently interesting or well-informed or curious about the world to listen to this podcast. They would never think I was talking about them. Yes, exactly. They would probably think I was talking about the other family. Yeah, there was all these people that were awful. All right, we'll stop there. That was fun and kind of enlightening and kind of what's the opposite of life affirming? Toe curling. No, despair inducing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Such is the lot as an English person. Yeah. Yes, foreign listeners. Look what we have to live with. Yeah. Ourselves. Okay. Thanks as always for listening to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer. We've been here with Nick Hare, Chris Wragg and Peter Coghill of Aleph Insights. Until next time. Goodbye.
