Talking Shit with a Yank & a Brit - 1. Cack Handed Chat

Episode Date: March 23, 2023

Kate and Gemma kick things off by talking shit about some of the weird and wonderful differences between the UK & US and an introduction to being 'cack handed'... Subcribe and rate friends!

Welcome to Talking Shit with a Yank and a Brit. I'm the Brit. Gemma. I'm the Yank. Hi, Gemma. That's Kate. Hi. Hi. So we don't know what we're doing. There's gonna be a lot of ums in this. Did you know that women who use um and uh and other word fillers actually do that because we want to signify that we're not done talking and we're so used to men interrupting us.

Doesn't fucking surprise me, mate. And it's not a sign of lower intelligence. It's actually a sign of higher intelligence. Yeah, I've always thought that about myself. Which is why we're here. Which is why we're here. Lovely segue onto our intro. Why are we doing this? So we thought it would be fun. We both like podcasts. We're from different sides of the Atlantic Ocean. So we thought it would be fun to get together and talk about various topics.

Nothing is off limits. The comparisons between our lives, our cultures. What it's like to be a female in this modern world that we live in. I'm really good at this. I mean, you nailed it. I can pinpoint the day that we kind of generated this idea, even though it ended up taking like, what, eight months to actually get to doing it? We are professional procrastinators i like to think of it as we really approached it slowly and thoughtfully until we decided to do it yeah then it was just rip the band-aid off and try yeah but with that um anything to add to my uh

intro there no i think that um there's a lot of unique differences between my country and yours and things that we've learned about each other as we've grown in our friendship and for example cat canned can't stop thinking about that difference but thought that might be interesting interesting for other people to hear about too. So here we are. Mm. Here we are. So yeah. So how long ago did we meet, Kate? How long have you been with Sean? Well, Sean and I met in 2012. So I believe that is also when you and I met. So I believe that is also when you and I met.

Yeah. So for the listeners, plural, listener. That also includes animals. So my cats and your dogs. I've got a dog right here. So Sean was one of my good school friends. And Sean is now Catherine's husband. My betrothed.

Your betrothed. I believe you guys met at someone else's wedding, didn't you? Yep. We met at, we were both in a wedding in Sioux City, Iowa, which is also where I'm from. So Sean was able to not only meet me, his future wife, but also see exotic, exotic Sioux City, Iowa. And I like to think that he fell in love with the town just as much as he fell in love with me. I think he did, yeah. you gotta visit like you are not gonna believe this place that I've been to it is out of this world I have to move there fact I think that's probably why we got married it was

really more of a I gotta get to Sioux City yeah yeah yeah yeah I think that was the main motivation to be honest well and so when I came over to no offense oh well no it's fine when I came over to uh visit for the first time and met all of you and Sean's family I remember thinking like what's wrong with him that he has to date someone so far away when he's got all these hot bitches here? Then I realized. What he didn't tell you is he never stops talking. I learned that.

Nope, I learned that. Marriage. Oh, marriage. marriage oh marriage but I think you know his his family and his friends became my family and my friends so that's nice oh come on but with that you and I

spend some time sharing podcasts with each other. And I think that one of the ones you shared with me, what was it? Shit my therapist says. My therapist ghosted me. That's it. And you sent that to me. And I'm like, we could do this. And I was like, well, why don't we why don't we and that's not to suggest that my therapist ghosted

me isn't an incredible podcast that I thought we could do a better job on I just thought we could do this so here we, eight months later. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Tell me, Gemma. Some technical difficulties, yeah. I, very curious, or the listeners at home, I think want to know more about where you're at and what you do and just kind of like who you are. Tell me. Okay, well, I'm Gemma. Okay, well, I'm Gemma.

I live in southeast of the UK, in England. Actually, I saw a post the other day, a little segue, where it was an Australian that's just moved to the UK and referred to the different countries in the UK as states. I was like, no, they're countries. You live here now, you should know that. Anyway, so yeah, I live in England, southeast of England in East Sussex. I work in fraud investigation.

Also do singing lessons, sing in a band. With my friend Keith and my dog, Jess. What about you? Where do you come from? What do you do, Catherine? Well, I have to give a plug to your band and singing capabilities first. Gemma's an incredible singer. It's actually quite because she's always gonna win at karaoke

um about me though i agree well you know i think people really enjoy listening to you sing though so it's a gift you give to the world um about me let's see yeah so obviously i'm american because this is how i talk according to my husband and you guys when you try to do my accent real nasal sound um grew up in the midwest aka the flyover states and you've been to sioux city as well even though that's not where i currently am i'm in minnesota you know what it looks like here and not often what people think of about america if they're not in america and i work in family i mean family court doing family court stuff hey don't downplay it you're a fucking attorney at law

once upon a time got a million degrees million and four thank you um yeah and i think probably we'll spend some time well and we're gonna spend some time on our podcast talking about higher education and degrees and perhaps a little bit more about our work, because frankly, I find the thought of fraud investigation really interesting. Well, let me tell you how it's not. Yeah, that'll be it. That'll be us trying to convince each other our jobs are actually not that interesting. That's the main topic of this podcast. So we thought we should do just a little disclaimer um we are not experts in any of the subjects we are going to discuss it's meant to be you know i mean a lot of it's going to be light-hearted um funny stuff hopefully um the more serious

shit you know we'll fact check it as much as we can, but please don't sue us or tweet me. You can't tweet me because I'm not on Twitter, but don't do that. I am on Twitter. You can try to sue me, but as you heard, Jemda said I was an attorney. So just keep that in mind.

Please don't though really well i'll have you know this chatbot ai did say that some differences culturally and like kind of like individually between america or americans and and British people is that like we're super aggro and direct and like kind of in your face and you guys are more indirect and subtle and nuanced in your humor a little more dry yeah we're very sarcastic very dry but we will not tell someone the honest truth for example if the food is shit in a restaurant and someone comes up and says oh how's your food how are you finding everything i fucking guarantee you that 80 of the population will just go oh it's absolutely lovely thanks so much even if it's disgusting this is the grossest motherfucking thing I've ever tasted in my life.

Yeah, it's great. Thank you. No complaints. Thank you so much. Yeah. Oh, it's beautiful. Best lasagna I've ever had. You know, I think there's some truth for that in America, too. I mean, there's this thing called Minnesota Nice. And the joke is, it's like, Minnesotans will, you know, give you directions anywhere but to their house. And like, you can't make new, like, you don't make new friends in Minnesota. Like, if you move here, everyone's just have their same friend group. And I think I've seen a little bit of that. But I also I think that it's just making friends as an adult is hard, first of all. But there's just like, you know, politeness.

I think people are overly concerned about that sometimes. And maybe in a restaurant, I'm not going to, I probably have someone who wouldn't necessarily send something back unless it was like, I actually didn't order this, you know. But if I didn't like it that much, you know, I just be like oh yeah it's fine um but one thing I've noticed and how you guys kind of engaged too is that I read differently is like this thing about small talk like you guys don't like small talk and I've not really found I feel like I haven't found that to be true when I'm over there but I don't know maybe I've just been making people uncomfortable with small talk. Probably. They're like, why wouldn't this bloody American shut up?

Why is she talking to me? God. But you're too polite to say anything. Yeah. Now, there's definitely like typical British small talk. We love talking about the weather. Oh, my God, this rain we're having. Absolutely terrible. You love moaning about the weather, I believe.

We love moaning about the weather. What were some other ones? Y'all right? Oh, that threw me off so much. It's like, are you asking me if I'm okay? Because I'm okay. Yeah, okay. So for any American listeners that don't get that,

we'll greet each other and go, all right. Yes. And that is meaning like, hello, really? I mean, it's like, it's kind of, hello, how are you? But you don't, no one's really expecting you to be like, I'm really bad, you's like it's kind of hello how are you but you don't no one's really expecting you to be like um really bad you know it's just kind of like yeah mate hey that's kind of like what the expected response is right yeah exactly yeah that threw me off so much are there any other ones um yeah well i mean i remember not being able to get like a just a regular old cup of coffee that really was annoying

but we also microwave well oh my god don't get me started on that no we're talking about it we're gonna go there i know that's really intense, but we're going to go there. I went to a Starbucks and I just wanted an iced coffee, but I get that iced tea and iced coffee and stuff isn't really like you guys and your cold beverages are kind of not in that line. And the baristas were looking at me like, do you mean like a frappuccino? No, I want you just to put some ice in a cup and maybe put some of that brewed coffee right there over it and they're like what

just trust me I'll drink it just I that's that's all I need that's what I want okay yeah how weird I think it might be more popular now. I do too. I think things have changed since 2012. I mean, that was 11 years ago, so... But I did, you know, I can appreciate a cup of tea. Well, not if you're microwaving the water, you can't. No, because now we have a proper kettle.

But my mom did that when the in-laws were visiting, and I'm pretty sure Sean's mother died a little inside. Yeah, you might have had to take her to the emergency room after that. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I watched a video of some Americans making a British cup of tea, and not only did they microwave it they put the milk and the tea bag in the fucking cup as well

that's what I was going to ask what's your order okay so you boil the water and you pour that boiled water fresh from a kettle or a saucepan if you don't have a kettle pour it over the tea bag.

Then you let it brew. Move it around. Stir it up a bit. Let those tea leaves... What's the word? Marinate? I don't know. Marinate, yeah, I guess.

That sounds a bit weird. Seep, I think, is actually the word. Ew. Steep? Let those, is actually the word. Ew. Steep? Let those tea leaves seep, baby. It might be steep, actually. Steep. Ew, my tea is steepy.

Let the tea bag brew. There we go. Ew, it's so seepy. And then take the tea bag out, give it a squeeze, And then take the tea bag out, give it a squeeze, pop it in the bin, and then you milk the tea to your desired requirements, taste buds, whatever you'd like. Dietary needs.

Dietary needs, yeah. I mean, you do still get some people that put milk in first. I was just going to ask that, like the milk versus, like sugar first, milk first. There is some differences there even amongst the Brits, right? Yeah. Yeah, there is. There's not one size fits all. But in my humble opinion, as someone who has drunk tea for many years, I think that is the order of things so there you go you learn something new every day can you talk about like tea in England like

having a cup of tea throughout the day it's kind of um it's like a ritual too right like it's not just because you guys fucking love tea so much and you need like the caffeine. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's yeah. It's a cultural thing. Like if something goes wrong.

We'll put the kettle on. I think it's probably another way of avoiding talking to each other. We'll put the kettle on. Disappear in the kitchen for 10 minutes and hope that maybe the topic's changed. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know why.

Maybe it's just the weather here is usually shit and rainy. I'm swearing a lot in this, aren't I? We swear a lot. I think just normally yeah I do apparently that's also another sign of high intelligence

so don't at me yeah so I think it's nice to just have a nice warm brew to keep us warm well and it kind of signifies the transitions in your day too right like morning lunch dinner Well, and it kind of signifies the transitions in your day too, right? Like morning, lunch, dinner, bed. Tea, tea, tea.

We'll have a cup depending on what we're doing or, you know, we'll go over to Sean's mom's and she'll ask. And like it just is kind of like it's a way of, I think, hospitality too, maybe. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. It's the first thing we'll ask when someone comes around. Do you want to drink your tea? And I don't think there's a household in England that doesn't have like a kettle. No, pretty much every. I was shocked when I found out Americans didn't have like a kettle. No, pretty much every.

I was shocked when I found out Americans didn't have kettles. I was like, but how do you boil water? Yeah. What are you doing? Like even for like, you know, making pasta. How the fuck do you deal with that? Are you warming it from cold? On the stove.

Jesus. It must take like an hour. Yeah, it does. We're all very hungry. Yeah, I didn't have an electric kettle until after I met Sean and I thought it was genius because you're right, it's multi-purpose. I use it for so many things.

I'm going to use a lot of electricity. I'm going to use a tea. Oh man, I can go for some tea now. Sean, kettle on. That's it. I made a cup of tea for this podcast. I was drinking coffee. It's gone though. What's the worst date you had and or the weirdest like thing that's happened on a date or

thing that a guy didn't like about you okay so went on a date with a guy um it was okay we were sort of getting on fine. He had told me that earlier that day he'd been in the woods building a fort with his friends, but I thought, okay, he might just like the outdoors. Who doesn't? We continued. You checked his ID, right? Like we confirmed that he was a grown man.

Not two children masquerading as an adult in a trench coat. Maybe we don't know to this day. I don't know to this day, no. Because I didn't see him again. So yeah, we're talking, you know, getting on fine. We were in a pub drinking, so I assumed he was old enough. At least 16. At least 18.

Yeah, so I can't remember how it came about, but he found out I was left-handed and he was disgusted. He was like, oh, you're not, are you? I was like, yeah, you know, yeah, I write with my left hand. He's like, oh my God, I can't believe you're cack-handed. hand oh my god i can't believe you're cack handed and when you told me the story i had to pause and i need to say that what is that word again i need to know more about this word because this is not a word that has ever been in my vocabulary never come across it at all so if you don't mind explaining to the audience at home so i mean the formal definition of it is inept and clumsy what the fuck but it's we generally use it as if someone's left-handed they're cack-handed

because they're using the wrong hand and the correct hand is the right hand apparently um so best case it's suggesting that left-handed people are lazy, clumsy, whatever definition you said. But worst case is that it's also slang for shit, right? Yeah. So yeah, like caca. Shithand. Shit. Yes, I just Googled it, right?

It says, cacandid. Informal. British. Inept. Clumsy. it says cack handed informal British inept clumsy a great song ruined by cack handed production

derogatory informal left handed and he was just repulsed by that huh he was

he couldn't understand how I could possibly write or do anything with my left hand um and from you know it was it was an amber flag i'd say i think to quite go as a red flag but yeah well there are a couple other amber flags if i recall correctly right that maybe made it one red flag yeah the whole day overall was uh was a red flagger well i refer you again to the fact that he was building a fort in the woods with his friends he called you something that sounded rather juvenile like something that kids call their kids in like school um and i believe you also said he he was still living at home with his parents so i mean if i bring up the exhibits

that i have here he was stands to reason he was a 16 year old boy yeah he also didn't drive and worked part-time in a supermarket so yeah i mean the more i think about it and the more i discuss it it does sound like a 16 year old boy it's okay they look older sometimes jemma yeah he had a beard um i do now ask for id at the beginning of a date though just to make sure do you really or do you just take them somewhere you know they're gonna have to whip it out first their id i mean oh god oh that's beautiful my that story is just one of the better kind of like weird dating experiences i've heard and i'm so glad you shared that with me and now potentially tens

of people tens of 20 of people have heard my news I really will not call you cat can though because I just I kind of find that you know in today's world that just actually seems really offensive it it actually is it's almost as bad as the c word to be honest yeah which to be honest in England we use that as an affectionate term yeah you guys um it's like you love it but you also hate it because I know I really offended Sean when I like the first night I met him I like screamed it at the top of my lungs because I thought that'd be really charming, I think. So. How?

When? Why? I don't know. You know, we were at a, it was after, you know, it was, like, kind of the pre-wedding stuff. And we were at a bar. And I was with Lauren. What, you just yelled cum at the top of your lungs. You know, I think I said I thought I was charming.

I was at a bar with my friend Lauren, who you've met. And I don't I think I don't know if we were just like, you know, or maybe maybe one of the other British folks who were there said it. Something came up and so Lauren and I are are just like should we just like yell at the top of our lungs and we did and sean's like that is not cool and it's like what do you mean no it's very cool actually and then he said something kind of i was like well fuck you dude uh just like i don't really like when girls talk like that I'm like I guess you're not going to like me then

and then the rest is history and then he fell in love with me what can I say so maybe I was being pretty charming and cute little did he know he actually found that really attractive. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. I mean, a lot of fun people hate it. Well, but you guys also use like twat, twat, twat. Twat.

Twat, that's how you say it. So do you guys say, are you saying, I saying i guess yeah you can't really say it in american accent twat twat do you that's quite southern we say twat like twat twat almost it's almost as if like we're saying it the way you think brits would say it yeah okay isn't that interesting you know you guys say that it's and i think i was like i don't know that sounds less elegant somehow such a twat well when you say it it does that means vagina it does it does but like not in a nice way i feel like i feel like no one's to ever like refer to a vagina as a twat.

Kind of in like that's a beautiful twat. Jenna, you have a lovely twat. Thank you so much. thank you so much for all those men listening out there it's top notch I've got a beautiful twat okay yet again one of the interesting differences between how we say things

Sean felt the same way he's like no that sounds so stupid how you say it it's a dumb word let's just rule it out completely what US shows do you watch that you've heard like weird language on because I know you watch TV

that's like based in the US like Ozark i know you watch tv that's like based in the u.s i can't remember like ozark right did you watch did you watch ozark yeah i watched some ozark which is like uniquely kind of middle america but still southern because you know ruth's got that like i don't know shit about fuck twang yeah i'm a big fan i don't know shit about fuck twang yeah i'm a big fan i don't know shit about fuck shout out to zark and ruth we love you big shout out what are some other ones um i cannot fucking stand how you guys say i mean i know you spell it different but aluminium yeah you know let's dig into that let's have this conversation it's maybe gonna cause some a rift in our friendship but we're gonna do it because it's not spelled that way

but it is in english okay it's actually spelled weird i know i don't and that's what i don't understand is like it's a it's a it's a metal it's like a a metal found in the earth and why is it smelled two different ways i know who's done that stop changing words i'm actually gonna go ahead and blame like the republicans yeah i think it's probably their fault um other things I find weird is how, like, we call certain vegetables different things. Oh, my God. Yes. You have eggplant, and we call it an aubergine.

Cilantro and coriander. Yeah, that one, I didn't know what that was for years. Well, and coriander is something else here. That's the weird i mean it's all part of the same plant but like coriander we have that in addition to cilantro you know what yeah when i was shopping there for our taco night i was like i need cilantro that looks like cilantro but it says coriander so i don't really know what to do here know what to do here.

Sean was of no help. We call it a courgette. I think a lot of our words, we copy the French words a lot in English, British pronunciation. I mean, that makes sense too, given proximity and probably how, like,

with, like, moving what is it, west? Yeah. How things carry. And then it's like we get here and we're like, nope, we gotta do things entirely differently. We're gonna, we're trying to, like, remove ourselves from them. So, you know what? Let's call this an eggplant.

Yeah. Because it looks like an egg. And it grows on the plant. Get it? But you guys, the way you use language too, like you describe it. Like you describe the thing rather than give it a name. For example, I always got stuck on your exit signs you know we just have exit signs but yours way out which works but it's just like who decided to just invent like invent a new word

then in case you don't know that's the way out in case you don't know what exit means we'll spell it we don't want to confuse the unwashed masses so and then you have a little guy, a little stick figure that looks like he's running but then you guys do that as well

because you're like sidewalk it's very self explanatory yeah that's true which doesn't make any fucking sense really yeah you're right we are guilty of that what are some other really funny ones that i love listeners at home send in your favorite idiosyncrasies between our countries i'm gonna come up with a list for next time also why do you say herb instead of herb

where's the i think i say her i think i say herb good well done because the h is there i tend to pronounce things really kind of like phonetically because I read a lot as a kid and didn't have a lot of interactions with words like melancholy, for example. I thought it was pronounced melancholy for many years because never heard that word spoken aloud. And so I think, you know, herb, I think I've probably said it both ways. It's also a person's name. And I don't think if it were a person's name, you're not going to call that person herb, right? It's going to be herb, Herbert.

Yeah. But I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of things that, you know, English is such a hard language. I can see why people who are non-English speakers really struggle with it because of like, there's such inconsistencies with rules. People say like route or root, you know, even though the kind of middle part of the word is O-U-T, out, and we don't say oot when we're saying I need, you know, get out. And so when people say root, I'm like, are you talking about a tree root or what's happening here? It's route, people and in australia root means to fuck someone whoa what yep we gotta get your friend on here so she can talk about this

oh yes we need to do that god the time difference is gonna be awful we'll have like an hour oh my god It'll be the same time here as for her. All the way around the world. But okay, so I'm going to, I want to root you. Did I say that right? Yeah, I want to root you. I want to fucking root you. No, thank you.

That would be my response. No thanks. I heard that gonna go ahead and pass on that one so talking about the English language I found this really cool little article the other day called

why English is so hard to learn oh say more so it's loads of like just little sentences I don't know if it will work as well being read out but I'll give it a go So it's loads of like just little sentences. I don't know if it will work as well being read out, but I'll give it a go. So number one is the bandage was wound around the wound. Oh, yeah.

Because wound and wound are spelled the same and you're supposed to like use the context of the sentence to figure out how to pronounce it which way right exactly so they're all like that basically so the farm was cultivated to produce produce the dump was so full that the workers had to refuse more refuse oh my god I like this one the soldier decided I'm going to get this wrong the soldier decided to dessert his tasty dessert in the desert okay couple questions about that one

soldier what's happening well they like deserts and yeah i guess they they deserve dessert exactly just because they're fighting wars it doesn't mean they can't have a dessert you're right my bad that was I support the troops, I guess. Oh, dessert, desert. Dessert, but different spelling. Yeah.

Crazy. Here's another one. So a seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line. Oh my God. Is the first one supposed to be sewer though? A seamstress and a sewer fell down a sewer line? Yes. Apologies. Oh, see, but you just demonstrated the whole issue.

I know. It's really hard. Upon seeing the tear in her painting, she shed a tear. Girl, same. You worked hard on that. So, yeah. I'm surprised anyone speaks English, quite frankly. Well, and you know, I don't recall there being, like, maybe it's because that's the language that was spoke around me when I was younger.

And I suppose you do speak English. That it just, sure, like some rules, like I before E and stuff, it takes a minute to kind of learn. But I don't ever think, I don't recall thinking ever like this is so confusing. Why is there so many there's and twos no no i've never had trouble with the there's but some people really do it's really on behalf of the english-speaking nations and the creators of english language i apologize to everyone for how we did this. Yes. I'm going to take responsibility for this one. Yeah, let's all blame Kate.

Well, since you shared an article about the confusion of the English language, I have a little bit of a thing for you. Yay. And this is strictly more American, and I'm curious just to know thing for you. And this is strictly kind of more American. And I'm curious just to know, like, if you know what it is and, like, if it's something that you find weird or, you know, kind of confusing. You ready? Go for it.

Yeah. Okay. Some of these are a little bit like, duh, or I don't know if it's really that weird. But some of them, like, I guess I didn't even think like, oh, is this uniquely American? And that's because I'm not very worldly or cultured or well-traveled. But here we go. Okay. So this one, this one I kind of had no reaction to.

But drink coffee on the go. I don't get it. Well, I think what it's trying to say is like coffee is kind of a ritual spend time with friends at a coffee shop and you know don't take it to go because you're not busy and you want to just like relax a little bit I think it's more about like how Americans are always on the go working blah blah

blah you know okay I get you and you guys do have a lot of coffee shops that seem like kind of built around sitting and like you can get it. It's like extra if you want it to go because, right? Does it cost them more to get it to go? I think it does, yeah. Because of the cup?

We only recently just had like drive-thru Costa and Starbucks. That was quite a new thing interesting but you guys do have like mcdonald's yeah i bet yeah yeah yeah do you know what they also have okay bringing up australia um but they also have drive-thru off licenses in australia where you can drive through and just pick up some wine or some beer. So back to when Sean and I met. Quick story. Okay. I took our friend, and I'll say his name,

but we can cut it out if we need to protect people's privacy, but Wixie. Wixie and I hopped in my little Prius, and we went to get some cigarettes cigarettes and I took him through the liquor store cigarette drive-thru in North Sioux City yeah and he's like are you joking you you mean we can just order any alcohol and cigarettes like sitting in your car right now yep yeah that's amazing we don't have that and he's like these cost how much because obviously like cigarettes here are differently priced than cigarettes there and he's like i need to get a

carton he was so and that might be a reason why you want to block his name out just in case you know this was 10 years ago folks but yeah so that is i've had that like that has been a thing my whole life that's mad yeah it is kind of weird yeah salt dakota for you okay here's another one use a single colored currency. Yeah. How do you tell the difference? Well, they have numbers on them. But it's true.

Your pounds are all very differently colored. And are all your notes the same size as well? Yeah. So yeah, you can maybe try to give someone a 20 and you can only give them a 100. And then you're like, oh, fuck. Yeah, I guess so, yeah. Yeah, because all ours, like our five-pound notes, are a lot smaller than our 10-pound notes.

So all ours are like our five pound notes are a lot smaller than our 10 pound notes. I think the 10 pound notes are slightly smaller than a 20 pound note as well. And they're all different colors. Different colors, shininess. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Next one is supersize everything.

My God, you do supersize everything everything i could not believe the size of like a large fries in mcdonald's when i came to america i mean the small is really what you would expect the large to be yeah yeah your smalls are are largest largest especially that's a word especially the drinks, the drinks always blow me away because I don't drink a lot of pop and soda and I'll order a small and it'll be fucking huge

like who is consuming that amount of fucking some people do yeah I guess they do okay skipping this one oh okay this one. Oh, okay, this one I thought was weird. Require a ton of ice.

Do you like a ton of ice? I mean, I don't really have a lot of ice in this stuff, but I feel like it says many foreign countries write ice off as something that waters down your drink in addition to having questionable origins. Oh, really? Yeah. is something that waters down your drink in addition to having questionable origins oh really yeah maybe it's maybe it's more like yeah that's what i thought too okay um pay sales tax yeah that's weird why don't you just add the tax to the label i don't know because it's a percentage so it's like different so if something's ten dollars it's gonna be a different tax than the twenty dollar thing i guess i mean you could still calculate it

yeah so i guess here they probably that's too much work yeah everything you have here is tax included as the final price and i was really shocked when I first came to America. I think we went to like Target or something. I was like, oh my God, it's so cheap. And then went to the till and they gave me a completely different price. I was like, what? Sorry? Am I missing something?

Well, and to be fair, it's not like it went up double the price. But yeah, I could see how that would be. It's like, no, it said it was $10 and now you're telling me it's $13.95. Yeah. So. That was very confusing. Also, I find it weird how you guys, like when you get your salary, your like tax isn't automatically taken out of that. Like so you have to pay your taxes at the end of the year right it no it is it's the question is whether you did did enough or too much oh okay

I complete our tax system infuriates me to no end I 100% agree but so I have tax deducted out of my paycheck every paycheck and then at the end of the year i have to hire someone to basically make sure that i did enough out of my paycheck or if i did too much then i would get a refund it doesn't make any sense doesn't make any sense like what why are they not people that work that out before it comes out you can do it yourself but you kind of just guess and then like there's like other factors that go into it too like if i you know i worked did some private work that i just got paid directly and didn't pay tax on i have to factor that in so like that reasonably would be like okay i owe tax on this right yeah um but it's just like it seems to me this is how much i earn i'm married this is how much my husband earns we're filing jointly

so total this is how much we earn just tell us how much we have to pay based on how much we earn and take it out you know twice a month yeah so weird i don't know yeah it's bullshit um anymore i'll do a couple more just a few well there's 37 but i won't put you through all of them okay baby showers yeah well we've started doing this in the uk now um and i fucking hate it sorry i don't want to throw you a party for having a baby congratulations for not using protection i mean come on i just don't care the worst though is i feel the same way the worst thing is the gender reveal parties i mean what are you doing well and like the stuff that's happened because people are are like trying to make them so big and creative like one couple set the whole country on fire someone died a pigeon did you see that no so apparently like there was this pink fit pigeon

flying around somewhere, finally died. And like the authorities are like, we think it was from a gender reveal party. Oh my God. That is. Yeah. Yeah. Horrible.

But yeah, like there's, there's a lot of things that we never used to do in the UK that have now become. Like Halloween. Like Halloween. Like we used to do Halloween, but it was like a non-event do you know what I mean it was you'd go out trick-or-treating but most people didn't have any sweets to give you because no one really cared and now everyone's decorating everything there's pumpkins everywhere and kids running around in

costumes I mean it's kind of fun though, right? Like if I understand why maybe that would be something that would pick up traction because I think, you know, for kids in particular and people who like to dress up, like it could be fun, I suppose. Yeah, I guess so, yeah. I don't celebrate it. I wasn't allowed, so I missed out.

Oh, why? Well, sorry, mom, if you listen to this but uh it was you know she felt it was pagan and kind of satanic so i didn't didn't have to go to school on halloween because you know especially in elementary school or primary school yeah there was a lot of the activities revolved around halloween and you had to go to church instead. Fair. That was fun. Does that maybe explain some things about me? That explains a lot.

So much. All right. I'll do a couple more. Party with red solo cups. I feel like that's something you guys always thought was kind of like a cool American thing. Yeah. We thought that was quite cool. And it's like, you never used to be able to buy red cups but you can buy red cups now. So we're just as cool as you guys. It's because it was in all those teen party movies, right?

Yeah, with beer pong and house parties. Frat party, y'all. Let's go get some Keystone Light and go to the frat house. That's how I talked in college. Okay, last one, and I really wanted to talk to you about this one. Okay. Because I think this is interesting.

Yeah. And I know it really frustrated Sean when he first kind of was here. Tipping. Yeah. Why don't you just pay your servers enough money i mean like we will tip but it's it's uh it's a personal choice if you've had like above you know they've gone above and beyond for you or the food was incredible then i'll give you a tip i mean to be honest most restaurants do add a service charge on um but yeah if you want to give it's usually like 10 or 12 percent here isn't it like 20 over there yeah yeah um so yeah it's down to your discretion i don't know why our pay structure yeah i don't know why pay structure is

built around gratuity and like some people very much like 10 is the you know like max and i won't tip you if you don't refill my water once or like 20 times or something. It's so weird. I just tip like the server could literally be rude as fuck. And I would still tip them because frankly, it's like, I, you're just doing your job. I'm just here to eat. The bare minimum is I get my food, you know? Yeah. And you get it as well with like hotel porters and taxi drivers as well? Or am I making that up? Yeah, like hairstylists, tattoo artists, you know, really kind of any but this is what I what frustrates me is it's because it's like no one's tipping me for my job. Not saying they should. But like everybody is performing a service everybody deserves to i think get paid for

doing their job and it shouldn't be based on what whether someone perceives you did a good job or not that makes no sense to me and a lot of the time in england as well like if you work in a bar or restaurant um the tips kind of well they either just get added to the till and the serve i keep saying servers but we say waitresses don't actually get anything um or it gets like split between everyone which isn't fair because one person may be really fantastic at what they're doing and that's why they're getting tips and someone does the bare minimum and it's split between that's actually that my brother works at a bar like a brewery restaurant and they pool there which i think probably like i've worked in plenty of a like hospitality industry where tipping is yeah something i got and i would be

frustrated if i had to pull my tips yeah but I suppose, you know, if everyone does a really good job, you could end up like getting a fair amount. I don't know. Yeah, I suppose so. But yeah, I have tipped hairstylists in the past. And what decision do you base that on? If they've done a good job. And if they give me a really

good head but what if they did a bad job then they don't get a tip i know but it's like you don't want them you just want them to do a good job regardless right like that's what should be happening oh yeah i mean if it's terrible i'll be like oh i love it it's really nice thanks exactly go home and cry yeah booking somewhere else pretty sharpish god yeah oh dear so there's obviously a lot of weird things that we do here that is unlike anywhere else in the country and i think sure there's probably things we could talk about in england that you know the rest of the world doesn't do either. But I think the last thing, and this is me tooting my own horn too, is it says go into debt for a degree. And oh my God, yeah, I just had my loans forgiven.

My student loans forgiven because of the public service loan forgiveness program. But in hindsight, it's like, Gemma, I had almost a half a million dollars worth of student loan debt. Oh, my God. So why has it been forgiven? How has this come around? So when I started, you know, like I think this was true before I went to law school. But when I went into law school, there was a program called the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. service loan forgiveness program. And it was designed to encourage people like, you know,

being a doctor, lawyer, teacher, whatever, to get educated and work in public service, which ultimately means maybe like a lower salary, stuff like that. You know, it's a harder job in some ways, depending on what we're talking about and less pay because it's public service. And then if you do that for 10 years and like pay your loans for 10 years blah blah blah this is a really simplistic way of describing it but you then your loans get forgiven wow so is that debt just gone yeah i mean and it wouldn't have been excuse me it wouldn't have been gone if it weren't for some of the changes they made to the program you know since the pandemic and stuff right but at i started public service after graduating law school in january 2013 so you know technically i hit my 10-year mark in january and i logged in a couple days ago and had a little smiley face saying

your account's in good standing, which meant that it got forgiven. How exciting. So, yay. I know. It's a relief, to be honest. God, that's amazing. But tell me about like how you guys do things. So for us, it depends on, I don't think our student loans are anywhere near as high as yours.

I mean, mine was really small because I only went to music college, basically. So it wasn't too bad. And I just got in. They're good at what you do. Oh, true. I've never used my professional diploma though. I think you do. But yeah, they did change it. So I got in just before it changed.

And they basically, the way it works is they would take out a percentage depending on your annual salary per month and you just pay it off gradually. But some years ago they changed it and the interest is so high on a lot of them now that basically people will never pay them off. Like my brother went to uni. I think he was in around i think it was like 40 grand debt um and he was telling me that because the interest is so high it never goes down basically um so unless he overpays do you know what the rate is no i can't remember i will ask him though though you know um but yeah so a lot of people are basically just going to have student loans forever unless they come into a bit of money and can pay it off in bulk um so yeah that's fun so I will say like that actually sounds kind of similar my student

loan like dad is I think a little abnormal um probably if you if I googled like average student loan debt it would be probably less than you know a hundred thousand at least but I think the issue and this was the issue for me is I didn't have I didn't like actually take out the amount of money I had that was because of interest so i made payments and it didn't go yeah it didn't go down wow it just went up god that's mad it is it is and i think i know there's people here who are like well i paid off my loan so and they're not necessarily talking about the loan public service loan forgiveness program like that is a like an incentive to work in public service right but yeah there's also talk about like forgiveness you know for those who aren't in like a certain amount like i would have been eligible

for twenty thousand dollars forgiveness if my loans hadn't been forgiven once the supreme court like decides how to rule on that anyways but people are getting really obsessed about it because it's like i paid off my loans why should i have to and it's just it it's like it's it's not a what about ism like this is we're talking about a really fucked up system here yeah so just be happy for people god sad to hear it i know i know people you can't but well girl we've been on for like an hour and 15 minutes. We have. We've done well. Anything else you want to talk shit about today? Oh, I've got some good news. The ozone layer is healing.

Oh, thank God. I'm so, I love that for us. uh yeah it's it's healing it's coming back and apparently by uh 2066 it's the whole over australia is going to be completely healed oh so you know well after we're dead hey you never know i mean i can only hope to be honest so that means the world's not gonna end like i've been doom worrying about for the past two years well not from a hole in the ozone layer no there's plenty of other things one one of the things we can cross off the list then at least. I mean we still got nuclear war. We still got like

basically racism and gun crime over here which will be maybe another discussion on another episode of Talking Shit. Well let's say goodbye and I'm going to say goodbye in my best Gemma accent and you're going to do it in your best Tate accent, okay?

Okay, great. Cheerio. Toodaloo. Talking shit. Yang and Brit. Mates. What do you think? That was great.

I love it when you do a British accent. It's one of my favorites. So good at it. Well, it's been wonderful. Okay. It's been lovely. I enjoyed it. Hope you did. Yeah. If anyone out there is listening, thank you so much for listening.

And we'll be back with more talking shit. Indeed. Okay. Bye. Bye then. you you