Financial & Travel Musings

When you’re British you basically assume that America is just a large island off the coast of Ireland and one that is clearly very similar to Britain.

Of course, it’s similar in terms of language and, largely, in terms of general culture too. But it isn’t exactly the same, nor is it just like one would consider a frontier off the coast of Scotland.

Most notably different is sales of things like barska scopes. Gun shops are a whole retailing category which basically doesn’t exist in the UK and the “right to bear arms” is something that is profoundly alien.

On the other side of the coin, travel agents barely exist in America in comparison to the vast numbers spread across the British countryside.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Guys are notoriously bad at buying gifts for girls, aren’t they?

One of the easiest choices is something that few guys would even think of and that’s spa gifts. These aren’t overly difficult to choose as there are loads of websites selling them and, of course, they’re in the shops too though online is probably the way to go if you want to avoid being embarrassed by a load of questions from the salesgirl.

Popularity: 1% [?]

One of the most perplexing things about living in France was that there were the seemingly constant mattress sales.

Hardly a month went by without seeing a notice in one of the local villages that there was going to be a sale of mattresses. Now I can understand that people need mattresses now and again, but surely there was no need to be selling the things every month? It wasn’t even as if we were hundreds of miles from a town with furniture shops that sold the things either.

We never did get our heads around understanding that particular one.

Popularity: 4% [?]