How to get along with the British:
The first thing you need to know is to remember that the United Kingdom is made up of four separate and distinct countries. Telling everyone that they are English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh when they're not, is going to be put you in a bad light straight off.
Another very easy way to offend, is to correct English spelling or pronunciation with their American equivalent. This is Bad.
Also, if you're American, then bragging about how you won the Second World War and helped us out, will get you laughed out the country.
And finally, chiefly amongst the Americans, there is tendency to think that the UK is a tiny place and that everyone here knows everyone else. For example, when the British go abroad, there is a lot of "Hey, I know this friend in London - you know him?", well, with a population of some 48 million people, this is unlikely. Still, the nature of the Brits states that we will say yes and promise to deliver that message. As if...

Eating Around:
There is an almost universal opinion that the English only eat fish and chips. Obviously this is not so! True, that does appear to be the traditional meal of the country, but the English have other tastes as well, depending on the occasion.
During a night out on the town a curry is a typical meal, to be washed down with several pints of lager or beer. After the night, a donar kebab is a good finish, or an alnight diner where they serve fried food and chips (a country famous example of this type of establishment, is the Alnight Market Diner in Brighton, where after a night club at 2-3 am, it is customary to finish the evening stuffing your face with food that will make you sick later on). There are 'Italian' pasta restaurants, 'Chinese' restaurants, 'Indian' curry houses and much more. For the average citizen, there is a bewildering amount of fake foreign food centres around. And these are added to the huge amount of algae burger houses around, so that any resemblance to a typical English meal has sort of been lost along the way.

With regards to drinks, the British drink lots of beer and larger, and in fact pride themselves on the sheer amount and strength of their home brews. If you try and compare an American type beer or lager to an English one, you'll be laughed away, those being considered just untasteful water. The Germans compare with their drinks, and 'Official German Beer Festivals' are common and packed events.

Unemployment:
Unemployment has stabilised around the 18% mark, mainly in the North of the country. To help out the unemployed, the government run Job Centres, where you can go to try and find work, go on courses to increase your chances or just to explain why you haven't got a job to the nice man who is about to cut your Dole money.
These places are generally understaffed and underfunded, but they do the best they can. While they cannot guarantee you a job of the type you want, they can usually find you work of some sort if you're not too choosy, which is what they want as if you don't give a reason as to why you're not going to accept the job, they'll cut your benefits.
The UK tries to help it's unemployed by giving them unemployment benefit, or dole money. This is an allowance that, while not giving you any money to enjoy yourself with, is enough to survive on, and is worked out based on your savings and family, amongst other things. It is given on the assumption that you are finding work, and if the Job Centre find out otherwise, they like to cut peoples money. Supposedly an incentive to get work and more money, for some people it has the completely opposite effect and only encourages them to stay at home and watch television.

The Television Licence:
It should be noted that the Television Licence still have to be paid (and is £150 for a colour television or £105 for a black and white set (there is a £2.25 discount if you are registered blind). This is still considered unfair by most people as the licence fees go directly to the BBC and no one else. There has been talk of abolishing this for years now, but every time it's about to happen, something crops up to make the subject disappear...

Autoduelling and Racing events:

By far the biggest sport is Autoduelling. It is legal outside all major towns and cities. It should be noted that the majority of Britains are more reserved than their American counterparts, and duels are rarely fatal.

Autoduel arenas are common around the country, usually situated on the sites of old tracks, such as horse racing tracks (horses haven't been raced for years now), and this usually means that arenas are slightly smaller than their American counterparts, with less of the facilities available.

Two popular autoduel arenas are the Brighton Racetrack (built on the site of the old horse racing track), and Wembley Stadium, which used to be a large outdoor sports facility, but these have been transferred to Wembley Arena.

Britain, however appears to prefer combat racing events as a whole, rather than just plain duelling events. Indeed, the United Kingdom boasts no less than 11 professional racing tracks, all of which were built in the latter half of the 20th century, or earlier.

These include:

Brandshatch: Built in the 1930's, this mainly caters to motorcycles events, racing and duelling.
Cadwell Park:
Castle Combe: Situated 25 miles east of Bristol.
Donington Park: Again, mainly a motorcycle arena.
Ingliston: North of Edinburgh airport.
Knockhill: (Scotland). 5 miles north of Dunfermline.
Lydden Hill: 7 miles south east of Canterbury.
Mallory Park: Solely a racing arena, it even has a section of the grandstand where customers can watch from their cars - although any participation by the spectators is strictly forbidden. It is in Leicestershire.
Outlon Park: Next to Little Budworth.
Pembrey:(Wales), at Llanelli, Dyfed.
Silverstone: Probably the most famous, and largest racing arena. Built in 1948, today it caters for any duelling event, complete with racing, duelling or off-road duelling. It is like a miniature city with medical facilities, a heliport and small airfield (with limited access for airships), TV station, bars and restaurants and gift shops, hotels and seats for 90,000 spectators. It is near Stafford.
Snetterton: Between Thetford and Attleborough in East Anglia.
Thruxton: Near Andover, Hampshire.

The stadiums cater to most forms of wheeled duelling and racing events, and most have some sort of off-road events as well. The main racing season is from March to October, with about five races a month, dropping to about three in the later part. However the stadiums usually remain open all year round with some sort of event being held. Unlike in the 20th century, bad weather rarely stops play.

The main organisation for the running of events is the RAC. The RAC used to one of the premier breakdown companies on the British roads, but since the rise of aggression in the AA, it has had to turn it's back on most of that, and branch out to survive. It has always held some sway in racing events and has come to dominate the running of these events. As well as running the local arena championships, it also organises the Annual RAC British Combat Racing Championship, the Annual RAC British Autoduelling Championship, the Annual RAC British Off-Road Championship and the Annual RAC British Rallycross Championship.

The RAC has also tried to turn its attention to the water and air sports, which don't have any organised championships, but so far hasn't had any luck.

Britain, while favouring racing events, doesn't survive on them alone. Autoduel rallying events are common, and off road duelling is another major pastime, with the Scottish Hill Rally in July a major event.

The AADA has offices in England, and the main English chapter is LEADA (London, England Autoduel Association), which deals with Scotland and Wales as well, and is also considering a name change. They mainly deal with Autoduelling and not the racing aspects, leaving that to the RAC.

The RSAD (Royal Society of Autoduelling) is currently being formed and will take over from the AADA, although it will be affiliated with them. The aim is to combine the duelling and racing, and near enough all land based duelling into one organisation so as to cut out on the red tape and all the different schemes that strive to create the various racing and duelling circuits. Only time will tell if it will work or not.

Water Sports:

While not as glamorous as autoduelling, water sports do hold some fascination for the public. Being held along various stretches of the coast (although it is illegal to hold water duels near the main coastal towns) and along the main rivers, water events are getting more common. So much so that most reservoirs that had always been open to the public for fishing and other peaceful events, have started to hold their own events, with the only restriction on dropped weapons that could pollute the water supply too much.

Other Sporting Events:

There are a lot of other sports practised in the United Kingdom, and not all of them potentially lethal. As has been noted, while death sports are common, the actual death of participants isn't usually the aim in most events.

The more common sports include:

Cricket: One of the few games that hasn't changed at all, and is still played without body armour and weapons. Britain still usually gets thrashed by Australia and the West Indies.

Rugby: Always considered a bit of a contact sport, Rugby has gotten that little bit more violent - more like the American Combat Football game, but without the use of so much cumbersome armour or the breaks every few seconds.

Hockey: Hockey has mutated into the (now de-facto) Hack (or Slash) Hockey.

Soccer: English Football also hasn't undergone too many changes with the exception that attacks to opposing players (as long as they are made for the furtherment of the game - a very loosely defined term) by using the feet only (this is still a no hands game) are allowed, and thus many players are proficient kick boxers of some sort.

Golf: Golf comes in two flavours - standard non-fatal golf, and Combat Golf (which at the moment only has a limited following) where all normal golfing rules apply, but the course is set out more like an Ob-racing game, with minefields and other obstacles to cross. All participants are potential targets. So far, no player has managed to complete a full 18 hole game, and the organisers are considering lowering the limit so that there may be a winner, one day.

Bowls and Tennis are still played as normal, and unbelievably, Wimbledon is still a sold out event.

Ob-Racing is becoming a popular event, and many arenas are springing up all over the country, and many of the bigger autoduel arenas and racetracks run Ob-racing events as space fillers for the bigger events.

Pedal-Duelling has become a very common sport amongst the university towns of Oxford and Cambridge, and has spread to most other university's across the country with a league being formed.

Other national pastimes exist unchanged, like the Oxford-Cambridge Boat race (although that changed briefly in 2027 when the Cambridge team smuggled weapons into their boat, and ended the race a few seconds after the starters pistol was fired - since then weapons have been banned in this event!).

Private Wars has yet to hit England, although there are indications that a site might be opened sometime soon, either in Wales or the Scottish Highlands.

Television:

Television is very popular, and the sports channels equally so. The BBC are still the largest terrestrial company, and they run BBC1, BBC2 and BBC Sports, along with a World Service. Other terrestrial channels include ITV and Channel 4, Channel 5, and the new Channel 6, which is a dedicated sports channel.

Of course satellite digital and cable television are equally popular, and nearly every household has these installed these days. These give access to literally hundreds of extra channels, including many pirate TV stations, and it seems that autoduelling is overtaking the porn channels in ratings! There are many channels on these systems that just aren't available to terrestrial television users, and even the terrestrial stations have additional channels here.