Pardon Me, I am British. Er...please. Thank you. Ever so much. Awfully.

Anyone who knows me knows how proud I am to be European. They'll also know that I'm marginally less proud, but still happy, to be British. However, there's one thing that drives me mad about my culture, and which I wish I could overcome... the British fear of complaining.

Oh, sure. We're the nastiest, snarkiest, most sarcastic of races. We'll bitch and whine and moan when the waiter brings our steak and it's still bloody, or has been cremated. We'll mutter about how terrible the government is, our media will always knock people down with glee-- but we never, ever, ever bitch to someone's face. We won't call the waiter back and tell them the food sucks. We won't whine to the bank about poor service. We're Anally, Awfully Polite, By Gosh.

There's a woman who works in my office who lived in America up until about a year ago. She is the best of every American stereotype: strong, loud, outspoken, friendly, confident. In the Mental Health Directorate, we always order our sandwiches from this nice bar down the road which also does boxed salads. Coronation chicken is ambrosia from the Gods.

Except for today, when mine tasted eggy, sour and, with each passing bite, I remembered the duck which poisoned me this year and had me in agony for two days. Couple this with the fact I am still bloody ill, and I was panicking. So I'm sitting there, bitching about how awful my coronation chicken was, how I was going to die, etc. American woman looks at me and says, "Phone them up and complain!"

"I can't!" I cried, "I just can't!"

"Of course you can. You said it was awful. We paid for the service, and it sucked."

"I...no, I can't."

"For God's sake. Let the American handle this." She picks up the phone and dials. I breathe a sigh of relief. American woman will handle it and I don't have to be horrible to the sandwich people. "Yes, yes," she says, "let me put the lady through."

I panic as my 'phone rings. What follows is a stuttered, mumbled explanation followed by me apologising for being so much trouble, but would she mind terribly that her chicken is off?

"Well," sniffed the baker, after offering me another salad as compensation (er, no thanks) "we haven't had any other complaints."

And that's just the thing. Around this city now, dozens of people will be gagging and choking on their salmonella chicken, but will they complain, bless their British souls?

Will they feck. Bah.