An Australian woman living in the UK shared the different things that ‘baffle’ her, including accents and the size of seagulls
An Australian woman living in the UK has listed a number of things that have “baffled” her since moving. TikTok user Nina, who posts online as @ninaincymru, is currently living in Swansea and often shares insights into her day-to-day life.
Recently, Nina posted a clip all about things that “make absolutely no sense” as an Australian living in the UK. The post was captioned: “There’s so many I can add but this is the top 4 things in the UK that make no sense.”
In the video, which racked up 50k views, almost 1,500 likes and hundreds of comments, Nina said: “Things in the UK that make absolutely no sense as an Australian living here. Now, I live in Wales just as a preface.”
“Number one, TV licence. You have to pay to watch TV; so I found out yesterday that each household needs to pay for one TV licence but if multiple people are renting, so like share houses uni houses, each person needs to have their own TV licence. TV’s free in Australia.”
In the UK, a TV Licence is required to watch or record TV programmes as they are being shown on TV or live on an online TV service, or to download or watch BBC programmes on demand, including catch up TV, on BBC iPlayer.
A TV Licence is mandated by law and applies to any source: terrestrial, satellite, cable and via the internet. This includes streaming service such as Sky, Virgin, Freeview, All4, ITV X, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Now and more.
The TV Licence rules for shared houses and accommodation will usually depend on the type of tenancy agreement. According to TV Licensing, if you’ve signed a joint tenancy agreement with your housemates, you will only need one TV Licence. This will act as a communal TV Licence that covers all the devices in your shared accommodation.
If you’ve signed a separate tenancy agreement and watch TV in your room, you’ll need your own licence even if you share the property. This TV Licence will also cover communal areas, like a lounge or kitchen.
Continuing to list the things she finds confusing about the UK, Nina said: “Number two – the size of your f****** seagulls.” She added that seagulls in Australia don’t “snatch food out of your hands,” like they do in the UK.
Next up, she added: “The fact that a majority of people speak in the metric system, but you don’t use the metric system.”
Finally, she said: “One thing that just absolutely baffles my mind and I’m sure it’s in other countries as well, but in Australia it just doesn’t happen -everyone has a different accent. Like you literally drive half an hour from where I live, like I’m in Gower so the Gowerton accent is completely different to Swansea, which is only 20 minutes away.
“Which is completely different to Neath, which is only like another 20 minutes away. Everyone has different accents, like I know it’s the same in America and I’m sure it’s the same in a majority of countries but in Australia we all just kinda sound the same.”