In any emergency call 999 or 112 from a land-line if you can and ask for Ambulance, Fire, Police or Coast Guard when connected. If you need more than one service that includes an ambulance e.g. a road collision then ask for Ambulance and they will contact the relevant services themselves.
England by and large is a safe place to live and visit, violent crime against tourists is rare, however you should always use general common sense to ensure you keep out of trouble. In most of the major cities, you will find outlying suburban and inner city areas where poverty, crime and gang violence are common. These areas can be particularly dangerous and should be avoided. Again, common sense is the best way to stay safe. Having said that, it is unlikely a visitor would end up in such areas anyway. In a situation where you feel uncomfortable out on the street for example, if a gang of youths block your path and are behaving in a rowdy manner, its usually fine to simply cross the road and walk past and not to respond to them as they are not generally interested in harassing people as they may appear and will ignore you in most cases
Crime rates are generally very low in rural areas, although some small poorer towns can be surprisingly rough. Take care when driving on country lanes as they can become very narrow and the lesser travelled ones are often in poor condition.
It is worth taking extra care on public transport, particularly at night, as pickpockets and drunks can be a problem. Also, in some cities, there have been incidents of street gangs carrying out robberies on buses and trains at night. Visitors should not be too concerned, however, as these are very rare occurrences.
Some town and city centres should be approached with caution during the later evening on Fridays and Saturdays in particular, as high levels of drunkenness can be rife. Many English drunks can all too often become aggressive, and outbreaks of unprovoked violence have happened, but again, common sense can help avoid problems with drunken people. At night it is also recommended that you use licensed taxis or licensed mini cabs. Taxis are available at taxi ranks or by phone, while mini cabs are by phone booking only - asking at the bar will usually provide you with numbers. Unofficial/unlicensed mini cabs which cruise the street looking for fares have a reputation as dangerous for lone females and in rare instances, males; the most common incident is the passenger is driven to a secluded area, and then raped.
In the United Kingdom, there is no cost to a patient at point of service, due to the welfare state system. In a medical emergency, dial 999. These numbers are free of charge from any telephone. For advice on non-emergency medical problems, you can ring the 24 hour NHS Direct service on 0845 4647 or check their website (http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk) for advice. However, hospitals are wary of health tourists and if obviously not from England, may ask where you are from and if within the EU, for your EHIC card previously known as E111.
Emergencies can be dealt with under the NHS National Health Service at any hospital with an A & E Accident & Emergency department. At A&E departments, be prepared to wait for up to 2-3 hours during busy periods before being given treatment if your medical complaint is not too serious. Obviously, more serious ailments are usually treated immediately. Evenings are normally busiest, particularly on Fridays and Saturdays and in city centres.
For advice on minor ailments and non-prescription drugs, you can ask a pharmacist there are many high-street chemists. These are increasingly using green signs similar to ones seen in Europe to identify them. Small pharmacies are also found inside many larger supermarkets. Major pharmacies are Boots and Lloyds, at least one of these can be found in any city or large town and quite often some smaller towns too. These two firms can issue drugs prescribed by a doctor as well as any over the counter drugs. Superdrug, Semi-Chem, Bodycare and Savers do sell some over the counter medication but are not to be considered as places to go for advice about minor ailments. A smaller range of medication can also be found in most supermarkets. ID is usually required when buying medication if you look under 25.
Smoking is prohibited in all public buildings. All enclosed workplaces are lawfully required to be smoke free. Some restaurants provide separate rooms for smokers and many pubs now have outdoor beer gardens where smoking is permitted, while many places will have a group of people standing outside the front door or off to one side to smoke.
talk
When an English person says "Meet me at half five", they mean "Meet me at five thirty". If the directions say "go to the top of the road", that means the end of the road.
Some words mean one thing to Americans and something else entirely to British folks. When an English man says he shared a "fag" with his "mate" that means only that he smoked a cigarette with a friend. If he adds that they also had a "gorgeous" meal, it means it was followed by a nice dinner. If they had a "shag" it means they had sex afterwards.
Then there are the words unique to British English; a sneaker or tennis shoe, for instance, is called a "trainer."
Moreover, the diverse history of the country, and the influx of various cultures over the centuries e.g. Vikings, Normans, Romans, Celtic peoples, have produced a very wide range of accents, and there are still traces of regional dialects vocabulary and grammar. Best not to imitate the accents, you will be seen as mocking.
An accent will usually reveal where someone was brought up — sometimes to within quite a small area a criminal was recently caught because his accent on a recorded phone call was traceable to a single neighbourhood. Today, even well-educated professionals are happy to keep their regional accent: the unhappy days when people from outside the South East felt that they had to hide their accent to "get on" have gone. It is now only people who go to public i.e. private, fee-paying schools who learn to speak in a "geography-free" way the "upper-class accent" of colonial rulers, well-known from old British films, or modern parodies. Differences in accent are very real: a visitor who is expecting a particular accent they are familiar with from the cinema or television perhaps "Dick van Dyke Cockney" or "Hugh Grant Silly Ass Upper Crust" will usually have to wait a day or two to get really accustomed to the real accents they hear around them. Even English people, familiar with other accents from TV or by knowing neighbours or colleagues who have moved from other areas, can still struggle when far from home. "Geordie", the accent/dialect of Tyneside, is a famously strong accent when spoken quickly amongst a group of people who do not know that a stranger is trying to tune in. Most people are happy to tone down or slow down their accent when a stranger is in difficulty. When encountering a broad Geordie accent it can be quite difficult for someone who is not accustomed to it to understand it, and there are still various dialectic words in common use such as hyem = home, gan/gannin = going, wor = our, divvint = don't and howay = come on.
Dialects exist, but as a matter of interest, not confusion. People across England would expect to understand anyone from anywhere else in England, because the few everyday dialect words are usually well known from TV. Differences are interesting, but not critical. Some examples from the north of England: "ey up" "Hello", "aye" "yes", as in Scotland and the North of England; "tha" "you", as in thee and thou, still common in South Yorkshire. Real differences are of little consequence these days: for instance, people growing up in Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield use "jennel", "jinnel", and "ginnel" as the word for a particular type of narrow alley between houses. Other common words are "wee", "bonnie", "lass" small, beautiful and girl, respectively in Scotland.
A few useful words which may help you understand the English particularly in the Midlands and North:"ta" = thank you, "ta ra/ta ta" = goodbye, "summat/summit/summink" = something, "nowt" = nothing, "owt" = "anything", "dunna/dunno" = don't know, "canna/cannit = cannot.
Be prepared to have to use English to make yourself understood. Few people here speak a second language fluently. However, most people were taught one second language usually French, German, Italian or Spanish at school, and may remember enough to be willing to help a stranger in difficulties if they can get over the embarrassment of being seen to "show off".
Because of immigration, especially from Commonwealth countries, many languages are spoken in the big cities. There are also smaller places where particular languages are common. Expect to hear and even see signs in Urdu, Punjabi, Hindi, Gujarati, Polish, Italian, Greek, Turkish and varieties of Arabic. Because of links with Hong Kong, many Chinese people live here London and Manchester in particular have thriving communities.
Another English peculiarity is the use of terms of endearment for strangers such as "darling", "pet", "love", "hun", "duck", "bab", "mate", "sweetheart", "flower", "queen" and a few others. It can be confusing, or perhaps even embarrassing, for somebody who is not accustomed to this to be called "darling" by a total stranger; however, this is something which is nowadays mainly used by the older generation and found less in the younger generation although some younger males may call a woman "Darlin" this is usually either as a form of cat calling and can often be followed by derogatory demands or language but is often harmless or directed towards a female friend.
You will hear English people say "sorry". This is not down to guilt or self-consciousness but simply because it is synonymous with "excuse me", and is used to get somebody's attention. Alternatively it can be synonymous with "pardon". Any comments along the lines of "What are you sorry about?" are pointless.
contact
See Contact entry under United Kingdom for national information on telephone, internet and postal services.When traveling to UK, even though it may seem best to carry your cell phone along, you should not dismiss the benefits of the calling cards to call the ones back home. Get yourself a UK calling card when packing for your trip.In the United Kingdom, area codes are two, three, four, or, rarely, five digits long after the initial zero. Regions with shorter area codes, typically large cities, permit the allocation of more telephone numbers as the local number portion has more digits. Local customer numbers are four to eight figures long. The total number of digits is ten, but in a very few areas the total may be nine digits after the initial zero. The "area code" is also referred to as an 'STD code' subscriber trunk dialling or a 'dialling code' in the UK.
The code allocated to the largest population is 020 for London. The code allocated to the largest area is 028 for all of Northern Ireland. The UK Numbering Plan also applies to three British Crown dependencies - Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man - even though they are not part of the UK itself.
See Contact entries under individual cities for local information.