Of course there's no shortage of things to see and do in London, right?
I mean you've got a Big Ben, those double-decker buses...
...spaghetti hoops, that big ferris wheel...
...steak and kidney pie? Yeah, we love it.
The Tower, Buckingham Palace...
Mooshy peas. Mushy peas.
But if you do run out of things to see and do...
Black pudding. Disgusting.
Go see Robert Opie.
This is probably the deepest look at branding in the world.
The Museum of Brands, Packaging, and Advertising...
What I particularly enjoy is the beauty of the colors the design.
It's a comprehensive and chronological collection of almost every food package,
ever sold in England, in the past 100 plus years.
It's the story of all our lives. Cans, boxes, rappers... the stuff most people think is garbage.
We throw the packaging away. Snack Pot? Yeah, that's an instant meal.
You brought in an object which one day will go on display.
That "coffee cup".
For you one man's trash really is treasure. Totally.
Or in this case, "trash" becomes a museum with a gift shop.
So you may be wondering, if you're in London, why would you want to come to
an esoteric place like the British Museum of Brands, Packaging, and Advertising?
Well, just because. Just because that's what motivated a teenaged Robert Opie...
...so many years ago.
One day, while hungry and passing through a train station, he spied some snack food.
And out of a vending machine, I got two packets. And that was the moment that
I suddenly realized that was gonna save that Munchies packet.
He was saving history... ...that was never being recorded by anybody else that I knew about.
And he just kept going until... How many items do you have?
Well, I don't know. But I think of it is about half a million.
Well anyway, enough to open his own museum.
Robert, you're still collecting things... All the time.
But you know what? There's another reason to visit Opie's Museum.
I realized this while I was talking to Mr. Opie, or rather trying to talk to him.
Do you you put anything in the trash? Trash? What's that?
Trash. Trash? You mean "rubbish".
It was kind of like each of us was speaking a different language.
For example, when he showed me a bag of "potato crisps".
They're "potato chips".
No, that doesn't matter. You call them "potato chips". God knows what that means.
They're "crisps" in this country.
Never mind we Americans invented potato chips.
Well then, we get the name it. You got the name wrong, basically. Don't worry about it.
Americans eat "fish sticks".
We call them "fish fingers". They're so much more appetizing.
A "stick" is something you beat people with.
I realized Opie's museum is also a study in linguistics; the differences between American English...
...and, well "English" English.
It turns out, we have everything in common with the English except... English.
Apparently, they don't walk on "sidewalks" in England.
I love your "sidewalks". What the hell is a "side walk"?
Nor do they leave their cars in "parking lots".
You park your car in "car parks". Well doesn't that make sense?
No, it's a "parking lot".
What's the point of that?
And they don't eat "cookies" either.
No. They're "biscuits". Because they've been cooked twice. I don't know what this "cookie" business is.
What is mushroom ketchup? (And so it went... )
Well, it's ketchup made from mushrooms instead of tomatoes.
"Tomato".
No, no, no. "To-MAH-to". You're in Britain now. You have to accept the Brittish rules of language.
Can I go through your fridge? Feel free! I decided to look into this a little further.
"To-MAH-to" sauce.
Tomato.
No, no, no...
I can barely understand you when you say that.
I went to Tony Thorne's house.
This is my slang dictionary. And that's the fourth edition.
Thorne is a noted linguist and author at London's King's College...
The geezer we got was a total cowboy...
But first, he wanted to tell me a story about something that happened earlier...
It was a bish bash bosh.
He was having a bobble. And I was gobsmacked when I saw what he done.
All he was interested in was the dosh.
What the hell are you saying?
Even a linguist couldn't clear things up for me.
An elevator is a "lift".
A TV set is a "telly".
A vacuum cleaner is a "hoover".
Oh. Can I use your loo?
It's a bathroom!
No it isn't.
You guys invented the language. How did you manage to screw it all up?
Well, we don't see it like that.
Here's what happened, says Thorne.
When some British came over on the Mayflower, for many years after...
Americans and their English cousins were on good speaking terms.
You and I would have been speaking the same, exactly the same, language. Writing at the same way...
...perfectly happily and then... Americans went and declared independence.
Nearly everything which was invented after that; cars, kitchen appliances, potato chips...
...household items. They were named separately.
And since then we've lost control of the English language.
American smoked cigarettes...
"This is a man who smokes Marlboro Cigarettes... "
While Brits puffed on "fags".
Our culture began to dominate...
This is very upsetting for us.
It bugs you a little bit. It does. It does. Although I would never say "bugs".
Because "bugs" is American slang. Just like "Bob's your uncle" is British slang.
It just means "there you go". "That's it." I say it to my wife to tease her.
To wind her up. You don't say that? "I wind her up"?
Well if I wind my wife up, that's my business.
You got bangers, right? Oh, we've got bangers, yeah.
And then, of course, there's British food...
This is a "fool".
Have you ever enjoyed a good spotted dick?
(It's a type of dessert.)
Have you ever seen one?
Kidney soup?
Which brings us back to Robert Opie's museum.
Hydrax. That's a type of drink.
In a way, this museum honours...
(That's with in "O U".) ...the differences between Brits and Americans.
That's what makes life exciting. If everybody chose to speak the same language...
How boring that would be. What we love is that difference we've noticed that
We've noticed you've always been driving on the wrong side of the road.
We've never understood that. It doesn't make any sense to me at all.
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This is what my career has come to...
Sitting alone in my backyard, talking to a camera with nobody behind it.