Not a brit but when I think about the kinds of sacrifices people used to make and are still making in some places and I try to apply that to, like, my parents, my mind boggles.

My mom becomes sullen and just so unpleasant if a restaurant takes more than 20 minutes to get her food out, even when she can see they’re very busy. She’s not the kind of boomer that yells at the waitstaff (actually she’s Gen X anyway lol) but she bitches nonstop to everyone waiting with her, which makes it hard for everyone else. It always felt like she was never raised with any expectation to moderate her own feelings about things at all.

Her ONLY HOBBY is TV, and it’s all she has to look forward to after work. She can’t sleep without her one specific box fan. I feel like rolling blackouts would send her into absolute fits.