British culture is often met with polite horror in New York

Shopping for a wedding dress with her tragedy-obsessed mother, Holly Baxter is struck again by the US-UK cultural divide

There are more than a million Brits living in the US. That’s a lot of culture shock (Getty)

Last week, my mum decided to visit me for a few days from the UK. It was, ostensibly, a happy occasion: we were shopping for my wedding dress, something which she was determined to be present for even if we’re usually separated by the Atlantic. But, of course, she couldn’t help but be all British about it.

It started when I checked her into her East Village hotel, all the while trying to draw her attention to the skyscrapers, the yellow taxis, the little trattorias lining the brownstone streets. “Do you think that man was keeping me occupied while he copied my credit card?” she asked me, after a friendly concierge recommended her places to visit in the city for a little too long. “If you didn’t stay, someone might have clocked I was on my own and murdered me,” she added, as I squashed into a nook in her double bed beside her, torn away from my Brooklyn king-size because she was convinced someone might cut her down in her prime on the streets of Manhattan.