Welcome to Britain where…

18% of the population ignore their neighbours when out shopping

About 35 people like cress

99% would rather die than arrange a pre-paid funeral

And fewer than 10 (but definitely more than 5) don’t mind queuing

Jan Williams and Chris Teasdale have long been suspicious of the brown signs and rose-tinted visions of tourist brochures. So, armed with a camera and a caravan-cum-gallery, they tirelessly travel the most intriguing of isles, exploring and celebrating the many ordinary and and extraordinary aspects of Britishness – from shop fronts to gardening, seaside resorts to the nation’s love of dogs.

They have made it their mission to reveal the reality and surreality of leisure, landscape and lifestyle in 21st-century Britain and, by combining their photographs with the truly unique thoughts of the British public, have created a beautifully absurd and, at times distressingly perceptive guide to contemporary Britain.

So pack your thermos, knot your hanky and prepare to enter a place where the truth is often stranger than fiction, dead conifers are a garden staple and 17% of people have won meat in a raffle.

Published by Headline Book Publishing 2005

Published by teNeues 2008 (available from Amazon)