Firstly I chuckled when you mentioned New Castle as "down south in England" lol, now that is a very Scottish thing to say haha.
Second, I wasn't sure if you meant "sharp-nailed colleague" to mean her long acrylic nails? But that is how I saw it, as I'm always baffled and marveling at the state of ladies nails these days...One wonders how things 'get done' in the WC with such nails...but I digress.
The UK surely knows how to drink, that is for sure. Tho, I sometimes wonder if my Puritan ancestors look down favorably on their ill begotten offspring in their rundown summer houses quaffing so many G & T's? It'd put an Irishman to shame? ah who can say.