A must-read for any Alien living in England. Most of the book is online at http://f2.org/humour/howalien.html. And the publisher is here: Penguin UK Home

Excerpt:

Now I should like to give you a little practical advice on how to build an English town.
You must understand that an English town is a vast conspiracy to mislead foreigners. You have to use century-old little practices and tricks.

1. First of all, never build a street straight. The English love privacy and do not want to see one end of the street from the other end. Make sudden curves in the street and build them S-shaped too; the letters L, T, V, Y, W and O are also becoming increasingly popular. It would be a fine tribute to the Greeks to build a few [phi] and [theta]-shaped streets; it would be an ingenious compliment to the Russians to favour the shape of [reversed-R], and I am sure the Chinese would be more than flattered to see some [chinese-character]-shaped thoroughfares.

2. Never build the houses of the same street in a straight line. The British have always been a freedom-loving race and the “freedom to build a muddle” is one of their most ancient civic rights.

3. Now there are further camouflage possibilities in the numbering of houses. Primitive continental races put even numbers on one side, odd numbers on the other, and you always know that small numbers start from the north or west. In England you have this system, too; but you may start numbering your houses at one end, go up to a certain number on the same side, then continue on the other side, going back in the opposite direction.

And there’s even stuff about tea (The trouble with tea is that originally it was quite a good drink.), for The Unsuspecting Tourist.