lol, yea, I've been there. Crashed with my friends when they were studying in trinity and melb and monash uni.
Generally

England is the Country Of England, Great Britain is Comprised of three separate countries, England, Scotland and Wales that Create a Sovereign State, the United kingdom adds Northern Ireland.
The British Isles is Great Britain, Ireland and the outlying Islands.

but yeah Scotland, Wales and Northern Island all have their own governments, and the people tend to get pissed when you don't acknowledge them as a country.

Today, as it Stands, is the twenty-fourth of May two-thousand and Eleven. At Half-Past Three.

fixed it for you. The reason for the dd/mm/yyyy is that it's ascending time scales. People will use all of th above ways of saying the date but the legal method for legal papers is " on the <day>st/nd/rd/th day of <month> in the year of our lord <year>"
most people give their bdays as <day> of <month> <year>

Well, sorry if I offended anyone, but the fact is that from a foreigner's point of view, a country is only one officially if it's recognized by other countries, and a seat in the UN is part of that.
AFAIK, while Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales have some autonomy, they are NOT independent countries, and their "government" has limited power. They have no say in defence or foreign policy, and therefore can hardly expect to be acknowledged as actual countries.

Suprisingly the countries that make up the UK are internationally recognised but the queen as nominal head of all of them only sends a single representative for all of them under the banner of the United kingdom of great britain

You're quite right; the international recognition doesn't extend to the establishment of separate embassies, but isn't it "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" [emphasis mine], Northern Ireland not being part of Great Britain?

Also, wasn't it "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland", until 1927 (the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act)?

I won't even get into the complications caused by Scotland having its own church, schools, courts, laws, banks that are allowed to print money, etc.

yup it also mentions berwick and some other places

infact parts of the UK were still at war with germany until relatively recently as they'd been left out of the armistice by the US scholars who drew up the papers :P

To the folks in the UK where drinking tea is about 10x more common than in America...

In America, when young children want to pretend to have a tea party (a common "lets pretend" game), its viewed as a "girls only" activity. Maybe its because men drink much more coffee than tea in America? But my question is, do children pretend to have tea parties in the UK? And if so, is it "girls only" like in America?

It would still be seen as a girly game by most I imagine (although I try not to force children into gender roles). It's not the act of drinking tea that's seen as girly, it's the party. :P
Without lack of regard?

Sorry, pet hate. :P

In Denmark it is day / month , year , but as I personally have gone digital then my personal notation is year-month-day on files (naming) for them to show up properly sorted after date while using sort after name and not using the sort after date function....

But this is a great thread for learning things about "Great Britain" & "The British Isles".
I thought that I knew a lot about Britain and the British (me being interested in the British and my neighbouring country) but this thread is a regular goldmine for picking up "the odd facts"....

For people in western countries:

Do you guys take off your shoes when you're at home? In pretty much every movie I've seen, people are walking with their shoes on, in their own homes! :/

depends: at home i wear flip-flops, but when i have visitors they get to keep their shoes on. but it isn't offensive to ask the other person to remove their shoes. nobody does.

I don't wear shoes at home personally but I know a lot of people who do.

I take off shoes and socks when in my own house, just shoes in other people's houses (out of politeness, I don't like even wearing socks). It's certainly not unheard of for some people to wear shoes nearly all the time though, I personally find that weird though.

We usually keep the shoes on in house (Belgium) unless it is muddy weather.