"I should have got this to go, I have a plane to catch"

Almost a quarter of the "on-the-move" tea and coffee sold in Europe is guzzled in the UK. Swedes and Spaniards each account for a mere 2% of the region's takeaway beverage market.

Last year, the British spent �41 each on hot drinks "to go" in the nation's 2,000-odd coffee bars - though the UK's fast-growing branded chains are yet to translate this thirst into frothy profits.

But if Britons are not throwing java or char down their throats as they rush for the bus, they'll be inhaling a "hand-held" snack.

The average UK resident consumes �137 worth of sandwiches, pasties, pizza slices and the like annually - twice what Germans spend.

Boldly to go

Before you rush off to order a skinny tall mocha choca latte with hazelnut syrup to go or a grab cereal bar, Datamonitor warns the "on-the-move" trend may be stymied by social conventions which still maintain that drinking and eating on the run is "unreasonable and selfish".

The firms says such stuffiness needs to be combated if busy Britons are to use their daily commute time - the longest in Europe - to refuel.

"Do those badgers' noses come with fries?"

However, the arbiter of good manners, Debrett's, says the "modern maelstrom" is no excuse for abandoning "old-fashioned niceties".

Eating and drinking - the famous guide to acting right posh clearly states - "look very unattractive on the street".

While well-to-do Romans made no bones about getting their peacock brains or flamingo tongues from a stall, 18th Century Enlightenment manners saw street food slide firmly downmarket, according to food historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto.

Lunch on the run

The recent "industrialisation" of fast food, which has seen burgers churned out like Model Ts on a production line, has done little to improve the reputation of street dining.

There also remains the fact that, nutritionally speaking, many snacks consumed in haste will be repented at leisure, says Dr Nefertiti Sourial, director of the Institute of Optimum Nutrition.

"You need to be relaxed to eat, it helps digestion. Otherwise you can easily suffer a case of indigestion," he says.

"If it doesn't fit in one hand, I don't eat it"

The increase in time-poor Britons dining on the hoof is a cause of irritation to other commuters and street users thanks to the vast amount of litter fast foods can help produce.

An "on-the-move" snacker brought a busy Tube line to a grinding halt for an hour and a half in 2000, when their sandwich wrapper blew onto the track and short-circuited the signals.

Perhaps this is part of the reason London Underground passengers say only travellers who "test out the ring-tones on their new mobile phones one after another" are more annoying than litter bugs.

'I'm on the train'

Mobile telephony is perhaps the most obvious outgrowth of our "on-the-move" lives, but the Datamonitor research suggests Britons are increasingly willing to do all sorts of other once private things in the public gaze.

While the Italians and French are said to look down those who openly groom themselves. Britons seem less reluctant to treat public space as an extension of the boudoir.

"Can't they keep this train steady?"

The journey to and from work is now the second most popular "venue" for us to preen, apply make up and even slap on deodorant.

It seems there is almost no end to bathroom activities which have gone public, with even the taboo of open air urination crumbling in cities across the UK.

While Debrett's is quite adamant that "it is bad manners to expel any liquid from any orifice in public", several urban councils have come to a grudging accommodation with "slob culture".

A wee problem

Unshielded urinals are being deployed in London, Bristol and Manchester to stem the tide of micturating (male) miscreants.

Though councils such as Westminster - where the toilets were trialled - are not keen to encourage the public passing of water, many reason it is better to collect fluids rather than allow them to be expelled more furtively.

"Those lattes go straight through me"

Aside from the smell and health hazards caused by inappropriate bladder evacuations (often post pub closing time), such venerable public institutions as London's National Gallery were suffering more obvious damage.

It was noticed the stone walls of the city landmark were beginning to erode under the watery onslaught.