What is a quid??

I've seriously ticked off some bartenders by trying to tip where we live so I never do that anymore to avoid looking like an idiot. I do give my hairdresser £2 - £5 and she is always seriously shocked and appreciative, so I assume it's not expected. (But she never gets offended about it.) I tip 10 - 15% when eating in a restaurant (not a pub-style one where I walk up and order my own food, but a proper one where a waiter or waitress takes my order from the table.) I give taxi drivers and food delivery people a pound or two. DH thinks I tip too much sometimes, but I think it just depends on what the individual feels comfortable with. I did buy a round of drinks for some guys who worked at a pub I went to London, but we were there nearly every night for a week and they wouldn't accept my tips. (They even served me food after the kitchen closed one night!) They just wrote the drinks they wanted on a ledger for their after work pints and then rang them up on the till and I paid for them.

I probably wouldn't do it in a pub that I don't go in often - I think I've only ever done it in our various locals.

Same here... we only tip in one pub, where we are on first-name terms with all the staff and the owner.  But given that we're in there at least 5 times a week, it's the norm for us.  I wouldn't bother tipping a barman anywhere else.

Oh boy, I definitely have alot to learn!  We tip everyone in America!  Not all are deserving though...   

Thanks for the info, everyone!

I definitely agree on the "not all are deserving" part of your comment... So I tend to prefer the British tipping system, as I only tip those who I think did a good job and do deserve it..and when this is the case, I generally round up to the nearest whole amount, as others have said. But when in doubt, i just ask my bf.

As for in bars/pubs, when I worked in Manchester, people would say "and one for yourself", so I just took whatever spare coins there were after counting out the customer's change, because i didnt really feel comfortable with it/want to come off as being greedy, though I could've probably taken more, as the cheapest pint there cost about 3 quid.  I never expected much, but I did end up making anywhere between 1-15 pounds a night if I was tending bar.  If I was waiting tables, I made considerably more than that, since it was a bit more posh than any of the other places around, and people generally left around 10%.

I've gotten my hair done at the teaching salons (Wella Studio in Manchester/Aveda Institute in London), where it costs about a tenner, and I generally left an additional pound or two--whatever i had in my wallet, since i thought they deserved it.  But when I had my hair done in Nottingham, I didn't tip; the lady seemed to expect something extra (maybe because she knows Americans tip for everything), but she certainly did not deserve an extra penny. Worst experience/haircut EVER!