Another way of looking at England

[Marym2]

Hi

Had an email last week from an old mate who has upped sticks and moved to Brazil, not sure whether this was a general opinon but thought I would share his feelings.

Hi to all, I received a msg last week asking would you consider coming back to the UK to work, my answer was no and they replied stating that in the light of the London bombings they understood, problem is that is not the reason for not wanting to return so felt it was necessary to inform them further. After reading my msg several times it does sound a bit mister angry but ime not, ime just the (choice meister) so last one out dont forget to turn the lights off. "Thanks for your kind reply in response to my confirmation that I do not wish to return to England and I take this opportunity to reiterate the reasons as to why. I do miss family, good friends, the English country side, real ale and pie & mash most other things I can take or leave, it is winter here in Brasil and people are on the beach and swiming in the sea, the fruit tastes like fruit and not chemicals, people are polite and helpful, the cost of living is low, taxation is nearly non-existent and so are the bikinis, all right you can get mugged but that could happen anywhere in the world these days. From what I hear things are improving in England ....... apart from Eye watering taxation, pension scourges, extortionate MP taxpayer funded saleries, foreign holidays for muggers, alarming anti British campaigns funded by lottery money, homes to fraudulent asylum seekers, alcohol disorder zones and the young children drink & drugs timebomb, the joke called the European Union (Common Market stroke European Dream) including French President Chirac the rampaging, sulking President of a nation of cry babies, but at least they support their Mother land. Not forgetting my two favourite Bureaucratic Goverment Departments that epitomize all the worthless English jobsworths and in my opinion both departments should be united as one, renamed and churned out as the Department of Goverment Sponsored Waste. The Dept of Transport and the latest pay as you drive (highway robbery) road charging policy takes the biscuit except for the Dept of Health (the health & safety gestapo) NHS Trusts and the MRSA scandal, new mothers are having to clean maternity wards to protect their babies from MRSA what century are we living in. I love England and always will but since living abroad my eyes have been opened, why do we the English people continually allow our COUNTRY to be downgraded by so called elected and unelected intellectual and unintellectual bigots that have no passion for our people, standards and Country and whose one commen aim is to turn England into a toilet. Thanks but no thanks this man is not for coming back to work in England".   Methinks I just about agree with everything he has said

[Tony F Dordogne]

Pleased he didn't send the angry one then!

[Tresco]

Methinks I just about agree with everything he has said

And I just about disagree with everything he said

[Dick Smith]

It's drivel. Not the country I live in. Why do people think that simple-minded tosh like this is funny?

[Vraititi<P>PSG till I die -fluctuat nec mergitur.<P>]

The great thing about England these last few yrs is that is has acquired and developped this great knack of recycling abroad her great unwashed and her desperados, her ignoramuses and her undesirables, her ingrates and her born moaners. Vast swathes of population across the entire social spectrum are thus being encouraged to decamp to warmer climes, for the benefit of us all in the UK. May they stay wherever they landed fortuitously for ever.

[Miki]

Blimey vraititi, how shrewd a vision is that.

I am not so sure it is entirely correct, if it were it would include me and mine. We wash, we laugh, we try hard never to whinge, the wife is still quite desirable so I shall have to say, yes, there are certainly a lot of whingers, some of whom have been busy on another thread getting their sly digs in at certain people but still hey ho, if it passes the day for them and at least it leaves others alone !

Yes there is a vast spectrum of undesirables over here from Blighty, not including our guests of course (we know where out bread and butter comes from )and in fact we are currently in discussions to have a sign at our entrance to point out that those undesirables are not permitted within and to please move south, where a lady in sparkling pink lycra will show you the delights of living in the Languedoc.

What a marvellous post Monsieur, you have some of us bang to rights guvnor !

Vive la difference (perhaps !)

Chelsea encore.

[Mpprh]

Hmm

methinks there are more unwashed little islanders still there ?

Peter

 

[Iceni]

The REALLY good news is that there are far more English undesirables remaining in England than have moved to France - and long may it continue.

John

not

 

[BJSLIV]

whose one commen aim .............etc etc

If that is the educational level of those who have left, it presumably explains why the Government can so easily prove that things are getting better.

[Vraititi<P>PSG till I die -fluctuat nec mergitur.<P>]

'Twas just a post aimed at Joe Smug Ex-pat Worldwide who has made 'motherland-bashing' his perverse little 'violon d'Ingres', his poisonous 'dada', his raison de survivre. It was not, and I am sure that you got my drift, aimed at the vast majority of Brits in France who know full well that, all things being equal, England or France are not worse than anywhere else, bien au contraire !

[Miki]

Beat me to it V, your observations are worthy of confusious status.

Some Joe Smugs-Smythe types, hope to prove that only the clever ones come here, to freeze in winter, to slave all year long on their pile of stones, to live in abstract poverty, to eat heartily on a monthly 9 euros menu (vinegar included ) to then proudly claim just how much better their "quality" of life is among their French counterparts...

Mmmmm perhaps there is a job for you V, finding houses for ex pat French, maybe looking after their cottages, gardens, gardiennage or perhaps they find it better to take the nice high salaries in IT and banking etc. Hold on a darned minute, you rascals seem to be getting the better deal and it was us pioneering venturers who were meant to be the winners. No wonder TU is on her bike one day, she sussed it before any of us

[SaligoBay]

Ah Miki, you really touch the right spot, don't you?    

But to re-word Vraititi's excellent message (hey, I'm only human!), as I've explained to French friends, there's no need to despise England, because the English do it so well already.  It's part of the culture. 

Sure, complain about ID cards - oh wait a minute, France already has them, but Anglais moving to France don't comment.   Au contraire, years after the carte de séjour hasn't been obligatoire, il y a des Anglais who are still asking how to get them.   Go figure, as our American brethren and cistern might say.

Humans have ALWAYS moved around the world - if they didn't, we'd all still be squashed up in Africa.   Get over it, guys, you're only following your monkey-like ancestors!    

 

 

[Teamedup]

I liked V's first post, but the second was just right, and  for me really hit the nail on the head, thankyou V.

[Val_2]

Brazil may be fine for those with a decent home and income there but listening to the BBC yesterday morning, seems the President/Government are under increasing scrutiny for all sorts of corruption and the people are very unhappy. Most of the population live in poverty and crime is rife with kids weilding guns and killing each other.What about those homeless people that simply "disappear" including children that we have seen documentaries about? I may bash the UK from time to time on hearing things I don't like, but I think you've got to be bl***y barking to go to Brazil and want to live there permanently unless you are on the run.

[letrangere]

The only Brazilian people I know live in Paris, they come originally from Sao Paulo.  They said the aspect of French life they found hardest to adapt to was remembering to stop at red traffic lights when driving in the city at night.  For where they come from apparently no one dares stop after dark for fear of being carjacked, robbed at gunpoint or worse.   The husband (a mild mannered intellectual) even confessed to carrying a gun himself for protection when he's home.  M

[Vraititi<P>PSG till I die -fluctuat nec mergitur.<P>]

I cannot help thinking that those few but vocal home-bashing expats (and I've met a few in my travels and short stints abroad) had a thoroughly miserable existence in the UK for whatever reason and once they move to France, Spain or wherever they feel this almost irrepressible urge to let the world know that it's payback time. I would think that, for them, the move abroad is/was a way -the only way ?- to escape, fleeing was the solution, a huge relief. For many of us here, it is the opposite, the move abroad was a way to find ourselves, certainly that is the way I saw it at the time.

[Mpprh]

Hi

The Ozzies have a saying :

If you were a bum in England, you'll still be a bum here.

Kinda rings true ?

Peter

 

[letrangere]

the move abroad was a way to find ourselves

Agree entirely, V.

I've said before that if you can't cope with life at home, you're unlikely to manage abroad.  A couple I know moved to where I currently live 2 or 3 years ago.  They arrived fresh from England full of complaints about life in the UK, unable to stop marvelling at the country they had moved to.  I guess it took 6 months, perhaps even less, for the honeymoon period to wear off, after which they settled back into their previous state of constant moaning about the minutiae of their everyday life.  They sought solace in a circle of similar minded Brits and turned into people you go out of your way to avoid.  Naturally, they haven't been able to hack it here so they're off again somewhere new next month and all we hear now is how this new place is the promised land and how everyone else should follow them.  I know the world's a big place but they're approaching retirement and you wonder how much further they're going to travel before they wake up and realise they're just a genuinely unhappy couple and it doesn't matter where they run to, they're still going to be as miserable as sin.  M

[Vraititi<P>PSG till I die -fluctuat nec mergitur.<P>]

Yeah, they're the ones, you meet them everywhere. I've met the French version many times as well in my peregrinations, but the French specimen isn't typically as fiercely home-bashing as his/her British counterpart. The French kind will, of course, over-criticise France and the French to a ridiculous extent as well but will invariably finish with a flourish, something on the lines of: 'Oh well, enfin bon, au moins on bouffe bien en France' or (if living in the sticks in America), 'ouais, enfin, c'est vrai qu'en France y'a de la culture au moins'. They have an official (albeit slightly derogatory) name in French street sociology (coined 25 yrs ago): les nomades Beaufs. Well, the Beaufs aren't supposed to travel at all (the closest to ForeignLand they've ever been is Andorra to get some cheap Pastis and Gauloises), never mind settle in a different country, but, hey, in the merry days of Globalisation, I for one am SO glad to see them becoming so mobile...