To think the UK is just a bit crap?

[moussakka]

Right don't get me wrong - I love being British and am super proud of being British. But having moved back recently, I just can't escape the feeling that everything's a bit... I don't know, nothing TERRIBLE, just a bit... well, crap? I don't know what it is exactly, but there's just a certain grimmness that I just can't put my finger on. Am I imagining it? Is it just re-entry shock?

I think you have got to find the right bit of the country for you. We have lived in Wales, North East, South West, Yorkshire and Hertfordshire and now living in Cambridgeshire, close to Suffolk. Feels very right. The other area's didn't, all for different reasons. I know the grimness you speak of but it's honestly not everywhere. I think that is the key to the UK feeling/being home...

YANBU.

Look at the number of people living on low incomes, look at the number of people who make no simple efforts about their appearance. Look at what this nasty Tory government is doing.

There are many excellent things about the UK but we should realise there are bad things too.

I love the post about Qatar - you can't really complain that people are horrible about Qatar! Now that is one place which is utterly utterly awful and has the lowest levels of any kind of safety you'd like to name. Not to mention the mountainous levels of corruption at almost every level. When I lived in Dubai we knew Qatar as the armpit of the Middle East. If you think people here are entitled then a brief stay in Qatar will introduce you to a whole new level of entitled which is off the scale (and yes I have been there, I even worked there. Ugh)

Britain isn't perfect by any means but there are some absolutely stunning places - the countryside is incredible, from rolling green to blustery moor to beaches in Scotland that would shame the Caribbean. The NHS is still brilliant - but being chipped away at by this government. We have to stop this somehow. Education is also being slowly hacked at, but children are still encouraged to use their imaginations and how to think for themselves which trumps rote learning robots as far as I'm concerned: I worked with and employed many people who had degrees and qualifications coming out of their arses but couldn't think for themselves or be creative (this in a creative industry) It was infuriating. We have - I think - THE best music industry in the world for inventiveness and creativity. Great artists, authors. television... These things all add up. Yes it can be dirty, yes it can be rundown and yes some people are entitled or rough or bastards. But when you walk around most of our cities they have real soul and history. I can pop down to the Thames in my lunch break, root around the foreshore and find clay pipes and pottery that are hundreds of years old. That's pretty special. I live in a lovely town with great schools and the only thing missing is a beach! It honestly all trumps my old marbled floored, beach fronted, moneyed expat existence where I had a supposed fantastic lifestyle (yet I was surrounded by such terrible racism it wore me down)

What I liked about living abroad was the adventure - and I think that's what disoriented me when I got back. When every week brings some kind of adrenaline fuelled scenario (and that can often be for some mundane scenario. Like trying to get your gas cooker fitted), life in the UK can seem so tame.

I'm writing this looking out at blossom and listening to birds singing. I used to YouTube blackbirds when I lived abroad. When I got home I used to just stand outside and DRINK the birds in.

The UK Isn't perfect but then what other country is? And you often find that popular expat destinations have levels of inequality and poverty that are beyond scandalous.

YABU. You are experiencing reverse culture shock and it is truly horrid.

I am a kiwi and have lived in differing amounts of time as an adult both in the UK and NZ. Let me tell you, NZ is no picnic either. It is not paradise, not even close. We live in a beautiful country, granted, but there are serious problems in NZ. Housing is off the scale in Auckland, so bad that ordinary people cannot afford a decent house. The gap between the rich and poor in NZ is horrendous. Honestly, when I returned to live in NZ I had never seen such poverty. People live in awful situations, on very low incomes. Housing is largely inadequate and preventable conditions such as asthma are rife. People are living in total squalor, but that's okay because we live in a beautiful country. Shame most of the locals can't afford to visit the tourist spots regularly.

NZ is a low wage economy, and part of the country certainly reflect that. There are swathes of NZ that are unkempt, houses literally falling apart, some with no running water or electricity but people still live there with little option of moving. There are parts of NZ that might not be quite on the scale of an inner city estate such as Glasgow or London but there are depressing/deprived parts you certainly would not drive through even in daylight.

I get a bit depressed in the UK with consumerism, austerity measures are not nice, the media can be a bit scare mongering/depressing, sure the weather could be better but I prefer the mild all round British weather to raging high temperatures, or living surrounded by snow for 7 months of the year. It's a bit cramped, I can't argue that, but honestly all the space and lack of people in certain parts of NZ are serious inhibiting growth and it's a breeding ground for parochialism, a fear of progress, and totally feeds the NZ is best mentality that I can't abide. I don't feel it as much when living in the UK but when I have lived in NZ I cringed at NZ is best propaganda. Why do we have to tell ourselves we're the best at everything.

Rant over. No country is perfect!

feesh, I hear what your are saying about health care provision in the UK, and I largely don't disagree with you.
But I am also familiar with the flip side of more privatised/insured medicine and it has huge risks also. Different risks, but the ill health caused by overprescribing, over-investigatin and over treating all sorts of conditions is beginning to get more attention, even abroad.
The USA enjoy some of the worst health outcomes. My, now ageing, family in Germany have a ridiculous amount of overinestigations 'offered' to them (which of course they don't dare to decline, because 'better find out early, right?') which has and is causing all sorts of anxiety and risky further investigations which is actually affecting their health adversely and is not achieving anything.

Health is a minefield.

Here are some interesting numbers
If you can be bothered - statistics do put me to sleep rather quickly!

Sorry to hijack the fred

Foreigner here but have lived in the UK for 20+ years. Quite frankly, compared to how it was 10 years ago, I think the UK is a bit crap. Beggars everywhere, people queuing up at food banks, roads full of pot holes, very unpleasant tone in much of the national press, and as a PP said a general air of intolerance.

Still plenty of beautiful countryside and lovely people; can't imagine living anywhere else. But I do think we are in for a rough time.

I was in Bristol a couple of weeks ago and was so taken aback and saddened by the sheer number of homeless people, begging and sleeping in parks. It was cold.
What a beautiful city, but the amount of people who had nowhere to go was really quite upsetting.

Yabvu.

This country is brilliant. I think it to myself quite often. The sheer diversity, the freedom, free education and healthcare, benefits so nobody starves, gay marriage, legal abortion etc etc.

We are very lucky. I watched India's daughter a couple of months ago and have never felt so relieved or happy to be British. Likewise the Michael Moore documentary film Sicko.

I've met a lot of people from different countries who tell me how lucky I am to be British. Well my exH is South African and the horror tales he told me about being carjacked twice as a child outside of his parents home, gun held to his head as a seven year old with his one year old brother beside him . So so thankful to live here.

We lived abroad, Cyprus and the Middle East, for 15 years altogether. I enjoyed it all (or most of it) at the time, but I have no desire to live anywhere else again.

Every country has its downsides, and quite a few have a lot, as anyone who's travelled much in the 3rd world will know.

Of course there are things that could be better here, but I often think the moaners (and I agree that Brits can be tiresomely moany) don't appreciate how relatively lucky they are.

Just one little thing - when we were living in the Abu Dhabi desert, our water came in a bowser, hot and dirty brown. For drinking I had to filter it, and then boil it, and then keep it in the fridge. When we came back to the UK on leave that first summer I was amazed to find that bottled water had become fashionable - we wondered why on earth anyone was PAYING for bottles of the stuff, when you could get lovely, clean, cold water straight out of the tap?

OK, this was ages ago now, but I still feel the same about bottled water.

My dd works for an NGO, one of whose functions is providing clean water to so many who still only have hot, brown, dirty water to drink.

I always ask people who are from abroad but live in the UK, which country they prefer and why. Most people say they prefer the UK, and it is interesting hearing their answers why.

Tone not time

The racism in NZ shocked me.

Re private healthcare, my sister has lived in the US for decades and until recently was paying $800 a month IIRC, for herself and her daughter (now thankfully earning).
She cut a finger quite badly a couple of years ago, and I said, Well, at least you're covered by your insurance.
She said, 'That's what you think. I had to pay a $2000 excess.'

I know the NHS is not perfect, but I couldn't help being so thankful for a free A&E in such circs, instead of a hefty bill.

Life under the Tories is more than a bit crap. It's horrible seeing everything getting worse around you, as the rich cream off more £s.

To each his own anyway. I left Dubai halfway through a 3 year contract I could have retired on and went back to Doha. I found the expats disturbing and fake. But some people love Dubai. Some people love Thailand etc. Just because I hated somewhere doesn't mean you should belittle someone else for liking it. I stand by the Fuck off but am very sorry you were so unhappy. I felt like that in China and I only went on a jv 2 week job.

I think comparing some laws in the UK to other countries can give you a surprise. Excluding Northern ireland the UK allows fairly easy access to abortion compared to the U.S. the middle East or Poland to name a few.
dubai might be nice to live in if you are a rich person but what about all the home help/slaves with few rights? - I am not saying this doesn't happen in the UK but it is the scale of the problem and the laws in place to try and curb this.
Relatively speaking I think the UK isn't racist: and I do mean relative. Apart from Canada where is there such a melting pot that sort of works?
The Tories are by no means perfect but we do have a welfare state still.

My dd explained her culture shock on return to the UK as being "a foreign exchange student in my own country"!
Pancake day was a real eye opener for her!
I've lived all over the world.
Nothing beats the UK.

I sometimes feel that people who may have never lived away from the uk, don't realise how privilidged they are to live here.

❤️❤️

I would never underestimate the welfare state. The media may try to make it look like it only helps layabouts but it's not true is it? Everyone can access it and they also have the right to fair and equal treatment in society. There may be some racist people in the UK but it doesn't make it racist. There are assholes and nutters everywhere in the world. I respect the UK for their wonderful welfare systems. Its always easy to knock the place you take for granted. My friends at home moan that they still live in a small town, I spend a few weeks just going round enjoying the familiar sights and sounds and buying crap in charity shops. I wouldn't knock a place people live, it's a cruel thing to do. Everywhere has good and bad points.

We have too many poor people in Britain. But the level of poverty and inequality in some countries I have been in, some that are mentioned here are as good places to live, shocked me. The reality is some have a better standard of living there because some people are in abject poverty, I could not live somewhere like that.

Surely the upshot of this thread is that NOWHERE IS PERFECT!
However, dissing the UK, which compared to many other countries is pretty good in terms of human rights, health,education etc is just very whingy, and of course if you dont like it then you have the freedom to go elsewhere!

The nice bits are too crowded. Holidays and leisure times are often just miserable because there's too many people going to the same places and doing the same stuff at the same time. Think of the lines of cars driving down to Cornwall during the holidays and the crowds and crowds of people anywhere remotely scenic, everyone piled on top of each other on the beach. That aspect of it completely sucks.

Surely the upshot of this thread is that NOWHERE IS PERFECT!
However, dissing the UK, which compared to many other countries is pretty good in terms of human rights, health,education etc is just very whingy, and of course if you dont like it then you have the freedom to go elsewhere!

This and hooray for common sense posters

God, I love the UK. Have lived in all sorts of places but nowhere beats it. (Although tbh I'm not sure if feel like that in a small town- I love cities and I love the country but not suburbia so much- that would be true anywhere.)

The weather- love it. Proper seasons.

The food- wonderful, I love cooking British food and am massively spoils for places to eat out where we live. If you live in Britain and eat rubbish food (and aren't broke) you have only yourself to blame.

The people- again this might be a London thing but I find most people open minded, diverse, liberal and funny. Not everyone, sure, but you get twats everywhere.

I could go on all day, frankly.