AIBU to feel the UK is really a bit crap?

[clogdance]

We have a German exchange child staying with us. He has been learning English at school for 2 years, and is apparently not top of the class in it. He spent supper talking to me about the rights and wrongs of vegetarianism and veganism.
He also mentioned that he lives in an old house but that new houses in Germany are larger and more solidly built. Just like here then .
His family are very very pleased that they unlike us are staying in the EU. And that they, unlike us, are welcoming a very large number of Syrian refugees.
Being English feels pretty depressing.

Just used the last page or so as a snapshot. Is all.

I lived in Queensland

That right there is where you went wrong.

There is a marked difference between the posts on the last couple of pages. Some posters appear to be pretty inarticulate and know only the word "crap" whereas others give voice to more considered reflections.

This is your post on the last couple of pages, right?

Wow. Such crazy mavericks.

A very considered reflection there. Well done.

Ouch.

To those who think using England and the Uk interchangeably is a valid point of view- have u realised that it's a FACT that there are 4 countries in the UK? So u cannot say England equals the UK. So bloody England centric it drives me up the wall!

I think if you move abroad, you eventually realise it's the same life in a different place. I think there are huge positives about the UK; the variety of food we can access, the history, the literature, some of the architecture, the driving (I always breathe a sigh of relief when back in Dover and reasonable, as opposed to Belgian driving, can commence), the massive tax free allowance, 5% VAT on heat and light, 0% on kids shoes and clothing and books.

We preserve older buildings as opposed to destroying them and building monstrosities in their place.

We have art, drama and music in our curriculum, we don't stick kids into an academic or non academic stream at 11/12, and not allow any deviation from that thereafter. We have externally validated exams at 16 and 18, not something set by the school and marked by the staff. We have weeded, via A levels or the IB, those who can go to university. We don't just let everyone go at 18, and then have a massive drop out rate.

As a renter abroad, and a l/l in UK, I think, apart from tenancy lengths, UK tenants get a good deal in comparison with Belgian tenants. Everything I pay for as a landlord in UK, so buildings insurance, boiler service, chimney sweeping, gardening, I have to pay for as a tenant here. There is little concept of wear and tear, and there is nothing quite as rapacious as a Belgian landlord when you move out!

I am looking forward to moving home.

@travellinglighter I agree. My old boss was desperate for me to follow him to Australia, made so many really great offers, so DP told me to try and then if I liked it he and DC would follow. So I lived there for a month. However, despite me being in Sydney, I found it awful. Enforced 7am starts rather than being responsible for your own time. Managers shouting and swearing at their employees. Sexism (I was told I couldn't be Asian by a junior employee because I wasn't hot, I reported him for that comment). So much racism - really highly qualified brown/black/native australian candidates were rejected in favour of ill qualified white people, then on the bus I used to get racially abused everyday. Really hated it. Sydney is not a patch on London, Mumbai, Hong Kong or New York

It must be a bit scary being big empty Australia only a stones throw from big overpopulated China and India. Just surmising as to why they are so racist.

Someone mentioned attitudes to disability and wheelchair users.
From personal experience France is far better.

Wild, I don't recall saying England = UK, to the exclusion of everyone else. Only that as one part of it, it is perfectly okay to use either word in conversation. We are all (at the moment anyway) part of a whole.

It must be a bit scary being big empty Australia only a stones throw from big overpopulated China and India. Just surmising as to why they are so racist.

Well, I mean, it was just yesterday that the Brits arrived here and attempted to wipe out the Aboriginals. I'd suggest it may be a case of "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree".

i have never been to Germany, but dh has on many occasions ( work trips and as an exchange student in the 70s) and he agrees its very well organised and more efficient than England, not much cheaper though.
He said that not everyone can speak english ( his german isnt bad, but not fluent) some people are friendly, some are not!
Things i dislike about England though are the roads, always congested, cant go anywhere without it taking ages, potholes everywhere. The service in shops and restaurants is usually pretty poor generally ( although i can why, how they treat their staff is a lot to with that i think) It does get me down!

" Just surmising as to why they are so racist. "

they are 'so racist' because descended from Brits, like us. sorry.

German houses are better because you buy a house for life, often building it yourself. You get a hefty fine if you sell it before paying off your mortgage (20,000 euros). More incentive to build a decent one

Are Brits racist? There was a post upthread about how foreigners in Switzerland would he prohibited from using neighbourhood nuclear shelters. You wouldn't get that here.

they are 'so racist' because descended from Brits, like us.sorry
I don't think we rate as highly racist compared to other countries.

Flying back to continental Europe today from Manchester airport after visiting Yorkshire, our 5 year old said, "This is a country on its knees." The airport is, admittedly, a hellhole. Every country has its advantages and disadvantages. We like to visit England (we've never been to Wales or Scotland or NI as a family), mostly for the people who are there, but we wouldn't want to live there right now.

Haven't rtft but people slagging off UK mfl teaching pisses me right off. I've been an mfl teacher for 20 years. There is nothing bad about the way languages are actually taught here (except if you happen to get a crap teacher, but that's no more likely in mfl than in any other subject).

Things that make us bad at languages:
Badly-designed exams
Failure to bother teaching English grammar, so UK kids have no basic grammatical understanding to link with the new language
Not enough teaching time per week (language learning needs frequent repetition, little and often)
Parents and kids don't see mfl as important and see it as a difficult subject for all the above reasons
Hardly any exposure to foreign languages in daily life, and what little there is is diluted between many languages, unlike in many other countries where English is THE cool and relevant language to learn and is EVERYWHERE (films, music, advertising etc)
No joined-up thinking between primary and secondary or between secondaries across the country about WHICH mfl is taught and about how many we do and at what age
Government indecision about whether mfl should even be compulsory

Add all that to the general "Why bother, everyone else speaks English?" and the very British "Ummm I feel a bit of a twat when I try and do a foreign accent, and anyway I'm too reserved to talk to my English neighbours, never mind actually speak a foreign language to a complete stranger or in front of other teenagers" thing, and we have no chance.

And breathe...

I think if you move abroad, you eventually realise it's the same life in a different place

Or as my friend who emigrated puts it: 'Same sh*t, warmer weather'

That's not to say all places are the same—clearly that's not the case— but I think that we, as a people, sometimes view places other than where we live through semi rose-tinted glasses.

Me? I LOVE the UK. It's f**king great. But that, of course, is just my opinion

"This is a country on its knees." Yeah sure he did.

Well, it certainly outbids the exchange student.

My baby was remarking the other day how standards in the UK are definitely slipping. He is particularly concerned about regulatory capture.

If your five year old did say 'this is a country on its knees' then he would be copying what he heard an adult say.

Yes of course she's heard it before; it's a common expression in her native language to describe something that is knackered. Her grandfather describes his knees as being 'on their knees' when he struggles to get up from a chair and it makes the kids giggle. She just translated it directly into English.

If I was going to live abroad then it's France for me despite the appalling laisez faire approach to everything

And because you can drink wine outside in a small village, with boules being played in the square and go to the bakery in the morning?

*That might just be a romanticised image. Reality is probably different