To think England is a bit boring?

[Annalikesblue]

I'm from England originally. I was working abroad for a long time.

I moved back recently to work, and for a family reason. I probably won't stay here forever. Maybe for two to three years max.

Do any of you think that England is a bit boring?

Every street, wherever you go,
has the exact same shops.

The Weather is bad. People are miserable. When you go to groups, people are so serious.

It just seems so dull and lifeless

Best go back to 'another country' then.

Is it though? I was once left on the side of the road with suspected multiple fractures and internal bleeding. I had to wait close to 3 hours while I was also unconscious. There were no ambulances around, so that's why I had to wait. Only thanks to a random paramedic that lived nearby is that my life was spared.

Or that time when they botched my c section to the extent I had sepsis from the infection. My free healthcare from my developing country paid for it.

BTW there's welfare too and get extra payments if you're too far away from a regional hospital.

I think it takes time to settle anywhere. Even moving to a different place in the same country is stressful. I remember thinking I had made the worst mistake of my life when I moved to my current home but wild horses wouldn't drag me away now.
Some friends of mine live in Switzerland and they found it very different to what they expected and didn't like it much at first. But they've been there a couple of years now and have made friends, adapted to the differences and are happy now, though some things still surprise them and there are things that they miss about this country. I don't think that not instantly falling in love with a place means it's a horrible place, more it's just not the place you are used to.

Very much depends where you are. I do agree somewhat in relation to the same shops. I’m lucky enough to live somewhere with plenty of interesting independents but we still have our fair share of ubiquitous chains. Also, the same identikit glass offices and apartments going up everywhere - some bits of the city centre, you could literally be anywhere in the UK.

Compared to where? I guess San Francisco or LA or Singapore are more exciting and interesting than, say, Stevenage. And if you want white sand and warm oceans and coconuts falling off trees, then it isn't the place for you.

Personally, I think England (and the UK generally) is one of the most interesting places in the world. Of course, it depends what you find interesting. I love literature, art and history, so for me this island is a jewel. Bill Bryson said that in Britain, almost every square mile contains some amazing link to the past. Take Cambridge as an example. Every time I go there, I am amazed to think that Christopher Marlowe, John Milton, Isaac Newton, Byron, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Darwin, Nabokov, Wittgenstein, Stephen Hawking and Bertrand Russell were all students there, that it is the place where DNA was discovered and the atom first understood. Or take Oxford. Oscar Wilde, T. S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley and Evelyn Waugh all studied there, and C. S. Lewis and Tolkien used to read the Narnia books and Lord of the Rings out loud to one another in the local pub.

Like I said, I'm very interested in literature, so I tend to associate places with writers and books. To me, Bath means Jane Austen, the Yorkshire moors mean the Bronte sisters, London means Dickens and Blake, Stratford means Shakespeare, the Lake District means Wordsworth and Coleridge, Canterbury means Chaucer, and so on. Just recently I was mooching around London and happened to walk past the square in which Virginia Woolf lived and wrote. Almost every major figure in history seems to have lived or worked on this island at some point. Freud and Karl Marx are both buried here, Lenin lived here, and so did W. B. Yeats and Mozart. Even painters like Monet and Pissarro spent time here. The sense of cultural and intellectual depth is thrilling. Ted Hughes wrote about a pond, or something, being "as deep as England." It's a great line. England is deep; it feeds your imagination. It's just a shame we're taught to hate ourselves and our history. I've met several anglophiles who've emigrated here because they love the literature and history but are baffled by the shame and self-loathing.

Absolutely. But your question was 'Is England boring?" and my response is just that, my response. I am rich financially and in many other ways now. When my children were small I was a single parent and living on benefits. I was still grateful to live in a safe country with places to visit that were free. I know what it is like to go to bed hungry and struggle to rent a tiny house . My husband left at the same time as the Fred West murders were being investigated. I lost my house and was offered a flat in Cromwell Street ( scene of many of the murders). Even without the murders its a shithole. I appreciate my good fortune now enormously and I know not everyone has it. When I was poor I still knew how lucky I was to be living in England.

But why are you unhappy, why are you bored? You can do pretty much anything you want here. You are very well connected via the Eurostar, ferries and planes. You are never that far from anything.

if it’s not right for you, it’s not right for you, no point staying here as you have obviously made up your mind.

Many people who live here love it, many of the millions of visitors we get here each year love it, there are Anglophiles in all corners of the globe. We don’t have many problems compared with many other countries. For many Englands Green and pleasant land is sacred.

You are bored here, it doesn’t make England boring - just not for you.

I don't think England is boring but I do think we have had the fun, fairness and enjoyment sucked out of our lives in the past 14 years.

Cost of living crisis, Covid, one shit Prime Minister after another, Brexit, right wing media demonising immigrants and disabled people...

I would love to see again an England with thriving fashion, art, music and film industries that knows how to care about its environment and maintains a sense of fairness in society.

I am not keen on having a 'Little England' obsessed with greed, small boats, division and conformity and with rivers and seas full of shit...

@Annalikesblue Every street, wherever you go,
has the exact same shops.

This isn't true.

An absolutely wonderful summary - thank you

The regular "we hate England" threads are very boring, I agree. Almost as boring as the "we hate London" that come up as frequently.

Anyway I was talking to someone who's moved here from another country yesterday. They have a totally different view to you, having been here around 6 months.
They said it was peaceful, and they felt safe. They said they felt welcomed and most people were friendly and helpful. They said they'd found if they smiled and said "hello" most people said it back to them, and that brought on conversation. They said people were helpful when they struggled with language, and any laughter was friendly when they made mistakes. They didn't feel scared to try new words etc.
That people were free to talk about different religions, or different politics without feeling threatened. They also said they loved that the grass was still green in summer and that we went out and still did things in the rain.
They loved that there was history around and that people would talk about the history of things as though it was yesterday.
They said there was such a lot to do, even though they have not much money and have to walk everywhere. But that's also because they've gone out of their way to look for things to do, like volunteering for the foodbank.

@Mydogsleftearishalfcocked , there are plenty of lovely public parks in England, and as for ‘accessible arts’ many museums and art galleries, inc. many of the major ones, are still free to enter in England, and I dare say in Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland, too.

Even as a senior, I have had to pay a hefty whack to enter the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam - IIRC it was over €20, and I’ve often paid entry charges in Greece, too, though they were more moderate.

I will say though when people talking about London- I love London for all its faults ( I live in Bath ) and am there at least every 3 weeks with work and yes it's fun and interesting and tons of culture and history and stuff to do -

However there are many dull and uninteresting places around both rural and urban so you can't just say the UK is fab and always interesting because you love London or Liverpool or Bath or Brighton etc -

however the same is very very true elsewhere- I loved living in Copenhagen but Denmark had some monumentally dull flat and uninteresting bits too and yes people lived there .

@Annalikesblue I live out in the shires in middle England and it's beautiful. Folk are friendly, nice pub, shops, cafes nearby, lots of lovely walks.

I've travelled to loads of places especially in Europe and I fall in love with most of them, but my home is my home.

You said you lived in Europe and you miss getting on a train to travel to another country, well living on an island, you can't fix that! But you have airports with cheap flights if it is sun you want. Or what about a ferry to the channel islands, shetlands, Ireland/Northern Ireland, Isle of Wight if you can handle the British Isles weather. Or the tunnel to Paris or Bruges - all possible to cheer you up.

Town centres are not the same anymore for shopping, but they are a victim of the internet. I agree that city centres are more run down - the nearest one to me....well, I no longer recognise it and nip in and nip out as quick as I can. Again it was the same when I visited Athens, Dublin, Paris etc etc, main cities are not nice anymore.

@Startingagainandagain I totally agree-

No more boring or serious than anywhere else.

If you don't like it, perhaps you shouldn't have come back? And at least if you do, try to make the most of it rather than slag it off.

We have nationalised health care, no natural disasters (beyond the odd flood), no deadly wild animals, no war currently, good equality and diversity, good employment rights, good maternity packages, cheap food.

Yes, there are negatives but on the whole I'm VERY grateful to live here. In fact, I feel very privileged to have been. Life is a lot harder in many other parts of the world.

But if it's too boring for you, just go?

I honestly think it’s the weather. We lived in Canada and there was just so much more sunshine, even in the depths of winter (because Toronto is on the same latitude as Barcelona). The UK is just very grey in comparison.

i do like it here though. We have much more green space than equivalent cities. Nicer architecture. More history. And I like the British countryside - all of it, from Scotland to Kent. And the seaside, you don’t get that in most of North America (even the coast in most of the US isn’t “seaside”, it’s beach which is different - Maine and Nova Scotia/PEI are the only places on that side of the Atlantic with proper seaside IMO).

This is exactly how I feel. I read Literature at undergrad and postgrad; work in publishing now, and I'm a writer. That comes from where I live. England astounds me with its rich landscape of not only hills and valleys, but the authors and the words. It is a goldmine.

Beautifully put. 👏

All our museums are free here in my part of Yorkshire.

So go and move then? If not then just get on with it.

Which country are you from? What you describe isn't particularly what most would consider a "developing country" I don't think.
Like I said, the NHS isn't perfect, but an ambulance would have come eventually, the NHS did train that paramedic and provided the c-section in the first place. I can't think of a "developing country" that would provide all of that for all of it's citizens and pay for healthcare abroad, that's very surprising.

But that's just basic human rights to health :/ . I'm from Mexico and because of my mother's heart condition we've always used the public healthcare system. The same healthcare system that also got me diagnosed of my blood condition after the NHS failed to do anything for 12 years.

All the institutions here (police, health, schools) have been a major disappointment.

My cousin who lives in Spain says the UK doesn't have the same reputation it used to have.

For me it has been a major disappointment and I do regret moving here, but hey I got married and gave birth to children who live here for better or for worse.

Plus the NHS isn't free. I pay a buckload of taxes that feed into that bureaucratic sacred cow.

Op obviously hasn’t lived in France in the winter if she thinks it’s boring here!

I don’t think anything will change for op, because to truly enjoy a life anywhere you need to have friends, connection and a positive outlook and curiosity. To be open to adventures and opportunities. She sounds miserable and closed.

Your taxes could be used for anything.

It might be basic human rights, but probably most of the world doesn't have that. They should, but in reality they don't.
It's interesting to hear that about Mexico, not a part of the world I know much about. I know a Mexican trainee Dr years ago in the country I lived in, she had been sent there for work experience essentially. Fascinating. Life expectancy and maternal mortality rates are worse than in the UK though, so I'm not sure the healthcare system is really than universally superior than the NHS.