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

If you’re a social person then being around friends/people who you have fun with will make anywhere seem fun and lack of will be boring.

I doubt you’re in London as there are vast amounts to do and it’s by far the most fun city I’ve ever been to, it’s also hugely diverse with incredible food, green spaces, history etc and it’s very easy to get to many different places from London, public transport is great in comparison to many places. Scotland, Ireland, France. Although I have lived in London with few friends and I didn’t enjoy it, as soon as I had made a social network I had the best time.

re weather yes can be a bit miserable but as others have said we don’t have extremes and I really love the seasons so need a bit of rain and gloom, I wouldn’t want to live with a summer of 40 degree heat but others would so that’s just personal preference!

I personally would struggle to live far from London as other places do seem to have less going on but I love being able to visit other places for quiet weekends by the sea / country etc

Well I used to live in Canada until v recently and if you don’t like England you probably won’t like anywhere else.

You think our weather is bad? 😂 oh yeah all those English snow storms, hurricanes, deadly heatwaves and tropical storms are just horrendous. Aren’t they? Don’t forget the wild fires & proximity to war zones.

Just last month Toronto was covered in litter during an opioid crisis. Homeless everywhere. Many car crashes due to drug use. Sure they had events on but could you get there without risking your safety? Not particularly.

The moment I arrived back at Gatwick and could see the spotless M25 (yep!) I was grateful to be back in my relatively safe, boring little country. With all its boring weather.

Sometimes, a little perspective goes a long way! ☀️

I find some of the towns a bit depressing (UK in general, not just England).

See, I suspect the vast majority of non-tourist towns are a bit like that, no matter where you are in the world. I lived in a very non-touristy part of France for a year and it was just as grey and depressing as your average UK high street.

I think what you are saying can apply to some places in England but definitely not places like London. There aren't many cities in the world that is as vibrant as London in my opinion.

I'm not British but have lived in 5 countries, one of them UK, and the one thing that stood out to me about the British people is that they can be witty but very cagey about their lives. I found it very hard to get to know people because the only thing you could do was have meaningless small talk and any questions that was somewhat related to who they were was ignored, but at the same time they had no issues calling me love or darling. I found not being seen as rude difficult because in my country my questions wouldn't have been seen as rude, but British people are very easily offended and it makes life much bleaker.

@Mydogsleftearishalfcocked I don't think it's proper leadership with a vision that's the issue- I think it's previous leadership over the last 12 years or so that concentrated on Brexit to the exclusion of other things( although covid on the mix didn't help) and bled the country dry by focussing on things that really were not important in the scheme of things but the right wing press liked them .

Any leadership and vision now is severely tempered by hard cash to make anything a reality. Brexit has not exactly made us 'top of the list' to invest in by any multinationals unless the UK has a large enough market on its own etc and our credit rating internationally has fallen dramatically making borrowing quite expensive.

The high streets are boring, and grim in places. The traffic is boring, and some of the people. Mainstream culture is increasingly boring, perhaps it always was idk. But I wouldn't say England is boring at all! So much to do, so much history, the food scene is better than ever in my lifetime - so many great farm shops etc. The countryside is fantastic, albeit often spoilt by the explosion in crap dog owners and excessive dog ownership in the last few years. We have a good climate for gardening, our literature, music and arts tradition is incredibly rich and life-enhancing. Quality of life in the UK has downhill in recent years, thats indisputable, but its still pretty great.

Perhaps you are also having to return to where you grew up and that feels like a step backwards to you in terms of life. And you never had to try to make friends when young as you had school for that.

I liked living down in Liverpool, though. In inner cities there's always somewhere to walk if not something much to do

Did you move here? Or do you mean you’ve felt sad the whole time since early on

London isn’t boring btw, maybe you need a bigger town

Yes, I lived in France for a couple of years and I didn't find it too much different from England day-to-day, really.

I brought a couple of French friends to stay at my parents' place in the Lake District and they were blown away. They even had an amazing time in the west of the county which is pretty rundown in a lot of ways.

There's a lot of things I definitely don't love about England right now, but we have some stunning scenery amazing museums and venues, and the people overall are great too.

I moved to the UK. I'm not old but I agree that only bored people get bored if you have void in your mind.

High Streets are generally awful but no way is England boring. It's home to the funniest and most creative people on earth (I'm not a Brit) and is full of the most amazing things to see and do as well as breathtaking countryside.

Weather is indeed shit though !

By the way the Eurostar is only £35 London to Paris in November (at least it was when I booked last month).

@Annalikesblue

Where do you live that there is nothing to do.

Who is telling you that you have to refer to the UK and not England? I seem to have missed that memo.
I use both, depending on the context but more likely to say I'm a Scouser

I love in an absolutely stunning part of the country and don’t find it boring.

Life is what you make of it and I have filled mine with things that bring me joy. I go to the theatre, eat out, walk in nature, stargaze, watch lectures, visit historic towns and monuments. And it’s all on this island.

As I say to my kids…only boring people get bored.

You know in mainland Europe, you feel so connected to a lot of other countries and you can just hop on a train anywhere

You have got to be kidding me. You’re complaining that an island is, in fact, an island, and not bordered on all sides by land borders. Fuck me, that’s a new complaint.

You can just hop on a plane to anywhere if you like, OP. Or take a ferry, or Eurostar.

England is only boring if you’re in a mindset to be bored. Same as Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands, and in fact every other place on the planet.

Personally, since moving here some years back I’ve found it friendly and full of culture and history.

I actually think England is pretty great. It's a very diverse place, not every area will suit everyone. I don't think I could stand rural living, but I love the hustle and bustle of where I live now - so much to do, so many different people. What exactly do you feel is lacking?
The weather is shit though.

Are you measuring the whole of the UK from the streets you've been down and the groups you've been to? You know there's lots more streets and lots more groups don't you?

@AmeliaEarache

I once went on a holiday trekking across the Sinai desert.
The guide told me that the previous week someone complained about the sand.
Just can't please some people

😂

Same here. When I came back (from South America), I found British people to be almost laughably repressed and kind of scared. Everyone seemed a bit nervous, somehow. It was the exact reverse of the process I'd been through on emigrating, when I'd been bewildered by all the upfront emotionality and sexuality around me!

It took me about six months to 'go native' each way.

I can't say I agree either. Individual places in England may be 'boring', just like individual places may be anywhere in the world. But there are plenty of places to live with lots going on.

We are on holiday in north of England right now and there's so much stuff to do. I keep saying to DH -'Ooh you'd definitely want a season ticket to this if you lived here'. The countryside is lovely. It's a beautiful sunny autumn day here, they aren't really uncommon, and we just wandered from our holiday accommodation with no map or ultimate goal and found a gorgeous walk along a river that the kids loved.

I do think if you live in kind of day to day drudgery you need to actually make an effort to see what's going on and get out there and do it.

Well I guess it depends what you like.
One of the things I like best about England (and the rest of the UK) is how much variety there is in such a small area, both in terms of landscape and culture. I don't think it is the same everywhere at all. Think of the range of different places you can be in within, say 2 hours from Manchester - seaside, mountains, other big cities, towns of varying sizes , country villages, and they all have different history, character and stuff going on.
And yes, we don't get really hot summers often but the weather is temperate and we also rarely get extremes. We also have to thank the rain for the greenery of course. Personally I'm not wild about the rather parched landscape in a lot of Southern Europe.
This country has its problems of course, but so does everywhere. There are a lot of positives about living here too though.

I guess it depends on what you find boring. I live in the South West and do a lot of water sports that are far from boring. Take the train to London and you have the West End, clubs, festivals ... England is far from Boring. I know the people who get bored easily are the ones who lack imagination ....

@coffeesaveslives you def aren't here in Somerset- it's drizzling , cloudy and grey and quite cold