Top five things I miss about England
Jan. 13th, 2006 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chickenfeetand the top five reasons I'm glad I left.
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gillo
Top five things I miss
1. Friends. Easily the biggest loss, especially the Durham crowd.
2. English pubs with decent beer at reasonable prices.
3. Easily accessible, high quality rock climbing.
4. Good, independent wine merchants. The LCBO is way better than it was twenty years ago but I miss Tanner's and the Wine Society.
5. Proximity to the ocean.
Top five reasons I'm glad I left
1. I really don't miss the underlying current of low level violence that permeates England. I would rather walk through Moss Park at 2am then the down the high street of an English town at 11pm on a Saturday night.
2. Racism. It's everywhere. From the overt antics of the BNP and so on to the "many of my friends are Asian but..." which is considered reasonable and polite in my parents' circle. Rowan Atkinson's Tory party conference monologue was spot on.
3. Authoritarianism and the cringing to it. It took centuries to gain the liberties that Brits seem happy to give up now in the space of less than a decade.
4. The traffic. Do you really think that 100 mile long tailbacks are a rational transport policy?
5. Caravans. WTF. You already have stupidly crowded roads. What's with letting people tow their little houses along them like a bunch of snails?
from
gilloTop five things I miss
1. Friends. Easily the biggest loss, especially the Durham crowd.
2. English pubs with decent beer at reasonable prices.
3. Easily accessible, high quality rock climbing.
4. Good, independent wine merchants. The LCBO is way better than it was twenty years ago but I miss Tanner's and the Wine Society.
5. Proximity to the ocean.
Top five reasons I'm glad I left
1. I really don't miss the underlying current of low level violence that permeates England. I would rather walk through Moss Park at 2am then the down the high street of an English town at 11pm on a Saturday night.
2. Racism. It's everywhere. From the overt antics of the BNP and so on to the "many of my friends are Asian but..." which is considered reasonable and polite in my parents' circle. Rowan Atkinson's Tory party conference monologue was spot on.
3. Authoritarianism and the cringing to it. It took centuries to gain the liberties that Brits seem happy to give up now in the space of less than a decade.
4. The traffic. Do you really think that 100 mile long tailbacks are a rational transport policy?
5. Caravans. WTF. You already have stupidly crowded roads. What's with letting people tow their little houses along them like a bunch of snails?
no subject
Date: 2006-01-13 08:44 pm (UTC)You would so get on with my husband on this! But you should see all the Dutch caravans belting through Switzerland towards Italy.[shudder]
One of the things I like about where I work is that there is precious little racism. Cov's a dump, but it's not a racist dump.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-13 10:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-13 11:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-14 01:26 pm (UTC)