Some personal views on life in the UK
“Those of us with any sense have been stoutly ignoring the state visit by Emperor Bush to London this week (whilst those of us without sense seem to have spent the week attempting to scale the gates of Buckingham Palace, where the nice guards with silly hats have shown admirable patience…)” Dave Stock writes for British Expat magazine about the Bush State Visit to the UK and the Rugby World Cup final.
“It has been some 30 years since I flew off to warmer climes clutching my passport and the intention to return home one day. But now that I’ve had my fill of wadi-bashing, dune driving, and tax-free living, I find that home has turned into a cross between a yob’s paradise, a banana republic and a police state. What the heck has happened to Britain during my absence?” Linda Heard ain’t planning on returning to the UK any time soon…
“OK, so you can’t buy Baked Beans the way you like them and Marmite’s a no-no. OK, so export Guinness is a treacly mess. OK, so you get The Times three days late. I know living abroad isn’t all hay and sunshine, but it has one major advantage – you are all about as far away from British Bus Stops as I would wish to be.” Dave Stock indulges in a rant at one of his pet peeves…
“The Independent newspaper reported this morning that 20,000 people die each year in NHS hospitals from bacterial infections caused by super bugs that are almost immune to all known antibiotics. Well, that might be the cause of death as a coroner sees it, but every housewife and retired old-fashioned Matron knows better.” Liz Butterfield laments the primacy of cost-cutting over excellence.
“Had cameramen captured another submarine volcanic eruption – surely that was it? Only slowly did I realise that the deep blue was sky and the monolith was a skyscraper. Somehow in those moments the brain filtered out the explanatory words of the newsreader. Only when a second plane swooped like a dragonfly and exploded in flames into the World Trade Center did reality reassert itself…” Liz Butterfield writes in the aftermath of the 11 September tragedy.
“It’s been an eerie week out in the countryside. The weather clamped down over the weekend and the first signs of Spring were quickly covered with a blanket of icy wet snow, chilled hard by a biting wind straight from Siberia…” Liz Butterfield describes the eerieness of a country in the grips of foot-and-mouth disease.