My "######" In Modern Britain

[Mango-Guy]

I didn't have any problem reading your mega post, though writing in paragraphs would make it easier. You hit on most of the negatives in Britain but what about the positives:

- great pubs, great beer, great laughs

- food from all over the world (if you're in London)

- fantastic motoways, beautiful country lanes

- honest coppers (generally)

- long summer evenings

- crisp winter mornings

- "jumpers for goalposts" (fast show)

If you're in your 20's you have plenty of time to do whatever you want. Spending a year or two in Thailand would be a good idea, and would at least make you stop wishing you were there, but stick to the beaten track like BKK, Pattaya, Chiang-Mai. Learn the language, that way you won't need to keep yapping about Golden Balls to your brother in law. You could even try living in both places: 8 months in LOS and 4 months in UK (for work). Loads of opportunites as time is on your side.

PS: Next time you're in the wrong when driving, try saying SORRY. I cut someone up a few weeks back, he pulled beside me to slag me off and I just apologised - I mean it WAS my fault. Totally disarmed the guy and made us both feel better.

[Spee]

- food from all over the world (if you're in London)

... true, but it ain't the same as being there ...

... my som tam wasn't even close to the real thing and my kaao phat goong and phat phak ruam were more like the tasteless chinese take out one gets in the little white boxes ...

[anono555]

- great pubs, great beer, great laughs?????

Reality = rubbish scummy filthy dirty pubs, weak piss beer, with aggressive lager louts and slags everywhere...

- food from all over the world (if you're in London)

Reality = overpriced, badly cooked or microwaved 'food' from all over the world

- fantastic motoways, beautiful country lanes

Reality = traffic choked motorways, can't argue about the country lanes though...

- honest coppers (generally)

Reality = hahahahahahaha!!! that's a good one - you must be stupid, naive or crazy or all three put together mate

- long summer evenings

Reality = summer? when was that then - must have missed it???

- crisp winter mornings

Reality = bloody, freezing cold dark winter mornings with rain or snow

- "jumpers for goalposts" (fast show)

Reality = yeah, ok, our sense of humour in Britain is good but it believe me it bloody needs to be!!!

#

amen Buddhaboy, you hit the nail on the head and i have to say i agree with EVERYTHING you wrote about, don't worry, the U.K is finished, buy a house somewhere nice and hot and FRIENDLY and don't look back... can the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights....

[kwangandjo]

Lets have a poll (for a change)

Did you read the whole post?

OR

Did you think <deleted> this after 10 lines and flick to the bottom to see what others thought

guilty as charged

[Martin]

buddaboy: I agree that the UK seems to get a bit more disappointing every time I go back.

For comments on village life in Thailand see the thread "Pros and Cons of living in a City or a rural area" in the General section of this Forum. There is a lot to be said for living outside the cities (but not too far from one).

[Mango-Guy]

martin - that's a cool website for your homestay business - hope it's going well

[Tony0703]

Britain is not finished until the footpaths have been rolled up! If you only talk of London then maybe! BUT Places like Scotland are much more attractive! Too much negativity about Britain going on here! Every place has its good and bad it is a huge generalisation to say "Britain is finished!"

[Mango-Guy]

You said it Tony, and I would go further and say even London is great.

[maerim]

Has the UK "had it?"

All depends on where you stand.

I rent properties in the UK most of my tenants have been with me many years they all pay their rent on the first of the month no problems.

If there are any problems with the houses the problems are fixed if not the same day they are fixed the day after.

Except one,I have one property, a three bedroomed semi detached where the tenant is in claiming benefit for her and her three children all by different fathers by the way, she started when she was fifteen so the eldest girl is now ready to breed and start the cycle all over again.

For this I recieve or more to the point don't recieve the princly sum of £65 per week as the rent officer decided that this what the rent should be, no appeal.

She is working and claiming benefit so is her latest "boyfriend" they have a car about £2,500 worth and you want to see the home entertainment system not to mention the 9ct gold.

I have had no rent from this property for three months as she has according to the

"Peoples Republic of Manchester" vacated the property and would I mind paying the council tax please, this unfortunately is not the case she is still there but no rent is being paid and I have been told by the agents who are managing the place she said I can "eff off".

So now I have to return to the UK as the lawyers want £1000 just to say hello and start eviction proceedings against her. I have no idea how much it will cost me but I know exactly how much it will cost her nothing, as she qualifies for legal aid.

I also know what will happen just before the baliffs knock on the door she will go. that the central heating boiler will go with her is taken as read.

She will leave the door wide open providing I still have a door on the property and with any luck they won't saw through the joists as I have seen in other properties wher the tenants have been evicted.

Now if you were to ask about the UK I am sure she would say it's a great place to live,I on the other hand disagree.

[Martin]

When I was 11 (if 1946 was the year when Australia dismissed England for a mere 52 runs) an old man said "My brother went to America in 1910, because he felt this country was finished. What would he say about it now?".

That old man would never have dreamt that things could go even worse and get to what maerim has described above.

[sonthaya]

There are pros and cons of living in any country.

The UK, USA and European countries have a high standard of living, good education and social services. These come at a cost - I pay more than 10 times more income tax in the UK than a typical Thai earns.

People who come to the UK are allowed to work, own property and get state pensions when they retire. People who go to Thailand .... have to look after themselves. Thailand is a paradise if you come from a rich country. If you come from a poor country like Laos or Burma then Thailand can be a nightmare.

The UK is not that good, but it is also not that bad. Thailand can be very good if you have money and also very bad if you don't.

You are very right there, there is good and bad points, but I still fell tha Thailand gives us us good value for the money, even with their silly Visa rules.

[Martin]

Spot on, sonthaya.

There are lots of us living very, very well in Thailand on smallWestern-derived incomes.

Those incomes would only support us in very frugal lifestyles in any Western country.

The visa rules will get more sensible as the years move on.

Ironically, this will mean that Thailand will shut the door to a lot of the farang prats who moan most about the present situation, which is basically some rather pernickety procedures but very liberal (undoubtedly, over-liberal) access.

Just suppose that Thailand said we all had to start carrying in our passports a police good-conduct record from our 'home' countries. What a lot of one-way tickets the Bangkok travel agents would sell!

[Englishman]

May I kick off my membership by adding my thoughts to this thread...

Here's my take on the England situation.

If you haven't left already, I estimate you have about 5 years to get out before it all goes tits up. when I say this, I am only speaking from my own life, experience and situation.

I have been coming to SE Asia for quite some years now. I have decided I will make Thailand my home for reasons I will not go into now as it would be off topic. In preparing to move to Thailand, I am having to work very hard indeed to save the money, rebuild my business (a few years ago I found myself on the bottom rung of the ladder and starting from scratch again). In my current profession, I can earn quite a good wage in England. It is saving me the money I require to move overseas again and keeping me going while I start my business again. In order to earn this money, I work 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. To minimize my expenditure and save as much as possible, I force myself to live in an extreemly small room in a shared house. I can afford to live in much better accomodation but I just tell myself the money I save while in this small room brings me closer to a permanent migration.

In a few years, my ability to earn this income will be gone, not because of old age or ill health... but the massive influx of Eastern Europeans who have the same skills as me and will do my job at a fraction of the price. I can see it happening already. The management in my particular industry are realising the money they can save with migrant workers. So, I have decided that I have to make my money soon and get out, or I'll probably never make it (Just take I.T. as an example).

The cost of living in the UK rises ever higher. Wages rise accordingly. Tax rises accordingly, (income tax and stealth tax). More and more people divorce through the stresses of the rat race and end up living alone. The value of their house is astronomical so they sell and leave the country for a better life. Migrant workers flood into Britain to fill numerous vacant skilled jobs. Already, wages are starting to reduce as employers can get away with paying migrant workers less. I believe this is where the bubble will burst. The UK will end up with millions of 30 or 40 year old skilled native Englishmen/Women who are unemployable because they have been priced out of the market.

I haven't worked out what it is yet but I reallt believe there is a catastrophic change coming for England and I don't like how it feels. Trouble is brewing I'm sure of it. Britain is surfin' high right now but mark my words it's going to crash down.

There is a tangible feel on the streets, a feel of discontentment and misery because of long hours, expensive goods and services, high taxation, busy busy lives, no time for anything other that work. Just as a smile is infectious, so too is a frown and that frown is spreading here.

Only tonight, I said to a collegue at work "Mate, I reckon we've got about 5 years to get out of here, this place is going down". Coincidentally, I came home and saw this thread.

You only have to look at the latest census results. So many people are living alone in the UK because there is no room in their life for a relationship. The results also show that MILLIONS of native English folk have simply dissapeared from Britain, no doubt to make their way on foreign shores... and good luck to them, I won't be far behind.

Now don't get me wrong, I love my country. I'm proud to be an Englishman. On the other hand, I'm ashamed when my countrymen embarass me with their drunken yobbery (have you ever seen a Thai man in England in a drunken brawl?).

Where did all the respect go. School kids are assaulting their teachers! Children are sueing their parents. Delinquent teenagers are mugging octagenarians. In thailand, in the village where my girlfriend lives, even the poorest of families has the most lovely and polite children.

Criminals are sueing their victims!!! Where has England gone wrong?

Things are better for me now but a few years ago, I wound up back in the UK peniless as it all went wrong for me. I had nowhere to live and because I had been away for so long, all my friends had moved on. I approached the local social security services to ask if they could help me and if they could accomodate me in local authority housing while I rebuild my life. They were very apologetic when they said they could do nothing to help me. As I left the social securtiy office, there was a queue of asylum seekers, migrant sponges and people who had turned up underneath a lorry that were being handed money to help them start their new life in England. Some of them were also accomodated... me, a Britain born and bred, one who has always worked hard and paid his taxes, was given nothing in my time of need.

Am I bitter? Yes, of course I am as you can tell from my writing. I'm philosophical about that incident now but I don't feel I owe this country anything... and here is the problem that will bring England down. Discontentment, disloyalty. I hear people comlaining all the time and they are legitimate complaints about life and the system here.

Sorry about my rant but it's all going wrong here. Trust me.

My girlfriend awaits me in Thailand for that better life together. I can't wait.

[Martin]

Reading the above, why did I think "Globalisation, when cometh thy sting?", and are not we old boys lucky to have been born when we were?.

[Medium Willy]

Make them all watch a few episodes of Coronation St and Eastenders... They'd soon change their minds about living in the UK.

[maerim]

One of the problems with people who live off welfare including the woman in my above post is that they simply can't afford to go to work.

Now if benefits are too high or wages too low I don't know but I do know that when welfare was first introduced it was for the needy and not the greedy.

What they can't seem to grasp is that the West has lost the monopoly on technology.

A case in point just after Gulf war mk 1 a firm I knew put up a list for anyone who wanted to go and rebuild Kuwait of course a load of names went up, these chaps thinking it would be the same as the 70s go work in the east for a year so come back loaded.

After a week the list was taken down, why? The labour being used was Thai and Sri Lankan.

Doesn't matter if the weld is done to code by a Brit or a Thai.

This will eventuall permeate through the welfare system and the sooner the better in my opinion.

There is nothing "wrong" with these parasites who get married to the state when they are fifteen or so and only get divorced as soon as they are of pensionable age so they can draw another type of benefit.

Yet never contribute anything, well if you think a load of badly behaved brats are a contribution I stand corrected.

It doesn't matter where the products are made these days wheather its Stockton on Tees or Shanghai or Surin as long as it passes inspection.

I am talking multi nationals here not Somchai in his shop house.

So if you are the finance director where would you manufacture, the UK or in this neck of the woods?

With all the problems for the doletappers and parasites that would bring, lower tax revenues and "Oh no" lower benefits?

[Martin]

Ten years ago I got a job as Training Officer for the electronics assembly facility that Pace Microtechnology had alongside their Design Department and Marketing Department at their headquarters in Yorkshire. My main job was induction of new assemblers. Sometimes I was asked why Pace only paid just over the minimum wage to assemblers. I had to explain that 90% of the production was done in Mexico, Brazil, Taiwan (and Thailand, for Shinawatra). Labour costs there were less than a quarter of the labour costs in Yorkshire. Our factory only got the odd jobs, such as first production runs of a new product, where it was worth accepting the higher labour cost in order that design-engineering staff could be called downstairs if there was a problem, rather than having to fly halfway across the world.If Pace paid any more in Yorkshire they would price themselves out of the market and lose out to the competitors.

Three years ago that factory was closed.

The advance in the quality of the engineering management in the sub-contracting firms abroad meant that Pace no longer needed it, and they were being underbid by their competitors (particularly Philips) when they had to price in their costs of keeping it going.

So those excellent middle-aged ladies who had been made redundant when spinning and weaving could be done cheaper abroad were redundant again.

Britain is now a country where there is no way that people who have no 'high tech' skills can earn and pay their way.

Even jobs where the work can't be exported (such as care-work in residential homes for the elderly) pay miserably because there are so many, many people available to take them.

Any residential home that paid a wage that allowed a decent standard of living to its workers would promptly price itself out of the (over-supplied) market.

In some ways, for some of its people, Britain is now worse than 'Third World'.

[Mango-Guy]

Thai-Mouse (sorry can't read the Thai) thanks for the genuine story. I don't think Britain is doomed in five years time, but I share your frustration at the way things are done and the mad wage slavery that has become the norm.

It is crazy that everyone in working like dogs, to get the mortgage, pay the mortgage, to retire in the sun. Nothing wrong with working - it's the LIKE DOGS that I have a problem with. Communting like dogs. Overtiming like dogs.

Your plan of living frugally and saving for a better life in Thailand shows your determination to not be trapped in the dog system. Good for you.

One thing I am curious about is why the local authority would not house you if you were in such dire straits. My guess is that you are in fact earning good money (should be if you are working 98 hour weeks) and simply are not satiisfied with what it will buy you in the UK.

We shouldn't blame the Easern European migrants, they are coming to Britain for a better quality of life (whether that's through living in the UK or earning in the UK and going back East). It strikes me that this is EXACTLY the same as what many of the Brits living in Thailand are doing. Okay, it's the other way round, Brits import money into Thailand, but at the end of the day they/we are migrants in search of a better quality of life.

[Mango-Guy]

Martin & Maerim, you're too cynical, Britain is still a fantastic place. It's not all benefit fraud and Coronation Street. London is booming, even Birmingham is booming. Brits are now the ugly Americans of Europe snapping up sunny properties in France, Spain and Italy. The idea of long-weekend breaks to Thailand is popping up in the press.

The problem is, unless you have had the good fortune to end up in a well paid job (say £60K+) you have an incessant struggle to live a fairly hum-drum existence. It's a shame for the "excellent ladies" of Yorkshire, but maybe they should have moved down to the South when they were youngsters and dreamt up some PR nonsense to affort a luxury lifestyle. In any case, so much Southern money is flying up North that even those communites are experiencing rising house prices and economic growth.

My guess is that the current boom will all end in tears, but it'll start over again. Britain has it's problems (I wouldn't be here if it didn't) but on the whole it ain't going down the tubes. When I read your 1911 - 1946 quote I initially took it as, "they said in 1911 things were getting worse, see how wrong they are".

So stop being grumbling OLD CODGERS and be happy that you come from a great country and are living the Life of Reilly in sunny Thailand.

[maerim]

they/we are migrants in search of a better quality of life.

Oh so very true, but in all the years I have been here as of yet the Thai government has only given me a hard time let alone any money.

Now if you would ask the ex Thai wife with two passports , a prostitute, back on the game in the casinos of London who has had my money thrown at her, as a taxpayer, she would say " I like England I Thai people" and any chance of some more benefits please?

Now one thing I do know is that immigrants to the UK will tell you that the country they come from is wonderful, warm, we know the food is better and they will do anything for their home country except one thing, go home.

OK I know I am here and thankful for it but one of the things here is that if you don't work you don't eat.

If this idea was to be utilised in the Uk whereas any able bodied person who would not do say community work in return for benefits a good percentage would starve to death

Good.

[Mango-Guy]

Since you are a Super Member I can only defer your wisdom and experience. Yes I agree that too much benefit is handed out too easily and to too many foreigners in Britain.

[maerim]

This might well be kicked off but it's worth a look as to how wonderful the Uk is thesedays.

From the Manchester Evening News.

A FIVE-YEAR-OLD girl has been accused of dumping rubbish and fined £50 by environmental health officials.

An inspector rifled through discarded binbags outside Jodie Lauren Clarke's home in Openshaw and is believed to have found a handwritten letter which had her name written on it.

The youngster was issued with a fixed penalty notice, which ordered her to pay up within 14 days or face legal action and a possible fine of up to £2,500. Her mum Carol was also fined.

After complaints from Jodie's parents, Manchester city council cancelled the fixed penalty notice. The problems began when Carol put bin bags out in the alleyway behind her house in Rushton Grove.

Carol said she put the rubbish in a wheelie bin the night before they were due to be collected.

The bins were emptied the following day, but refuse collectors did not pick up bags of rubbish on the floor.

A council inspector later took some photographs in the alley before checking inside one of the bags, where it is believed he found a letter with Jodie's name, address and age on it.

He also found another letter addressed to the little girl's mum and both were issued with fines after being accused of dumping 16 bags of rubbish.

Carol, 29, said: "I put the rubbish out as normal in a wheelie bin and the only thing I can think off is that teenagers might have kicked the bins over.

Trouble

"It would take me months to fill 16 bags of rubbish.

"It was Jodie's brother who opened the council letter and now she thinks she is in trouble even though she has done nothing wrong.

"If people dump rubbish and get fined that's fair enough, but we did not dump our bin bags in the alleyway."

Jodie's dad, Paul Davies, 33, said: "The letter in the rubbish had Jodie's name, age and address on it, so I just don't understand why they have sent the fine to her."

The city council's Pete North said: "We are satisfied that these 16 bags of rubbish were dumped by residents of a house in Rushton Grove, but unfortunately they were not at home during our investigations and the notice was incorrectly served on Jodie.

"We are now reissuing the notice to the correct family member."

[Englishman]

One thing I am curious about is why the local authority would not house you if you were in such dire straits

... Their reasoning was that I was a single man and had no kids to take care of.

I've drank the finest wines in the finest hotels in the world... I've spent time on the streets in England. I'll find an equilibrium sooner or later I reckon that's in Surin for me.

I don't have a problem with the migrant workers... but I do have a problem that they're only here on the take and they make no secret of it. If you ask them if they 'cared' about England, they'd probably say '<deleted>.ck England'.

... Besided which, the government should adopt the same policy as Thailand, only allow them to work here if the job cannot be filled by a local. Where's the sense in allowing them to work here on the cheap and robbing our own countrymen of their jobs?

[Englishman]

... Oh and the Avatar is Dangermouse, the finest superhero in the world.

... and the Thai text, if I've translated it correctly, means 'Polite Englishman'

[stroll]

I don't have a problem with the migrant workers... but I do have a problem that they're only here on the take and they make no secret of it. If you ask them if they 'cared' about England, they'd probably say '<deleted>.ck England'.

And I have nothing against blacks as long as they live in other countries.

A fine example of a most prejudiced, hypocritical attitude, the sort I grew to despise during my 12 years in the kingdom (UK).

Where's the sense in allowing them to work here on the cheap and robbing our own countrymen of their jobs?

Maybe you wouldn't like to do some of these jobs for the wage, it wouldn't buy you 'the finest wines in the world'. Luckily you have choice, and choose to add insult to injury.

... and the Thai text, if I've translated it correctly, means 'Polite Englishman'

More appropiate without the 'polite' in it.

[Martin]

Hey, Mango Guy, I am no cynic. I am an eternal optimist who still hopes to go from his first childhood to his second one with no intermediate stage between.

(Because my passport and her i.d. card show me to have been born 19 years before my wife, acquaintances assume we have a ‘fatherly-daughterly’ relationship. Actually it is more akin to a ‘mother-son’ relationship. She often complains “You just same as small boy”. And gets a cheeky grin, as I think “Yes, and I got you to marry me by taking advantage of your need of someone to mother, after your sons grew up”!)

But we optimists must keep aware of reality, or we become badly unstuck.

After looking around, my report on the state of Britain is what I got so often on my school reports “Could do better.”

I think you are right to say that in some ways, for some people, Britain has much to offer. However, the people who earn 60k+ are a small minority. The earnings of the average schoolteacher are about 25k. The earnings of the average care-worker are about 10k (40 hours @ GBP5---and that may require juggling two 20 hour jobs with different employers).

I think it is just as right to say that in major ways, for most people, Britain is an unsatisfactory place.

Too many resenters and resented.

Too many downtreaders and downtrodden.

Too much private greed and public squalor.

I don’t know London and Birmingham now. But I do still know Leeds, which is seen to have come good. And yes: you are ‘high on the hog’ if you can just work and socialise in the City Centre and sleep in Alwoodley. But no: it is ‘down the tubes’ if you have to spend most of your time in Gipton or Chapeltown.

I can’t afford my usual month’s summer holiday in Britain this year. So I am going for eight weeks in autumn and will do seven weeks of Supply Teaching to pay for the trip. I’ll let you know how Britain ‘feels’ to me this year.

[stroll]

And let us know how Leeds is these days, I don't think I'll make it as far as that this year.

But anybody who lived in Harehills would have noticed that Pakistani immigrants (British citizens by now) are not all taking advantage of the system, but hardworking, spirited people who have much to contribute.

Of course there are those who like to emphasis their minority status and claim every benefit in the book, but this trait isn't exactly unknown to the 'proper' Brits, who by far outnumber the immigrants in their attempts to milk public funds.

And no, I am not British, and yes, I do care about the UK, it is my second home.

[Englishman]

I don't have a problem with the migrant workers... but I do have a problem that they're only here on the take and they make no secret of it. If you ask them if they 'cared' about England, they'd probably say '<deleted>.ck England'.

And I have nothing against blacks as long as they live in other countries.

A fine example of a most prejudiced, hypocritical attitude, the sort I grew to despise during my 12 years in the kingdom (UK).

Where's the sense in allowing them to work here on the cheap and robbing our own countrymen of their jobs?

Maybe you wouldn't like to do some of these jobs for the wage, it wouldn't buy you 'the finest wines in the world'. Luckily you have choice, and choose to add insult to injury.

... and the Thai text, if I've translated it correctly, means 'Polite Englishman'

More appropiate without the 'polite' in it.

Who mentioned the Blacks?

If concern that cheap foreign labour is depriving fellow citizens of work makes me racist, then I suppose I must be racist... but know this, when I refer to my fellow countrymen, Irefer to all of them, including Blacks, Pakistanis, Indians, etc etc etc, so I didn't consider my comments racist.

The jobs that you refer to that we would not like to do, what jobs were you referring to? My Mother has been a cleaner on minimum wage all her life. I have the utmost respect for my Mother, who is a proud woman and is not ashamed of her lifelong employ. If some Russian comes here and forces my Mother out of that job, then yes, I resent that. My Mother doesn't have a choice. Don't you dare suggest that me and my family have only lived the high life..... just who do YOU think I was insulting?

...and I am a most polite Englishman but since you have set the tone... I don't like the cut of yer jib, old boy.

Shame you misread me.

[stroll]

OK, I withdraw the remark about racism, it appears I read something into your comment which isn't there, sorry. And I don't mean to disrespect your mother.

Maybe you should have been more specific which migrant workers you mean?

In the general terms you use, people like myself are included, I could have been classified as a migrant worker from the EU when I lived in the UK.

I don't have a problem with the migrant workers... but I do have a problem that they're only here on the take and they make no secret of it. If you ask them if they 'cared' about England, they'd probably say '<deleted>.ck England'.

I don't think I misread this, and I am tired of arguing that it is mostly the Brits themselves who take advantage of the welfare system. I didn't take anybody's job away, as a 'migrant' have paid my own way and so have many others.

Perhaps you were a bit fast in making such sweeping generalisation, I do appreciate your feeling of being wronged, I also perceive the many problems of the UK as it stands now, but lets not blame it on the migrant workers.

[Englishman]

Like most others, I blame the UK immigration policy. I hold no ill will to any individual or race.