The H3ll Of Being A British Ex-pat

[taxexile]

The h3ll of being a British expat

Jeremy Clarkson

Alarming news.

It seems that all the world’s clever people have gone missing. We know where the stupid people are. They’re in the White House, or they’re on Big Brother, or they’re singing for Simon Cowell’s supper. But while we are absorbed with this lot, the rocket scientists and astrophysicists have disappeared.

Seriously. America claims that the huge influx of Mexicans is in no way compensation for George Clooney, who has moved to Italy, and Madonna, who now lives in Wiltshire. And that it has a net brain drain.

It’s the same story in Egypt, Iran, India, Russia, New Zealand and France. Germany claims to be in the middle of the biggest brain drain since the 1940s. Everywhere you look, governments are saying that while they’re up to here with housekeepers and swimming pool attendants, their graduates are all moving out.

So where are they going? Could it be, I wondered, that all the Tefalheads have come to Britain? Certainly, we seem to have so many scientists that there aren’t enough serious projects to go round. On Thursday, for instance, two Manchester doctors announced that they’d been studying dinosaurs and found that the T-rex had a slower top speed than Frank Lampard. Wow.

Further evidence came to light on Thursday with the GCSE results. Every 16-year-old in the land, except those who have recently been shot, had scored at least 415% in advanced Latin and applied maths.

Yes! I thought. Britain is pinching all the Russian billionaires, the American singers, the French chefs, the Egyptian doctors and the German businessmen. We may not be the happiest nation on Earth or the richest. But we are the brainiest.

And then came the latest migration figures, which showed that while Britain received 5.4 billion west African pickpockets last year, we lost what the Daily Mail calls 196,000 British citizens. White, middle-class families who have moved abroad.

These figures would lead us to suggest that like everywhere else, Britain is suffering from a brain drain. That all our well educated, well spoken young professionals are being replaced by Borat.

Unfortunately, this argument fails to hold any water when you look at where these middle-class people are moving to. Australia is the No 1 choice, apparently, with 1.3m British emigrants living there.

Fine, but in the whole of human history, nobody has ever woken up and thought, “I know. I have a wonderful family, lots of money, a great job and an active social life. I shall therefore move to Australia.”

Australia is where you go when you’ve made a mess of everything. That’s why the 1.3m Brits who live there are known as whingeing Poms. Because they’re all failures.

Another popular destination is Spain, which is home these days to 761,000 Brits. Are they all brain surgeons? Inventors? Did Sir Christopher Cockerell invent the hovercraft and then move to Puerto Banus? No. Spain is where you go when you’ve sold your taxi.

What about America then? We imagine that the Brits living there are successful and bright, like David Beckham and, er, Kelly Brook. But mostly, I suspect the people who move from Britain to the States do so because they are interested in guns and murdering.

Twice I’ve bumped into expats while in America and both times they were wandering around in woods carrying preposterously large guns and wearing combat fatigues. One was chewing tobacco which, when combined with his broad Birmingham accent, made him appear to be the stupidest person in the world. He probably was.

The fact is, I’m afraid, that anyone who emigrates from Britain, no matter where they end up, is a bit of a dimwit.

I mean, why leave? Because you have no friends? Well, what makes you think it’ll be easier to make friends somewhere else. Because of the weather? Oh, come on. Sunny days work when you’re on holiday but when you’re stuck in an office, you need it to be 57F and drizzling.

Maybe you’re fed up with the crime in Britain. What, and you think California has fewer murders than Bourton-on-the-Water? You think there are no syringes on Bondi Beach?

Public services? Puh-lease. Even if you can convey to the chap on the other end of the phone that you are up to your knees in raw sewage, he will still take two weeks to dispatch some walnut-faced thief who’ll make everything worse and charge you £800.

Maybe you fancy a tax haven? Great, you save a few quid but you end up with a bunch of other ingrates in a cesspit like Monaco. Seriously, would you rob a bank knowing you could keep the money but that you’d have to do some time? No. Well, don’t be a tax exile, then, because it’s the same thing.

Honestly, every single expat I’ve ever met is the same; hunched at a bar in a stupid shirt, at 10 in the morning, desperately trying to convince themselves that they are not alcoholics, that the barman really is their friend and that it’s only 11 hours till bedtime.

And then, when they clock your accent, they launch into a slurred tirade about Gordon Brown and the British weather and how their prawns are the size of Volkswagens. And then they ask if by any chance you’ve got a copy of The Week.

Anyone who fails to realise that this is how they’ll end up is monumentally idiotic and we’re better off without them. So go and we’ll see you back here when you need some brain surgery.

[canuckamuck]

Thanks for that, I'll scratch Britain off the list of places I would like to visit.

Edited August 26, 2007 by canuckamuck

[GuestHouse]

we lost what the Daily Mail calls 196,000 British citizens. White, middle-class families who have moved abroad.

Ah the Daily Mail, that bastion of 'intelligent discussion', 'insightful review' and 'the balanced view point'.

Seriously though, almost any Briton you meet overseas on anything but a package holiday claims to have emigrated - I've met people who claim to have once lived in Thailand, in further inquiry this turns out to have been for a whole month.

And what of myself, since the late 80s I've moved overseas to live and work a total of 7 times (was I counted out each time I deregistered with the ILR? Was I counted as an immigrant each time I moved back?).

As for Britain suffering a brain drain - the evidence is clear, it's not heading to Thailand in any measurable number. Far from it: The few bright Brits in Thailand are being watered down by newly arrived half-wits at an alarming rate - Their antics regularly reported in the local press and in plain sight staggering around the bars and beaches of Thailand.

The single biggest problem with UK boarder controls seems to be the lack of control on the idiots they let out to wander around the rest of the world.

[crewcut]

"Honestly, every single expat I've ever met is the same; hunched at a bar in a stupid shirt, at 10 in the morning, desperately trying to convince themselves that they are not alcoholics, that the barman really is their friend and that it's only 11 hours till bedtime."

I'll have you know that I never sit hunched and the barman really likes my t-shirts!

[lazeeboy]

The h3ll of being a British expat

Jeremy Clarkson

Alarming news.

It seems that all the world's clever people have gone missing. We know where the stupid people are. They're in the White House, or they're on Big Brother, or they're singing for Simon Cowell's supper. But while we are absorbed with this lot, the rocket scientists and astrophysicists have disappeared.

Seriously. America claims that the huge influx of Mexicans is in no way compensation for George Clooney, who has moved to Italy, and Madonna, who now lives in Wiltshire. And that it has a net brain drain.

It's the same story in Egypt, Iran, India, Russia, New Zealand and France. Germany claims to be in the middle of the biggest brain drain since the 1940s. Everywhere you look, governments are saying that while they're up to here with housekeepers and swimming pool attendants, their graduates are all moving out.

So where are they going? Could it be, I wondered, that all the Tefalheads have come to Britain? Certainly, we seem to have so many scientists that there aren't enough serious projects to go round. On Thursday, for instance, two Manchester doctors announced that they'd been studying dinosaurs and found that the T-rex had a slower top speed than Frank Lampard. Wow.

Further evidence came to light on Thursday with the GCSE results. Every 16-year-old in the land, except those who have recently been shot, had scored at least 415% in advanced Latin and applied maths.

Yes! I thought. Britain is pinching all the Russian billionaires, the American singers, the French chefs, the Egyptian doctors and the German businessmen. We may not be the happiest nation on Earth or the richest. But we are the brainiest.

And then came the latest migration figures, which showed that while Britain received 5.4 billion west African pickpockets last year, we lost what the Daily Mail calls 196,000 British citizens. White, middle-class families who have moved abroad.

These figures would lead us to suggest that like everywhere else, Britain is suffering from a brain drain. That all our well educated, well spoken young professionals are being replaced by Borat.

Unfortunately, this argument fails to hold any water when you look at where these middle-class people are moving to. Australia is the No 1 choice, apparently, with 1.3m British emigrants living there.

Fine, but in the whole of human history, nobody has ever woken up and thought, "I know. I have a wonderful family, lots of money, a great job and an active social life. I shall therefore move to Australia."

Australia is where you go when you've made a mess of everything. That's why the 1.3m Brits who live there are known as whingeing Poms. Because they're all failures.

Another popular destination is Spain, which is home these days to 761,000 Brits. Are they all brain surgeons? Inventors? Did Sir Christopher Cockerell invent the hovercraft and then move to Puerto Banus? No. Spain is where you go when you've sold your taxi.

What about America then? We imagine that the Brits living there are successful and bright, like David Beckham and, er, Kelly Brook. But mostly, I suspect the people who move from Britain to the States do so because they are interested in guns and murdering.

Twice I've bumped into expats while in America and both times they were wandering around in woods carrying preposterously large guns and wearing combat fatigues. One was chewing tobacco which, when combined with his broad Birmingham accent, made him appear to be the stupidest person in the world. He probably was.

The fact is, I'm afraid, that anyone who emigrates from Britain, no matter where they end up, is a bit of a dimwit.

I mean, why leave? Because you have no friends? Well, what makes you think it'll be easier to make friends somewhere else. Because of the weather? Oh, come on. Sunny days work when you're on holiday but when you're stuck in an office, you need it to be 57F and drizzling.

Maybe you're fed up with the crime in Britain. What, and you think California has fewer murders than Bourton-on-the-Water? You think there are no syringes on Bondi Beach?

Public services? Puh-lease. Even if you can convey to the chap on the other end of the phone that you are up to your knees in raw sewage, he will still take two weeks to dispatch some walnut-faced thief who'll make everything worse and charge you £800.

Maybe you fancy a tax haven? Great, you save a few quid but you end up with a bunch of other ingrates in a cesspit like Monaco. Seriously, would you rob a bank knowing you could keep the money but that you'd have to do some time? No. Well, don't be a tax exile, then, because it's the same thing.

Honestly, every single expat I've ever met is the same; hunched at a bar in a stupid shirt, at 10 in the morning, desperately trying to convince themselves that they are not alcoholics, that the barman really is their friend and that it's only 11 hours till bedtime.

And then, when they clock your accent, they launch into a slurred tirade about Gordon Brown and the British weather and how their prawns are the size of Volkswagens. And then they ask if by any chance you've got a copy of The Week.

Anyone who fails to realise that this is how they'll end up is monumentally idiotic and we're better off without them. So go and we'll see you back here when you need some brain surgery.

lampard is vry quick

[Andrew Hicks]

Thanks for that, I'll scratch Britain off the list of places I would like to visit.

No really. UK's a great place. It's just that I happen to live in Thailand.

What the original post goes to show is that folks are just moving around more and that's just as it should be. You look for the places you like and the opportunities and then you move. Most expats don't spend their time in bars but work.

The nation state is a new idea. Passports and borders are recent too and before that you could pretty much come and go as you please.

We Brits have a strict policy of harrassing applicants for visas and we do this because the applicant pays for the privilege. After that there are no further controls. If you can get in illegally or otherwise, there's no national identity system or other checks to see who's overstaying. That's because there's no money set aside to do it. They can't even afford immigration officers at borders to check people ut of the country. My Thai wife has left UK three times and although each time we looked for immigration officers to stamp her out, there was nobody there to do it.

.

Still, It's a great country and I'd certainly be living there if I wasn't living somewhere else.

Must get back to the bar.

[chinthee]

I hate to give you bad news, but America, no matter how much you love to criticize it, because of past immigration policies has usually been the recipient of the brain drain going on elsewhere. Research universities packed with high IQ Indian scholars, technical universities spewing out qualified Chinese engineers by the score, and nationwide attracting the best and brightest worldwide to its superior and prolific higher education system, the country attracts brains. At the same time, the current immigration crisis in America is concerning the millions of mostly Mexican illegals that American cleverly let in to do all the dirty work. Many of those happen to have good brains too, and after they get through picking crops, some go get medical degrees.

As long as opportunities in your home country are ample, and/or political freedoms exist, brain drain will be contained. Not sure about UK, but the OP's citation of America is not accurate. Brits I've met in America are largely happily engaged in upper middle class professions, and I've never seen any Pattaya-loving football hooligans there.

Edited August 26, 2007 by chinthee

[Captain Chaos]

The h3ll of being a British expat

Jeremy Clarkson

Honestly, every single expat I’ve ever met is the same; hunched at a bar in a stupid shirt, at 10 in the morning, desperately trying to convince themselves that they are not alcoholics, that the barman really is their friend and that it’s only 11 hours till bedtime.

Obviously made up and clearly factually incorrect ... any self-respecting Pattaya expat would have been in there at 08.30!!! What nonsense ...

CC

Edited August 26, 2007 by Captain Chaos

[PeaceBlondie]

chinthee's right. The only UK citizen I knew well in the USA was a Scotsman with a Ph.D. from Edinburgh. He was so clever and so specialized in dental bacteriology that he hasn't had a job in fifteen years, but he's in Texas. And my best friend is a native of China who went to Georgia Tech for his MS in highway design and got his citizenship and is one of the brightest Americans I've ever met. Look at the Nobel prizes for specialties like medicine and science, and the hyphenated nationalities of the recipients often end in "-American." Oh, and how 'bout Alexander Graham Bell, Einstein and Fermi? The list just goes on and on.

[samran]

I hate to give you bad news, but America, no matter how much you love to criticize it, because of past immigration policies has usually been the recipient of the brain drain going on elsewhere. Research universities packed with high IQ Indian scholars, technical universities spewing out qualified Chinese engineers by the score, and nationwide attracting the best and brightest worldwide to its superior and prolific higher education system, the country attracts brains. At the same time, the current immigration crisis in America is concerning the millions of mostly Mexican illegals that American cleverly let in to do all the dirty work. Many of those happen to have good brains too, and after they get through picking crops, some go get medical degrees.

As long as opportunities in your home country are ample, and/or political freedoms exist, brain drain will be contained. Not sure about UK, but the OP's citation of America is not accurate. Brits I've met in America are largely happily engaged in upper middle class professions, and I've never seen any Pattaya-loving football hooligans there.

I'd take what Jeremy Clarkeson says with a grain of Salt. If you are unfamiliar with him, he's the host of BBC's 'Top Gear', a hugely successful show about cars in the UK and a few of its English speaking ex-colonies. He's a pretty witty fella.

I think his main point of a brain drain is a bit overblown is a correct one however. Australia went through a similar 'woe is me' episode back around 2000 where all you'd hear about was Australians backing up and moving overseas (mainly to the UK...) and that it was all the fault of (insert favourite easy target here).

The thing was, it was later found that most of the 'brain drainers' were actually 'boomerangs'. Eg young people who left to get some experience overseas and then came back once it was time to settle, and raise a family, or successful middle age managers who took up bigger responsibilities overseas and then came back after a long stint OS.

All in all, the so called 'brain drain' was/is good for Australia, with the wealth of talent and upgraded skills it brings back. I suspect you'll find the same thing happening in the UK.

As for Mr Clarkesons' observation of their being a million plus Brits in Australia, it is a very correct one. But they came to OZ over the space of 30 years, so we aren't being flooded by Brits.

[Dakhar]

Twice I’ve bumped into expats while in America and both times they were wandering around in woods carrying preposterously large guns and wearing combat fatigues. One was chewing tobacco which, when combined with his broad Birmingham accent, made him appear to be the stupidest person in the world. He probably was.

Whats a Birmingham accent? Being from America.... I'm just kinda wondering just what that is? Does it sound kinda "fuity like, lady like... similar to the Brittish accent?

Stupidest person in the world....

Like the second poster said,

Thanks for the post, I'll just scratch you neck of the world as a place to visit. I don't need to be in a place I am not welcomed.

[khunandy]

Twice I’ve bumped into expats while in America and both times they were wandering around in woods carrying preposterously large guns and wearing combat fatigues. One was chewing tobacco which, when combined with his broad Birmingham accent, made him appear to be the stupidest person in the world. He probably was.

Whats a Birmingham accent? Being from America.... I'm just kinda wondering just what that is? Does it sound kinda "fuity like, lady like... similar to the Brittish accent?

Stupidest person in the world....

Like the second poster said,

Thanks for the post, I'll just scratch you neck of the world as a place to visit. I don't need to be in a place I am not welcomed.

Dont take offence Dakhar, it is all tongue in cheek, self depreciating humour and is actually an Englishman taking the p*ss out of his own countrymen and the state of his country. I havent lived in England for 40 years but it still gave me a chuckle.

The Birmingham accent is a distintive accent from that part of the world. To have a Birmingham man in army fatigues chewing tobbaco is only making him look like the stupidest man in the world because he is trying to be something he is not.

Sense of humour is what makes Americans and Englishman quite different.

Andy

[farang prince]

The h3ll of being a British expat

Jeremy Clarkson

Alarming news.

It seems that all the world’s clever people have gone missing. We know where the stupid people are. They’re in the White House, or they’re on Big Brother, or they’re singing for Simon Cowell’s supper. But while we are absorbed with this lot, the rocket scientists and astrophysicists have disappeared.

Seriously. America claims that the huge influx of Mexicans is in no way compensation for George Clooney, who has moved to Italy, and Madonna, who now lives in Wiltshire. And that it has a net brain drain.

It’s the same story in Egypt, Iran, India, Russia, New Zealand and France. Germany claims to be in the middle of the biggest brain drain since the 1940s. Everywhere you look, governments are saying that while they’re up to here with housekeepers and swimming pool attendants, their graduates are all moving out.

So where are they going? Could it be, I wondered, that all the Tefalheads have come to Britain? Certainly, we seem to have so many scientists that there aren’t enough serious projects to go round. On Thursday, for instance, two Manchester doctors announced that they’d been studying dinosaurs and found that the T-rex had a slower top speed than Frank Lampard. Wow.

Further evidence came to light on Thursday with the GCSE results. Every 16-year-old in the land, except those who have recently been shot, had scored at least 415% in advanced Latin and applied maths.

Yes! I thought. Britain is pinching all the Russian billionaires, the American singers, the French chefs, the Egyptian doctors and the German businessmen. We may not be the happiest nation on Earth or the richest. But we are the brainiest.

And then came the latest migration figures, which showed that while Britain received 5.4 billion west African pickpockets last year, we lost what the Daily Mail calls 196,000 British citizens. White, middle-class families who have moved abroad.

These figures would lead us to suggest that like everywhere else, Britain is suffering from a brain drain. That all our well educated, well spoken young professionals are being replaced by Borat.

Unfortunately, this argument fails to hold any water when you look at where these middle-class people are moving to. Australia is the No 1 choice, apparently, with 1.3m British emigrants living there.

Fine, but in the whole of human history, nobody has ever woken up and thought, “I know. I have a wonderful family, lots of money, a great job and an active social life. I shall therefore move to Australia.”

Australia is where you go when you’ve made a mess of everything. That’s why the 1.3m Brits who live there are known as whingeing Poms. Because they’re all failures.

Another popular destination is Spain, which is home these days to 761,000 Brits. Are they all brain surgeons? Inventors? Did Sir Christopher Cockerell invent the hovercraft and then move to Puerto Banus? No. Spain is where you go when you’ve sold your taxi.

What about America then? We imagine that the Brits living there are successful and bright, like David Beckham and, er, Kelly Brook. But mostly, I suspect the people who move from Britain to the States do so because they are interested in guns and murdering.

Twice I’ve bumped into expats while in America and both times they were wandering around in woods carrying preposterously large guns and wearing combat fatigues. One was chewing tobacco which, when combined with his broad Birmingham accent, made him appear to be the stupidest person in the world. He probably was.

The fact is, I’m afraid, that anyone who emigrates from Britain, no matter where they end up, is a bit of a dimwit.

I mean, why leave? Because you have no friends? Well, what makes you think it’ll be easier to make friends somewhere else. Because of the weather? Oh, come on. Sunny days work when you’re on holiday but when you’re stuck in an office, you need it to be 57F and drizzling.

Maybe you’re fed up with the crime in Britain. What, and you think California has fewer murders than Bourton-on-the-Water? You think there are no syringes on Bondi Beach?

Public services? Puh-lease. Even if you can convey to the chap on the other end of the phone that you are up to your knees in raw sewage, he will still take two weeks to dispatch some walnut-faced thief who’ll make everything worse and charge you £800.

Maybe you fancy a tax haven? Great, you save a few quid but you end up with a bunch of other ingrates in a cesspit like Monaco. Seriously, would you rob a bank knowing you could keep the money but that you’d have to do some time? No. Well, don’t be a tax exile, then, because it’s the same thing.

Honestly, every single expat I’ve ever met is the same; hunched at a bar in a stupid shirt, at 10 in the morning, desperately trying to convince themselves that they are not alcoholics, that the barman really is their friend and that it’s only 11 hours till bedtime.

And then, when they clock your accent, they launch into a slurred tirade about Gordon Brown and the British weather and how their prawns are the size of Volkswagens. And then they ask if by any chance you’ve got a copy of The Week.

Anyone who fails to realise that this is how they’ll end up is monumentally idiotic and we’re better off without them. So go and we’ll see you back here when you need some brain surgery.

Total twaddle. I'll forget it after my nap.

[Phil Conners]

Most of it vaguely amuzing, but

Maybe you fancy a tax haven? Great, you save a few quid but you end up with a bunch of other ingrates in a cesspit like Monaco.

Someone obviously have never been to Monaco

[technocracy]

Why do people insist on quoting the whole article then add one line . .

[PeaceBlondie]

how 'bout Alexander Graham Bell

Bell emigrated to Canada with his parents when he was 23. It is unlikely he ever considered himself anything other than 100% Scottish or Scots-Canadian, even after obtaining US citizenship (out of necessity), as he eventually made Nova Scotia in Canada his home.

He certainly didn't consider himself American, so sorry to ruin your US imperialist history revisionism.

Nah, no problem. The 'how 'bout?' part was merely a question, kinda a tongue-in-cheek Americanism, a self-denigration, so you needn't worry thyself about my imperialist revisionisms. And whilst we're practicing pedantry, Nova Scotia is in "America."

[LinkPopularity]

UK; great past, no future !

[Captain Chaos]

Most of it vaguely amuzing, but

Maybe you fancy a tax haven? Great, you save a few quid but you end up with a bunch of other ingrates in a cesspit like Monaco.

Someone obviously have never been to Monaco

I go to Monaco once every three months ... this is one location where JC is spot on ... I know no-one who lives there because they like it, it IS a very upmarket dump ...

CC

[chiang mai]

Unfortunately Clarksons article made it into the Telegraph also and was no doubt syndicated further afield. My problem with Clarkson is that he's a prat at the best of times and is even worse in real life than on his TV programmes. He lives near my old home in Chipping Norton and I've met him a few times through friends working in Fleet Street (as it was then) and he is a profoundly boring man with little to say about anything other than about motor cars. The only reason he made it into television in the first place is because his mother is a famous author and well connected. Were it not for the latter I suspect he would have enjoyed a spectacularly unsuccessful career as a book keeper or would likely have emigrated himself.

[taxexile]

in a way he has emigrated himself seeing as he owns an expensive property on the tax haven of the isle of man.

[chiang mai]

in a way he has emigrated himself seeing as he owns an expensive property on the tax haven of the isle of man.

I think you'll find that property is more about his mum and the Paddington Bear proceeds.

[uptou]

i also remember jc talking about his dislike of vegetarians on his tv show (quite funny) a few years back.

quote,"if none of us ate meat there wouldnt be any cows around anyway".

[A_Traveller]

Unfortunately Clarksons article made it into the Telegraph also and was no doubt syndicated further afield. My problem with Clarkson is that he's a prat at the best of times and is even worse in real life than on his TV programmes. He lives near my old home in Chipping Norton and I've met him a few times through friends working in Fleet Street (as it was then) and he is a profoundly boring man with little to say about anything other than about motor cars. The only reason he made it into television in the first place is because his mother is a famous author and well connected. Were it not for the latter I suspect he would have enjoyed a spectacularly unsuccessful career as a book keeper or would likely have emigrated himself.

Since you know him, maybe you can ask him why his mother, Gabrielle, who made Paddington Bear soft toys, and sold the company that did this in 1995, {the first one made was for Jeremy} kept her literary accomplishments a secret.

Regards

[JetsetBkk]

he's a prat at the best of times

Totally agree. He spent a good five minutes on one of his "Top Gear" programmes explaining why he thought using mobile phones while driving was perfectly safe.

He's a pillock.

[Goshawk]

Since you know him, maybe you can ask him why his mother, Gabrielle, who made Paddington Bear soft toys, and sold the company that did this in 1995

Regards

Ahh.. the 'Bear Garden' at Woodlands, near Doncaster.. I had one of their bears in my youth..

[game4shame]

he's a prat at the best of times

Totally agree.

He's a pillock.

glad im not the only one.

[chiang mai]

Unfortunately Clarksons article made it into the Telegraph also and was no doubt syndicated further afield. My problem with Clarkson is that he's a prat at the best of times and is even worse in real life than on his TV programmes. He lives near my old home in Chipping Norton and I've met him a few times through friends working in Fleet Street (as it was then) and he is a profoundly boring man with little to say about anything other than about motor cars. The only reason he made it into television in the first place is because his mother is a famous author and well connected. Were it not for the latter I suspect he would have enjoyed a spectacularly unsuccessful career as a book keeper or would likely have emigrated himself.

Since you know him, maybe you can ask him why his mother, Gabrielle, who made Paddington Bear soft toys, and sold the company that did this in 1995, {the first one made was for Jeremy} kept her literary accomplishments a secret.

Regards

I had intended to write business woman or inventor or something similar but was momentarily stumped for how to describe her and decided to let it pass as is, but I think you perhaps realized that.

[endure]

Unfortunately Clarksons article made it into the Telegraph also and was no doubt syndicated further afield. My problem with Clarkson is that he's a prat at the best of times and is even worse in real life than on his TV programmes. He lives near my old home in Chipping Norton and I've met him a few times through friends working in Fleet Street (as it was then) and he is a profoundly boring man with little to say about anything other than about motor cars. The only reason he made it into television in the first place is because his mother is a famous author and well connected. Were it not for the latter I suspect he would have enjoyed a spectacularly unsuccessful career as a book keeper or would likely have emigrated himself.

Why would he become a bookkeeper when he started his working life as a journalist?

[chiang mai]

Unfortunately Clarksons article made it into the Telegraph also and was no doubt syndicated further afield. My problem with Clarkson is that he's a prat at the best of times and is even worse in real life than on his TV programmes. He lives near my old home in Chipping Norton and I've met him a few times through friends working in Fleet Street (as it was then) and he is a profoundly boring man with little to say about anything other than about motor cars. The only reason he made it into television in the first place is because his mother is a famous author and well connected. Were it not for the latter I suspect he would have enjoyed a spectacularly unsuccessful career as a book keeper or would likely have emigrated himself.

Why would he become a bookkeeper when he started his working life as a journalist?

Well almost, "His first job was as a travelling salesman for his parents' business selling Paddington Bear toys, after which he trained as a journalist with the Rotherham Advertiser". "Not a man given to considered opinion", according to the BBC, understatement if ever there was one.

Edited August 26, 2007 by chiang mai

[Ricardo]

The h3ll of being a British expat

Jeremy Clarkson

Honestly, every single expat I’ve ever met is the same; hunched at a bar in a stupid shirt, at 10 in the morning, desperately trying to convince themselves that they are not alcoholics, that the barman really is their friend and that it’s only 11 hours till bedtime.

Obviously made up and clearly factually incorrect ... any self-respecting Pattaya expat would have been in there at 08.30!!! What nonsense ...

CC

Wrong ! They are there for the 2-for-1 Full-English-Breakfast Happy-Hour ! We all have an overhanging-gut to build or maintain !

But seriously, if you have worked hard & taken risks & built-up a bit of cash over your working-life in the UK or elsewhere, why on earth should you stay back there with the rain and gloomy b*stards, to see the tax-man rob you of the lifestyle you were fighting to afford ?

I'd have stayed, if I had nothing, and wanted the State to support me, in my declining decades.

But I knew a better place - and went for it.

Their Loss !