What is the UK like? Anyone live in Britain?
musicismylife78
Posts: 6,116
I am an anglophile, or someone who is obsessed with UK/British culture despite living in America, and never having visited my obsession.
Obviously my main source of information reguarding the UK is movies,tv shows, music, books, and art. I love British humor.
Britain seems to me, to be such an interesting place. I love the way people talk, just the whole culture. Britain seems more left wing than America.
Often times, I think, about just buying a house in the english country side, and just staying there, for the rest of my life.
Can the people who live there, post here, and let me know if my views are accurate?
The british press seems alot more rabid as well, in reguards to both politics and culture. The british press continually is much more radical, outspoken and accurate than any American news source, and in terms of culture, or music specifically, the press seems more inclined to hype up bands.
Obviously my main source of information reguarding the UK is movies,tv shows, music, books, and art. I love British humor.
Britain seems to me, to be such an interesting place. I love the way people talk, just the whole culture. Britain seems more left wing than America.
Often times, I think, about just buying a house in the english country side, and just staying there, for the rest of my life.
Can the people who live there, post here, and let me know if my views are accurate?
The british press seems alot more rabid as well, in reguards to both politics and culture. The british press continually is much more radical, outspoken and accurate than any American news source, and in terms of culture, or music specifically, the press seems more inclined to hype up bands.
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It's not as great as you seem to believe. I'd suggest you take a holiday there, spend a few weeks traveling about, then see how you feel about it.
Edit: But I may be negatively biased having lived there most of my life.
we have these things called chavs... scumbags to you and me... dress like shit athletes and hang about on street corners trying to get drunk on 1.3% cans of beer.
The press is definitely more left-wing than the US. We're more multicultural... America believes itself to be the worlds greatest melting pot, but it appears it still has a lot of inherit racism to deal with.
UK politics is less 'showbiz' but worryingly it has started to adopt some US trends of politics, such as 'leaders debates' which are to be shown on SKY tv next year.
Its a small country so traffic can be a nightmare, but if you drive into the countryside you'll love it... we have these things called 'corners' which can make driving more fun.
Music scene is and always has been good... lots of bands tour, lots of different genres, etc etc.
Big plus points for me are that you are never further than 70 miles from the coast... which is quite re-assuring... nice to be able to just drive to the beach.
also, its history... definitely one of the greatest nations of all time and so its past wealth and glories mean that its history is amazing... from buildings, battlefields, castles, palaces, ruins, gardens, walking routes, etc etc.
Although when he says 'beach' don't be fooled into thinking of sand, and sun-tanned Bo Derek look-a-likes running in slow motion towards Dudley Moore. Think pebbles, and fat old blokes with string-vest shirts and flat caps munching on bags of fish & chips.
Edit: Bo Derek was my first ever fantasy woman/sexual arousal:
True. York is a good place for this stuff.
I imagine the Lake District's quite nice too. I never made it up there.
I'm up there and it is very nice, lakes, and fells. Although you need waterproofs -especially at the mo.
I'm the one with the sunglasses
I think an illustration would be appropriate here:
As with anywhere in the world there's good and bad but I don't think I could live anywhere else permanently.
And don't forget Miss Marple, the cast of Heartbeat and Gyles Brandreth.
York and Edinburgh are my two favourite cities in the UK. Lake District is amazing... not so many chavs and lots of corners on the roads.
People should visit the highlands of Scotland... like a place called Knoydart
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knoydart
which can only be reached by boat or via a lengthy walk.
some of the west coasts beaches are stunning as well...
http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/l ... index.html
you'll not get fat old southerners sitting on their deckchairs with a knotted hankie and dribbling a 99 down their own chins on these kinda beaches!
one-toothed BNP supporters who drive Fiesta XR2's dont live in the countryside Fins?... they live in Stoke, Sheffield, etc... not the New Forest or Yorkshire Dales.
boy-racers are 7th on my list of people i'd kill if i became King of Scotland... closely followed by Neds (same as chavs in Scotland).. 1-6 is Mick Hucknall obviously. i'd kill him 6 times over.
We do get chavs, boy racers and general prats up here too, but not so many.
I dunno. I went to the Lake District with a few people, for a week in August 1996. It rained non-stop and everyone came down with a massive dose of the shits.
Well the rain sounds about right. Apologies for the shits, we don't all have them all the time though.
Best things about England:
The Pubs
History - castles, Tower of London, British Museum, Glastonbury, Stonehenge, York, e.t.c
& some old Cities and towns like Cambridge, Bury St. Edmonds, Brighton
London: Portobello Road Market, Camden market
The River Thames - A walk along the South Bank and the Tate Gallery
The food - English fried breakfast, Sunday Roast dinner
British sense of humour
2nd hand record shops and bookshops (Fuck Waterstones and Borders!)
British music, and nightlife - always live bands playing somewhere
The Euro Tunnel ( :P )
Worst things about England:
Chavs
The gutter press - The Sun, Daily Star e.t.c.
The T.V - obsessions with 'Big Brother', 'I'm a Celebrity, get me out of here', 'Pop Idol', 'X-Factor', e.t.c
The Weather - generally it's o.k, but too often you get grey skies and drizzle which is really shitty and depressing
Violence - too much agro - stabbings e.t.c
The not so public transport system - it's a fucking rip-off, and it's over-crowded and unreliable (though I successfully spent 6 years dodging ticket inspectors on the trains to the point where I consider myself an expert).
Commuters - miserable bunch of soulless human sludge
I was in London this past summer and that really was the best thing. In Canada, at least in Ontario we have stupid Tim Horton's everywhere as well as other various overpriced coffee places. In London, they had pubs everywhere all selling awesome British Beer. It was sooo much better.
That was the weirdest thing. There was like minimum 3 shows on a day that were big brother related (an interview/recap show in the morning, the main show in the evening, then just the feed from the house later at night. And since the show was viewer voting based there was no like strategy at all. Just a bunch of people sitting around in a house.
My father's family have lived in the same area of the middle of the country since 1602; I'm very proud of my ancestry.
I currently live in a city called Coventry... It's not ideal as i'm not a city lover but the village in which I was raised is only about 15 miles away and I can return whenever I please.
I grew up in a semi-rural village which although had a main road, backed onto miles of farmland and woods. I spent my childhood climbing trees and generally getting into trouble on my bike. The nearest town to our village is called Nuneaton; Author George Eliott famously came from the same town. I moved to Coventry when I was 17 and although I miss the rural aspect of village life, I liked the convenience of the city.
Coventry has lots of history, particulary the three cathedrals (one was discovered during and archeological dig, one is ruins and one was built in the 70's) and the story of the city during the second world war. The jet engine was invented here, two-tone bands The Selector and The Specials hail from here and the 2009 Christmas movie The Nativity was filmed here. There''s a good selection of night life and Birmingham (England's second city) is only 20 miles and a train ride away.
Even though I live here, I love taking holidays in England. The landscape is incredible and varies whenever you go. Last year we went to Devon which is in the south - we went body boarding, walking through sand dunes and generally had fun in the sun. This year we went to a place near Wales called Ross on Wye - we walked for miles through woods along the river Wye, took a ferry trip and visited Tewkesbury cathedral. Next year we're going fell walking and mountain biking in Cumbria in the north.... All completely different but equally enjoyable holidays. It's great for holidays if you like to be busy and not just sit in the sun.
Living in England isn't as bad as some make it out to be. We have great pubs, real ale and fish and chips. Our history spans back centuries and it's all accessible. We can 'pop to the coast' whenever we feel like it, the weather isn't predictable but that just makes us prepared for anything. We have a great history of music, comedy and literature. We have free health care.
I love England. Sure there are things that aren't so good (people have already mentioned chavs and i'm a real hater of our media) but generally it's a nice country, we're friendly people and there's loads to see if you come here.
... and I still think Drive-By Truckers are better.
To be completely honest - I probably wouldn't want to live anywhere else.
The other thing is the politics. But again, that's the same anywhere (I do believe that the US health system is far better than ours).
The other thing is the loutish behaviour. Endless drinking in crap bars and listening to music to get your brains kicked into (that includes Leona Lewis), and the talk is not what the movies are like. There's not many people who speak with Hugh Grant and Kate Beckinsale accents. I do wonder whether the letter 't' will fall out of the alphabet system sometimes.
The biggest thing I love are the pubs (sensible drinking of ale) and our humour.
Like someone else said, come over for a visit, spend a few weeks here, try and stay off the tourist crap and really get down to what the country is about.
2007 ░▒▓ London, Dusseldorf, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
2009 ░▒▓ Manchester, London
2010 ░▒▓ Hyde Park
*§* Music is all the juice i'll need *§*